IKBffiTA. 157

extremity of Ceylon), in which district we understand it to have
been procured. A large groove along the underside of the nest
indicates it to have been placed upon a branch; the general form
is somewhat flat, and it is composed of very soft materials, chiefly
dry grass and silky vegetable fibres, rather compactly interwoven
with some pieces of dead leaf and bark on the outside, over which
a good deal of spider's web has been worked. It contains four
eggs, white, abruptly speckled over with dark bistre mingled with
some ashy spots." Layard is not generally reliable where eggs are
concerned, for he did not usually take them with his own hands
and natives will lie; and I doubt the four eggs here, but I think,
so far as the nest goes, that he was right in this case.

The eggs are rather elongated ovals ; some of them a good deal
pointed towards one end, others again slightly pyriform. The
shell is very delicate; the ground-colour white to creamy white ;
as a rule almost glossless, in some specimens slightly glossy.
They are sparingly marked, usually chiefly at the large end, with
spots, specks, small blotches, hair-lines, or hieroglyphic-like figures,
which are typically almost black, but which in some eggs are
blackish, or even reddish, or purplish brown. In no specimens
that I have seen were the markings at all numerous, except just at
the large end; and in some they consist solely of a few tiny specks,
. scattered about the crown of the egg.

The eggs vary from 0*8 to 0'92 in length, and from 0-56 to 0-63
in breadth ; but the average of a dozen was 0*86 by 0*6.

254. Irena puella (Lath.). TJie Fairy Slue-bird.

Irena puella (Lath.), Jerd. J5. Ind. ii; p. 105 ; Ifumej Rouqh Draft N. <§•
E. no 469.

Mr. Frank Bourdillon favoured me with an egg of the Fairy
Blue-bird, which with other rare eggs he obtained on the Assamboo
Hills. So little is known of this range that I quote his remarks
upon this locality.

" I must premise that the specimens were obtained along the
Assamboo Bange of hills, between the elevations of 1500 and
3000 feet above sea-level. This range of hills, running in a
north-westerly and south-easterly direction from Cape Oomorin to
8° 33' north latitude, forms the boundary line between Travancore
and the British Territory of Tinnevelly, the average height of
the range being about 4000 feet, while some of the peaks are as
high as 5500 feet. The general character of the hills is dense
forest, broken here and there by grass ridges and crowned by pre-
cipitous rocks, above which lies an almost unexplored table-land,
varying in width from a mile to 12 or 15 miles, at an elevation of
almost 4000 feet."

" The egg of the Fairy Blue-bird, " he adds, "was taken slightly
set on the 28th February , 1873, from a loose sparsely-built nest
situated in a sapling about 12 feet from the ground. The nest was