166 CRATEBOPODIDJE.

trees left by the wood-cutters. I have one nest, however, which
is externally formed of green moss with a few dry stalks, and the
spiders' webs, instead of being plastered all over the outside, are
merely used to bind the nest to the small branches among which
it is placed. The lining is of bark-shavings, dry grasses, black
fibrous lichens, and a few fine seed-stalks of grasses. The internal
diameter of the nest is 2| inches, and it is 1§ inches deep. The
eggs are usually three in number, of a rosy or purplish white,
sprinkled over rather numerously with deep claret or rufescent .
purple specks and spots. In colours and distribution of spots there
is great variation, sometimes the rufous and sometimes the purple
spots prevailing; sometimes the spots are mere specks and freckles,
sometimes large and forming blotches; in some the spots are wide
apart, in others they are nearly, and sometimes in places quite,
confluent; while from one nest the eggs were white, with widely
dispersed dark purple spots and dull indistinct ones appearing
under the shell. In all the spots were more crowded at the larger
end."

Colonel C. H. T. Marshall remarks :—" Numerous nests of this
species were found at Murree, agreeing well with Hutton's descrip-
tion. They breed in May and June, never above 6000 feet/'

The eggs are rather long ovals. Typically a good deal pointed
towards the small end, and more or less pyriform, but at times
nearly perfect ovals. They have little or no gloss. The ground-
colour varies from white, very faintly tinged with pink, to a
delicate pink, and they are profusely speckled, spotted, blotched,
or clouded with various shades of red, brownish red, and purple.
The markings vary much in character, extent, and intensity of
colour. There seem to be two leading types, with, however, almost
every possible intermediate variety of markings. The one is thickly
speckled over its whole surface with minute dots of reddish purple,
no dot much bigger than the point of a pin, and no portion of the
ground-colour exceeding O'l in diameter free from spots. In these
eggs the specklings are most dense, as a rule, throughout a broad
irregular zone surrounding the large end, and this zone is thickly
underlaid with irregular ill-defined streaky clouds of dull inky
purple. In some eggs of this type, the smaller end is comparatively
free from specks. In the other type, the surface of the egg is
somewhat sparingly, but boldly, blotched and splashed, first with
deep umber, chocolate, or purple-brown, and, secondly, with spots
and clouds of faint inky purple, recalling not a little the style
of markings of the eggs of Wiynchops albicollis. Then there are
eggs partly speckly and partly blotched, some in which the markings
are all rich red and where no secondary pale purple clouds are
observable, and others again in which all the markings are dull
purplish brown. Generally it may be said that the markings have
a tendency to form a cap or zone at the large end.

A nest of three eggs recently obtained from Mussoorie were
more richly coloured than any I have yet seen, and were decidedly
eiossy. The ground-colour is a rich rosy pink, boldly, but sparingly,
blotched and spotted with deep maroon, underlaid by clouds and