MOLPASTES. 173

universal purple tint. In about half the eggs there is a tendency
to exhibit, more or less, an irregular zone or cap at the large end,
but solitary eggs occur in which there is a cap at the small end.
Three pretty well marked types may be separately described.
First, an egg thickly mottled and streaked all over with deep blood-
red, which is entirely confluent over one third of the surface,
namely at the large end, and leaves less than a third of the ground-
colour visible as a paler mottling over the rest of the surface. Then
there is another type with a very delicate pure pink ground, and
with a few large, bold, deep red blotches, chiefly at the large end,
where they are intermingled with a few small pale inky-purple
clouds, and with only a few spots and specks of the former colour
scattered over the rest of the surface. Lastly, there is a pale dingy
pink ground, speckled almost uniformly, but only moderately
thickly, over the whole surface, with minute specks and spots of
blood-red and pale inky purple.

The dimensions are excessively variable. In length the eggs
vary from 0*7 to 1*02, and in breadth from O6 to 0-75, but the
average of sixty eggs measured was 0-89 by 0-65.

279. Molpastes burmanicus (Sharpe). The Burmese Red-
vented Bulbul.

The Burmese Red-vented Bulbul occurs from Manipur down to
Eangoon. Writing from Upper Pegu, Mr. Gates says :—" On the
29th July I found a nest in the extremity of a bamboo-frond
forming one of a large clump near my house at Boulay. It was
circular, the internal diameter about 2*5 and the external 4 inches ;
the depth inside 1*5, and the total height 2*5. Foundation of dead
leaves, the bulk of the nest coarse grass and small roots, and the
interior of much finer grass carefully curved to shape. Altogether
the nest was a very pretty structure. Two eggs measured 0-9 by
0*62 and O65. Another nest found at the same time was placed
in a small shrub about 4 feet from the ground. It was very similar
in construction and size to the above and contained three eggs."

Subsequently writing from Lower Pegu, he says :—" Breeds
abundantly from May to September, and has no particular prefer-
ence for any one month."

281. Molpastes atricapillus (Yieill.). The Chinese Red-
vented Bulbul,
Molpastes atricapillus ( V.\ Hume, Cat. no. 462 ter.

Mr. J. Darling, Jr., found a nest of the Chinese Red-vented
Bulbul in Tenasserim with three fresh eggs on the 16th March.
It was built in a bush little more than a foot above the ground on
a hill-side.

Except that they seem to run smaller, these eggs are not dis-
tinguishable from those of the other species of this genus, and
there is really nothing to add to the description already given of
- the eggs of M. Jicemorrhous. The three eggs measured 0-79 by 0*6.