PYC1$"O1STOTUS. 187

299. Pycnonotus fmlaysoni, Sfcrickl. Fi.nlayson's Stripe-throated

Bulbul.
Ixus finlaysoni (Stricld.\ Hume, Cat. no. 452 ter.

Major 0. T. Bingham says :—« On the 22nd May, 1S77, while
wandering about collecting in the jungles below the Circuit-house
at Maulmain, I came across a neat, though thinly made, cup-shaped
nest in the fork of a tall sapling, some 12 feet above the ground.
Coming closer, I perceived it contained eggs, which were plainly
visible through the frail structure of the sides. On looking about
to find the owner, I saw a couple of Pycnonotus finlaysoni flitting
about uneasily in a tree close at hand; so I hid myself a few yards
off, and was almost immediately rewarded by seeing one of them
(it turned out to be the female) fly down on to the nest, and seat
herself on the eggs. Approaching cautiously, I managed to shoot
her as she slipped off; but, on taking down the nest, I found 1 had
fired too soon, as one of the eggs (there were but two) was smashed
by a pellet of shot. The nest was rather a deep cup, and, notwith-
standing its flimsy sides, strongly made of grass-roots, lined with very
fine black roots of fern. The one unbroken egg was rather roundish
in "shape, of a dull whitish and claret colour, mixed and spotted and
clouded with deeper vinous red, chiefly at the larger end."

Mr. J. Darling, Junior, found the nest of this Bulbul on more than
one occasion at Taroar in the Malay peninsula. He writes :—" I
shot this bird off a nest with two eggs 011 the 8th February; the
nest was in a bush 5 feet from the ground; the foundation was of
leaves and fine grass, lined with fine grass and a few cocoanut fibres.
The nest was 3 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep. The eggs
were too hard-set to blow.

" On the 10th February I took another nest of Pycnonotus finlay-
soni at Taroar. The nest was built in a small shrub 3 feet from the
ground, in a fork ; foundation of dead leaves, built of fine twigs and
fibrous bark; lined with fine grass-bents and moss-roots. Egg-cavity
2| inches in diameter, 1| deep ; walls | inch thick,'bottom | inch.

with fine grass-bents. There was a good deal of cobweb in the construction.
It was an exact facsimile of many nests of Otocompsa fuscicaudata from the
Nilgherry Hills. The egg-cavity was 3 inches in diameter and 2-£ inches deep ;
the walls were -|- inch thick, the bottom. 1 inch."

The eggs are of the usual variable Bulbul type, some broader and more regular,
some more elongated, some more or less pyriform. The shell as in others, and
apparently rarely showing any very perceptible gloss. The ground-colour pinky
white to a warm pink ; the markings, specks, and spots, or, when three or four
of these latter have coalesced, cccasionally small blotches of a rich maroon-red
intermixed with spots and specks and clouds of pale purple. The markings
always apparently pretty thickly set everywhere, but almost invariably most
densely in a zone about the larger, end, where they become at times more or less
confluent. Of course as in others of the genus, in some eggs all the markings
are very fine and speckly, while in others they are somewhat bolder. In some
the red greatly predominates; in others, again, the grey underlying clouds are
•\ery widely extended, and form by far the most conspicuous part of the
markings, giving a grey tinge to the entire egg. The eggs vary from 0*82 to
0-91 in length and from 0*61 to O(j5 in breadth.