DICBUETJS. 205

spots that until I had got several specimens and compared them,
narrowly, I was inclined to think we had more than one species of
Dicrurus here. I am, however, now fully convinced that these
variable eggs belong to the same species. Sometimes they are dull
white with brick-red spots openly disposed in form of a rude ring
at the larger end; at other times the spots are rufescent claret,
with duller indistinct ones appearing through the shell; others
are of a deep carneons hue, clouded and coarsely blotched with
deep rufescent claret; while again some are faint carneous with
large irregular blotches of rufous clay with duller ones beneath
the shell.'5

Some of Captain Hutton's eggs which he sent me were clearly
those of Sypsipetes psaroides (of which also he sent me specimens),
and the fact is that in thick foliage where the lied-bill is not seen
nothing is easier than to mistake this bird for D. lonyicaudatus. I
have taken a great many of these nests, and I never found eggs
other than of the two types to be below described.

Colonel G. F. L. Marshall writes :—" In Kumaon this species
breeds from 4000 to 5000 feet above the sea; the eggs are laid
in the last week of May. I have never seen a nest at Naini Tal
itself (6000 to 7000 feet), but at Bheein Tal (4000 feet) I found
numerous nests within three days, in the first week of June; all
without exception had young. The next season I visited the place
in the last week of May, and found the eggs just laid.

" The nests were of the usual Dicrurus type, wedged in a fork at
heights varying from fifteen to fifty feet from the ground, but as
far as my experience goes always in conspicuous places and
generally on trees almost or quite bare of leaves. The nests
are usually only to be obtained by sawing off the bough they ai*e
built on."'

Long ago Captain Cock, writing from Dhurmsala, said:—" I
took a nest on the 8th of May, containing four eggs. The eggs
are regular, roundish ovals, somewhat pointed towards one end.
The ground-colour is white, here and there suffused with a faint
pinkish tinge, and it is spotted and blotched with purplish red and
pale lilac, most of the spots being gathered into an irregular zone
about the large end."

Colonel C. H. T. Marshall, writing from Murree, says:—
" Breeds in May, in almost inaccessible places, about 7000 feet up,
choosing a thin fork at the outermost end of a bough about 50 or
60 feet from the ground, and always, on trees that have no lower
branches. The nest is almost invisible from below, as it is very
neatly built on the top of the fork \ and when the female sits on
it, she places her tail down the bough so as entirely to hide her-
self. The eggs are only to be obtained either by climbing higher
up the tree than the nest is, and extracting the eggs by means of
a small muslin bag at the end of a long stick, or else by lashing
the bough on which the nest is to an upper bough as the climber
goes along so as to make it strong enough to support him. The
nest is much neater than that of D. ater; the eggs are light