266 SYLVIIDJE.

I stood upon a mass oE snow which had accumulated in the bed of
a mountain-stream."

Captain Charles E. Cock writes to me that he " took numbers
of nests at Sonamerg, in the Sinclh Valley in Cashmere, during a
nesting trip that I took in 1871 with my valued and esteemed
friend W. E. Brooks, Esq. Although at the time of our finding
the nest of this Warbler we were about 80 miles apart, yet we both
found our first nest on the same day—the 31st May. I believe he
was by a couple of hours or so the winner, as I do not think the egg
had ever been taken before.

" Breeds in May or June on the ground in banks ; makes a
globular nest of moss, well lined with fine grass, musk-deer hair,
or horse-hair. It lays five eggs, white spotted with rusty red, in-
clining to a zone at the larger end."

Typically the eggs of this species are broad ovals, slightly com-
pressed towards one end ; the ground pure white and almost
perfectly devoid of gloss, speckled and spotted with red or purplish
red, the markings, most dense about the large end, often forming
an irregular mottled cap or zone. These are the general characters,
but the eggs vary very much in shape, size, colour, and density of
markings. Some eggs are almost spherical; others are somewhat
elongated; others slightly pyriform. As a body, alike in shape
and coloration, they remind one of the eggs of many species of
Indian Tit, especially those of Loplioplianes melanoloplius. In some
eggs the markings are a slightly brownish brick dust-red, moderate
sized spots and specks scattered pretty thickly over the whole
surface, but gathered into a dense, more or less confluent, zone or
cap towards the large end. Intermingled with these primary mark-
ings a few pale purple spots are scattered towards the large end
of the eggs. In other eggs the markings are mostly mere specks,
and in this type of egg the specks are mostly brownish purple, in
some almost black. Occasionally an egg is almost entirely spotless,
having only towards the large end a clouded clingy reddish-purple
zone. In some eggs again the colour of the markings is pale and
washed out. As a rule, the eggs in which the markings are of the
brickdust-red type have these larger, bolder, and more numerous ;
while those in which the markings are purple have them of a more
minute character.

The shape of the eggs, as already noticed, varies much, being
sometimes longer than those of P. trochilus, and at other times very
much of the same rounded shape. Frequently they are more
pointed at the smaller end than those of P. trocJiilus usually are.
The texture of the egg is similar to that of P. trocJiilus, with scarcely
any gloss. The ground-colour is always pure white, and the
markings, which are always more or less plentiful, are either red-
dish brown or purple-brown, intermingled sparingly with lighter
or darker purple-grey.

Some eggs contain hardly a speck of the purple-grey, while others
have considerable blotches of that colour scattered amongst the red
spots.

Some eggs are scantily marked, and have the spots very small;