274 SYLYIIDJE.

" About ten feet from my tent on this path, passers-by had cut
one oŁ the bamboos in a clump and left it leaning up against the
clump; between two knots of this a rough hack had broken an
irregular hole into a joint.

" Sitting outside my tent and looking carelessly about, my at-
tention was attracted by what I took to be a leaf flutter down
close to the above-mentioned bamboo, and to my surprise disappear
before it reached the ground. "Wondering at "this, I got up and
approached the place, when from the aforementioned hole in the
bamboo out darted a little bird; and looking in I saw a neat little
nest of fibres placed on the lower knot with three eggs, white
densely speckled, chiefly in a ring at the larger end, with pinkish
claret spots.

" I went back to my tent, watched the bird return, and shot her
as on being frightened off she flew out a second time. It proved
to be the above species.

"I took the nest and eggs. The latter, I regret to say, were
lost subsequently through the carelessness of a servant, but I had
luckily measured and taken a description of them.

"Their dimensions were respectively O57 x 0-42, 0-59 x 0*42,
and 0-59 x 0-44."

From Sikhim Mr. G-ammie writes:—" I took a nest of this
"Warbler on the 15th June at 1800 feet elevation. It was inside
a bamboo-stem near the banks of the R/yeng stream. Just under
a node some one had cut out a notch, which the birds made their
entrance. The nest rested on the node below and fitted the hol-
low of the bamboo. It was made of dry bamboo-leaves, and lined
with soft, fibrous material. It measured 5 inches deep and 3
inches wide, with an egg cavity of 2 inches in depth, by 1| inch in
width. The eggs, which were hard-set, were but three in number."

The eggs are rather long ovals, the shell fine but with very little
gloss ; the ground-colour is a dull white or pinky white, and it is
thickly freckled and mottled about the large end and thinly else-
where with red, in some cases slightly browner, in others purple.
The markings have a tendency to form a cap or zone about the
large end, and here, where the markings are densest, some little
lilac or purplish-grey spots and clouds are intermingled.

An egg measures 0*61 by 0-43.

441. ATbrornis schisticeps (Hodgs.). The Blade-faced Flycatcher-

Warller.

Abrornis schisticeps, Hodgs., Jerd. B. 2nd. ii, p. 201 j Hume, Rough
Draft N. $ E. no. 571.

Captain Huttoa tells us that the Black-faced Flycatcher-Warbler
is c< a common species in the neighbourhood of Mussoorie, at 5000
feet, and commences building in March. A pair of these birds
selected a thick China rose-bush trained against the side of the
house, and had completed the nest and laid one egg when a rat