STTYA. 285

firmly felted together. It is lined pretty thickly everywhere with
the excessively tine stalks which bear this down.

Taking a large series, I should describe the eggs as typically
regular but somewhat elongated ovals, often fairly glossy, at times
almost glossless. The ground varies from pale pinky white to
pale salmon-colour. A dense, more or less mottled, zone or cap
at the large end, varying in different specimens from reddish pink
to almost brick-red, and more or less of speckling, mottling, or
freckling of a somewhat lighter shade than the zone spreads in
some thinly, in some densely over the rest of the egg.

In length they vary from 0-63 to 0-75, and in breadth from 0*46
to 0-55 ; but the average of sixty-five eggs is O69 by 0*52.

459. Suya atrigularis, Moore *. The Black-throated
Hill-Warbler.

Suya atrogularis, Moore. Jerd. H. 2nd. ii. p. 184: Hume, Itovyh
~ " E. no. 549.

The Black-throated Hill-Warbler breeds in Kumaon and the
Himalayas eastwards from thence, at elevations of 4000 to 6000
feet.

The breeding-season lasts from April to July, but the birds
mostly lay in May and June. Open grassy hillsides dotted about
with scrub, thin forests, or gardens are the localities it affects.
The nest is placed at times in some low bush surrounded with and
grown through by grass, more commonly in clumps of grass, and
never at any great height from the ground. It is more or less
egg-shaped, and placed with the longer diameter vertical, the
entrance being on one side above the middle. It is composed ex-
teriorly sometimes of fine grass-roots, sometimes of the finest
possible grass, loosely but sufficiently firmly interwoven, a little
moss being often incorporated in the upper portion, and internally
always, I think, exclusively of fine grass.

Four is perhaps the usual number of the eggs, but I have found
five.

Mr. G-animie, writing from Sikhiin, says :—" I have found four
nests of this species this year in the Chinchona reserves, at eleva-
tions of from 4500 to 5500 feet, during the months of May and
June. The nests were all in open grassy country, in grass by the
sides of low banks, and not above a foot off the ground. They
are globular, with a lateral entrance, composed of grass, and with
a little moss about the dome. One 1 measured was 5-5 high, and

* I reproduce this article nearly as it appears in the ' Bough Draft;' but I
have great doubts as to the occurrence of this bird in Kumaon, and I further
doubt the identification of Hodgson's notes with this species. It is quite clear,
from his specimens in the British Museum, that Hodgson confounded 8. atri-
gularis in winter plumage with 8. crimgem, and his plate of the former in
summer plumage contains no note on nidification.—ED.