HEMIPTJS. 329

thing as IT. capitalis, McClelL, in India, or, in other words, that
this latter name is a rnere synonym of H. picatus *.

Mr. Blyth remarks, Ibis, 1866*:—" ffemipuspicatus. Under tliis
name two very distinct species are brought together by Dr.
Jerdon : H. capitalis (McClell., 1839 ; H.piccecolor, Hodgson, 1845)
of the Himalaya, which is larger, with proportionally longer tail,
and has a brown back; and H.picatus (Sykes) of Southern India
and Ceylon, which has a black back. Mr. Wallace has good series
of both of them.

" Hemipus capitalis has accordingly to be added to the birds of
India."

Now, out of India, Mr. "Wallace may have got hold of some
bro\vii-baeked Hemipus, which is really distinct, but nothing is
more certain (I speak after comparison of a large series from
Southern India with a still larger, gathered from all parts of the
Himalayas) than that the Southern and Northern Indian birds are
identical, and that in both localities the males have black and the
females brown backs.

Capt. T. Hutton says :—" On the 12th of May I procured a nest
' of this bird in the Dehra Doon; it was placed on the ground at
the base of an overhanging rock, and was composed entirely of the
hair of horses and cows and other cattle, which had doubtless
been collected from the bushes and pasture-lands in the vicinity.
There were four eggs of a pale sea-green, spotted with rufous-
brown, and forming an indistinct and nearly confluent ring at the
larger end. The bird had begun to sit.

" This curious little species is not uncommon in the outer hills
up to 5000 feet in the summer months."

The three eggs sent me by Captain Hutton appear to differ
somewhat conspicuously from any other eggs of the Laniidce that
I have yet seen. The ground-colour is a very pale greenish white,
and they are moderately thickly freckled and mottled all over,
but; most densely towards the large end (where, in one egg, there
is a well-marked, though somewhat irregular, zone), with pale
brownish pink and very pale purple. In shape the eggs are very
regular, rather broad ovals, and appear to have but little or no
gloss. They vary in length from 0-66 to O7 inch, and in. breadth
from 0*53 to 0-55 inch.

Dr. Jerdon's evidence, so far as it goes, tallies with Captain
Hutton's account. He says :—"I obtained its nest once at Dar-
jeeling, made of roots and grasses, with three greenish-white eggs,
having a fewT rusty-red spots."

* Mr. Hume would probably now agree with me that H. picatus and
H. capitalis are distinct species. H. picatus, however, is not confined to
Southern India, but occurs along the Terais of Sikhim and Nepal, and through-
out Burma. H. capitalis occurs on the Himalayas from Gurwhal to Assam.
There is little doubt that Captain Hutton's nest did not really belong to a
Pied Shrike.—ED.