335

the eggs are very faintly coloured, and have a dull white ground,
while the markings consist of only a few spots and specks of very
pale purple and pale rust-colour confined to a zone near the large
end.

In length the eggs vary from 0-69 to 0-8 inch, and in breadth
from 0-57 to (V65 inch ; but the average of a dozen eggs is O75
by 0'61 inch nearly.

490. Pericrocotus speciosus (Lath.). The Indian Scarlet
Minivet.

Pericrocotus speciosus (Lath.}. Jerd. B. 2nd. i, p. 419; Hume,
Rouyh Draft N. $ H. no. 271.

Captain Hutton records that the Indian Scarlet Minivet breeds
both on the Doon and in the hills overlooking it, to an elevation
of about 5000 feet. He says :—" The nest is generally placed high
up 011 the branch of some tall tree, often overhanging the side of
a fearful precipice. On the 6th and 17th of June I procured two
nests in ravines opening upon the Doon, one of which contained
four, and the other five eggs, of a dull-white colour, sparingly
spotted and blotched with earthy brown, more thickly so at the
larger end, where they form an open ring of spots ; other small
blotches of a fainter colour are seen beneath the shell.

" It is a curious fact that in the latter nest, out of the five eggs
three were ringed at the larger end, and the other two at tlie smaller
end. The nest is rather coarsely made, being very thick at the
sides, and the materials not neatly interwoven; it is composed
externally of dried grasses and the fine stalks of various small
plants, interspersed with bits of cotton and grass-roots, and lined
with the fiae seed-stalks of small grasses."

I am not at all sure that there is not some mistake here. The
nest described is rather that of L. erytJironotus than of any of the
Pwicrocoti, and but for the excellent authority on which the above
rests, I should certainly not have accepted it.

This species breeds in the forests of the central hills of Nepal;
according to Mr. Hodgson's notes and drawings the)7 begin laying
about April, and lay three or four eggs, which are neither described
nor figured. The nest is a beautiful deep cup externally about
3-25 inches in diameter, and rather more than 2 inches high, com-
posed of moss and moss-roots lined internally with the latter, and
entirely coated exteriorly with lichen and a few stray pieces of
green moss firmly secured in their places by spiders' webs. The
nest is placed in some slender branch between three or four
upright sprays. This, I may note, is just the kind of nest one
would have expected this Large Minivet to build.

The only specimens, supposed to be the eggs of. this species, that
I possess I owe to Captain Hutton. They closely resemble the
eggs of L. erytlironot'us, but. are perhaps shorter, and hence look
broader than those of this latter. They are slightly bigger than
the eggs of L. vittatus. In shape they seem to be typically a