PEBICBOCOTUS. 339

section of a cylinder, rather than a cup, the walls standing up
outside almost perpendicularly. It is 2'5 inches in diameter and
nearly 1 -75 in height. The rim oŁ the nest is | inch wide, and the
cavity, a shallow cup, 2 inches wide by scarcely an inch deep ; the
walls oŁ the nest increase in thickness as they approach the base.

Externally the whole surface is entirely covered by small scales
of lichen, firmly bound into their respective places by gossamer
threads ; internally the nest is a very loosely put together basket-
work oŁ excessively fine twigs and grass-stems not thicker than
common needles. A morsel or two of moss have become involved
in the fabric, as well as two fine blades of grass • but there is no
lining, and the eggs are obviously laid upon the soft loose basket
frame of the nest.

The egg which accompanied the nest is a regular oval, slightly
compressed towards one end. The ground-colour is pale greenish
white entirely devoid of gloss. The egg is richly blotched, spotted,
and speckled (most densely so towards the larger end) with reddish
brown and greenish purple, there being two conspicuously different
shades (a much darker and a much lighter, the latter of which
appears like subsurface tints) ofc* each of these colours. This egg
measures 0*82 by 0-6 inch nearly.

Another egg of the same clutch was less richly coloured, the
markings being merely brown, with scarcely a perceptible reddish
tinge, and dull mostly inky, but here and there somewhat reddish,
purple. The markings, too, were fewer in number, but there was
a more marked tendency for these to form a zone about the larger
end.

In another clutch- the markings were almost entirely confined
to a dense zone round the larger end about a third of the way up
from the middle of the egg. In this zone they were so densely set
as to be quite confluent, and they consisted of yellowish brown
and inky purple.

Mr. J. B-. Cripps found the nest of this Minivet in the Bhaman
tea-garden, in the Dibrugarh District of Assam, on the 31st May,
1879. The nest contained three eggs, and was placed on the upper
side of a large lateral branch of a tree that grew on the main
garden road, about 15 feet from the ground.

Seven eggs of this bird vary in length from O75 to 0*86, and
in breadth from 0*58 to 0*6.

500. Pericrocotus peregrinus (Linn.). Tlu Small Minivet.
Pericrocotus peregrinus (Linn:\Jerd. JB, 2nd. i. p. 423 ; ffiime* JKough

Our Small Minivet lays during the latter half of June (as soon,
•in fact, as the rains set in), and throughout July and August. I
believe it breeds pretty well all over India and Burma.

The nest is small and neat, and done up generally like a Chaf-
finch's, to resemble the bark of the tree on which it is placed.