OAMPOPH^GA. 345

rather silky greyish-white vegetable fibres, in places more or less
felted together. It is not ornamented externally with moss and
lichen, as those of so many of the Pericrocoti commonly are, only
occasionally one or two little ornamental brown patches of withered
glossy vegetable scales are worked into the exterior of the nest.

The eggs are not at all like those of the other Pericrocoti with
which we are best acquainted; though less densely, and even more
streakily marked, they most remind me of the egg of Yolvocivora,
and in a lesser degree of that of Hemipuspi&itus.

The eggs vary in shape from rather broad to rather elongated
ovals. The shell is very fine and smooth, but has scarcely any
perceptible gloss. The ground-colour is greenish or greyish white,
and they are profusely marked with comparatively fine longitudinal
streaks of a moderately'dark brown, which in some lines is more
of a chocolate, in others perhaps more umber. At both ends of
the egg, but especially the smaller end, the markings often become
spotty or speckly, but the fine longitudinal streaking of the sides
of the egg is very conspicuous.

In size the eggs vary from O69 to O71 in length, by 0-51 to
'0-58 in breadth. I have measured too few eggs to be able to
give a reliable average.

505. Campophaga melanoscMsta (Hodgs.). The Dark-grey
Cuclcoo-Shrilee.

Yolvocivora melaschistos, Ifodgs., Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 415: Hume,
Rough Draft N. $ E. no. 269.

I have never found the nest of the Dark-grey Cuckoo-Shrike.
Captain Hutton tells us :—

" This, too, is a mere summer visitor in the hills, arriving up to
7000 feet about the end of March, and breeding early in May.
The nest is small and shallow, placed in the bifurcation of a hori-
zontal bough of some tall oak tree, and always high up ; it is
composed externally almost entirely of grey lichens picked from
the tree, and lined with bits of very fine roots or thin stalks of
leaves. Seen from beneath the tree the nest appears like a bunch
of: moss or lichens, and the sinallness and frailty would lead one
to suppose it incapable of holding two young birds of such size.
Externally the nest is compactly held together by being thickly
pasted over with cobwebs. The eggs, two in number, of a dull
grey-green, closely and in part continently dashed with streaks of
dusky brown."

This species, according to Mr. Hodgson's notes and drawings,
breeds in Nepal in the central districts of the hills from April to
July, laying three or four eggs. The nest is a broad shallow
saucer, some 4 inches in external diameter and 1-75 inch in height;
it is placed in a fork where two or three slender branches divide,
to one or more of which it is firmly bound with vegetable fibres
and grass-roots, and is composed of fine roots and vegetable fibres.