NY \ \ Aw ARS AIRS RMA NY ae “2 e Gornell University Library Bihaca, New York BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 RETURN TO ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY ITHACA, N. Y. Cornell University Library OL 691.14H92 1889 wii 3 1924 0 eggs of Indian birds. (TATU 00 mann 044 978 Cornell University The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000044978 WoopopsuryY Comey ALLAN OCTAVIAN HUME THE NESTS AND EGGS OF INDIAN BIRDS. BY ALLAN O. HUME, C.B. SECOND EDITION. EDITED BY EUGENE WILLIAM OATES, AUTHOR OF ‘A HANDBOOK TO THE BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH,’ AND OF TIE BIRDS IN ‘THE FAUNA OF BRITISH INDIA.’ VoL. LL WITH FOUR PORTRAITS. LONDON: R. H. PORTER, 18 PRINCES STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE, W. 1889., PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. AUTHOR’S PREFACE, ‘I wave long regretted my inability to issue a revised edition of ‘ Nests and Eggs.’ For many years after the first Rough Draft appeared, I went on laboriously accumulating materials for a re-issue, but subsequently circumstances pre- vented my undertaking the work. Now, fortunately, my friend Mr. Eugene Oates has taken the matter up, and much as I may personally regret having to hand over to another a task, the performance of which I should so much have enjoyed, it is some consolation to feel that the readers, at any rate, of this work will have no cause for regret, but rather of rejoicing that the work has passed into younger and stronger hands. One thing seems necessary to explain. The present Edition does not include quite all the materials I had accu- mulated for this work. Many years ago, during my absence from Simla, a servant broke into my museum and stole thence several cwts. of manuscript, which he sold as waste paper. This manuscript included more or less complete life-histories of some 700 species of birds, and also a certain number of detailed accounts of nidification. All small notes on slips of paper were left, but almost every article written on full-sized iv AUTHOR’S PREFACE. foolscap sheets was abstracted. It was not for many months that the theft was discovered, and then very little of the MSS. could be recovered. It thus happens that in the cases of some of the most interesting species, of which I had worked up all the notes into a connected whole, nothing, or, as in the case of Argya subrufa, ouly a single isolated note, appears in the text. It is to be greatly regretted, for my work was imperfect enough as it was; and this ‘Selection from the Records,’ that my Philistine servant saw fit to permit himself, has rendered it a great deal more imperfect still; but neither Mr. Oates nor myself can be justly blamed for this. In conclusion, I have only to say that if this compilation should find favour in any man’s sight he must thank Mr. Oates for it, since not only has he undergone the labour of arranging my materials and seeing the whole work through the press—not only has he, I believe, added himself consider- ably to those materials—but it is solely owing to him that the work appears at all, as I know no one else to whom I could have entrusted the arduous and, I fear, thankless duty that he has so generously undertaken. ALLAN HUME. Rothney Castle, Simla, October 19th, 1889, EDITOR’S NOTE. Mr. Hume has sufficiently explained the circumstances under which this edition of his popular work has been brought about. I have merely to add that, as I was engaged on a work on the Birds of India, I thought it would be easier for me than for anyone else to assist Mr. Hume. I was also in England, and knew that my labour would be very much lightened by passing the work through the press in this country. Another reason, perhaps the most important, was the fear that, as Mr. Hume had given up entirely and abso- lutely the study of birds, the valuable material he had taken such pains to accumulate for this edition might be irretriev- ably lost or further injured by lapse of time unless early steps were taken to utilize it. A few words of explanation appear necessary on the subject of the arrangement of this edition. Mr. Hume is in no way responsible for this arrangement nor for the nomenclature employed. He may possibly disapprove of both. He, how- ever, gave me his manuscript unreservedly, and left me free to deal with it as I thought best, and I have to thank him for reposing this confidence in me. Left thus to my own devices, I have considered it expedient to conform in all Vi EDITOR'S NOTE. respects to the arrangement of my work on the Birds, which I am writing, side by side, with this work. The classifica- tion I have elaborated for my purpose is totally different to that employed by Jerdon and familiar to Indian ornitho- logists; but a departure from Jerdon’s arrangement was merely a question of time, and no better opportunity than the present for readjusting the classification of Indian birds appeared likely to present itself. I have therefore adopted a new system, which I have fully set forth in my other work. I take this opportunity to present the readers of Mr. Hume’s work with portraits of Mr. Hume himself, of Mr. Brian Hodgson, the late Dr. Jerdon, and the late Colonel Tickell. EUGENE W. OATES. SYSTEMATIC INDEX. Order PASSERKES. Family CORVIDL. Subfamily Corvinz. Page 1. Corvus corax, Linn..... 1 3. corone, Linn. .... 4 4, macrorhynchus, Weagler gs geesacea vas 7. splendens, Vieill... 8 8. insolens, Hume .. 12 9, ——wmonedula, Linn... 12 10. Pica rustica (Scop.).... 13 12. Urocissa occipitalis (Bi.) 14 13. flavirostris (Bi.) .. 16 14. Cissa chinensis (Bodd.) . 17 15. ornata (Wagler) .. 19 16. Dendrocitta rufa (Scop.) 19 17. —— leucogastra, Gould. 22 18. —— himalayensis, Bl... 23 21, Crypsirhina varians (Lath.) ..ecceeeeeee 25 23. Platysmurus leucopterus (Temm.) ..cccccceres 26 24, Garrulus _lanceolatus, Vigors oo. ccc cceeeee 26 25. ——leucotis, Hume.... 28 26, —— bispecularis, Vigors 28 27. Nucifraga hemispila, Vigors occ secvee sees 30 29, Graculus eremita (Linn.) 31 Subfamily Parinz. 31. Parus atriceps, Horsf... 31 34, monticola, Vigors . 35 85. Aigithaliscus erythroce- halus (Vig.)........ 36 41 Mackisleins spilonotus (BL). va aaeteswiae ss 37 42, —— xanthogenys (Vig.) 38 43, —— haplonotus (Bi.) .. 3 44, Lophophanes_ melanolo- phus (Vig.).......... 40 . ——rufinuchalis (Bl,.).. 42 Page Subfamily PARADOXORNITHINA, 50. Conostoma emodium, PLOW GB ici ova csezat ts per 60. Sceorhynchus ruficeps 61, ——gularis (Horsf.) .. 44 Family CRATEROPODID A, Subfamily CraTERoPopIN». 62. Dryonastes _ruficollis (Fe8p 8.) waders ees 45 cerulatus (Hodys.) 46 69, Garrulax leucolophus (Hardw.)... cece ceees 47 70, —— belangeri, Lesson.. 48 72, —— pectoralis (Gould). 49 78. —— moniliger (Hodgs.) 50 76. —— albigularis (Gould) 5% 78, Ianthocincla ocellata (VQ) inser cients acne 54 80. rufigularis, Gould.. 54 82. Trochalopterum erythro- cephalum (V7g.)...... 55 85. ——nigrimentum,Hodgs. 57 87. —— pheeniceum (Gowd) 58 88, —— subunicolor, Hodgs. 59 90. variegatum (Vig.) . 59 91 simile, Hume .... 60 92. —— squamatum (Gould) 61 93. —— cachinnans (Jerd.) 62 96. —— fairbanki, Blanf... 64 99, lineatum (Vig.) .. 64 101. Grammatoptila striata (VAG). a seistasiale paste ns 67 104, Argya earlii (Bl.)...... 68 105, ——- caudata (Duméril) 70 107. —— malcolmi (Sykes).. 72 108 subrufa (Jerd.).... 74 110. Crateropus canorus (Lintigy daa sa wacgn iis 74 111. griseus (Gimel.).... 0 7 SYSTEMATIC INDEX, viii Page 112. Crateropus striatus (Swains.). 0... cece es 79 113. —— somervillii (Sykes) 80 114 rufescens (Bl.).... 81 115. —— cinereifrons (Bl.).. 81 116. Pomatorhinus schisticeps, FLO G 82s sess e804: 8h 81 118 olivaceus, Bl, .. 82 119. —— melanurus, Bi. .... 83 120, —— horsfieldii, Sykes .. 84 122. ferruginosus, Bl... 86 125, —— ruficollis, Hodgs... 87 129. erythrogenys, Vig. 87 133, Xiphorhamphus _ super- ciliaris (Blyth) ...... 89 Subfamily Timetun 2, 134. Timelia pileata, Horsf.. 90 135. Dumetia hyperythra (Frankl)... cc cee 92 136, —— albigularis (Bi.) .. 94 139. Pyctorhis sinensis (Gm.) 95 140. —— nasalis, Legge .... 98 142, Pellorneum mandellii, BOI su, 0 $ sis B83 Bi 99 144 ruficeps, Swains, .. 100 145, —— aiboctmcguit, ISAM. se hncoiacan Asssecio @ 100 147 fuscicapillum (B/.) 102 149. Drymocataphus nigricap- itatus (Eyton)........ 102 151 tickelli (Bl.)...... 103 160. abbotti (Bl.)...... 103 163. Alcippe nepalensis (Hodgs.) vec ceeeeeees 104 164, —— pheocephala(Jerd.) 106 165. phayrii, Bl. ...... 108 166. Rhopocichla atriceps (Ferd) vice ots cise oss 109 167 nigrifrons (Bi.).... 110 169. Stachyrhis nigriceps, TL OD 85:5 ala sans Wess tte levis 110 170. chrysea, Hodgs. 112 172. er aaa ae ruficeps (Bi) Seiwieanwnnees 112 174 pyrrhops (Hodys.) 114 175. Geanodenaa erythro- pterum (Bl) ........ 115 176. Mixornis — rubricapillus (GLUCK) re cetsnch anaes seen 115 177. gularis (Raff.).... 116 178. Scheeniparus dubius (Hume) wo... cee. 117 182, Sittiparus castaneiceps (Med 98) 65 siecsen ven 118 183. 184, Proparus vinipectus (Hodgs.) os. cevvevees Lioparus chryseeus (Hodgs.) o 0. ecee eens Subfamily BracHyPTERYGIN. 187. 188. 189. 191. 198. 194. 197. 198. 200. 201. 202, 203. 204. 205. 208. 211. 212, 219. 221. 223. 225. 226. 229, 231, 939 235, 237, 239. 248. 246. 252. 254. 257. 258. Myi>phoneus temmincki, eugenil, Hume .... horsfieldi, Vig. .... Larvivora brunnea, FTOdgG8.. cece ee Brachypteryx albiventris (Farbank) rufiventris (Bl.) . Drymochares cruralis (BL) nepalensis (Hodgs.) Elaphe ornis palliseri (B7.) Tesiacyaniventris, Hodgs. Oligura castaneicoronata ( Burt.) Subfamily Srpirwz. Sibia picaoides, odgs.. Lioptila capistrata (Vig. ) gracilis (MeClell.) melanoleuca (B.) . Actinodura —_egertoni, Gd 6 5 asec sree 8 6 Ixops nepalensis (Hodgs.) Siva strigula, Hodgs. cyanuroptera, Hodgs. Yuhina gularis, Hodgs. . nigrimentum (Hodgs.) Zosterops (Lemmy an ccc cwsie: ceylonensis, Holds- MOORE Sansieserispdyeeeeh orsians Ixulus occipitalis (Bi.).. flavicollis (Hodgs.) Subfamily LiorricHinz. Liothrix lutea (Scop.).. Pteruthius erythropterus (Vig.) melanotis, Hodys. Atgithina tiphia (Linn.) Myzornis pyrrhura, Hodges sieg ans in ee stne iloronee jerdoni ae Irena puella (Lath.) Mesia argentauris, Hodgs. Minla igneitincta, Hodgs. 147 150 . 151 151 155 155 . 157 160 161 SYSTEMATIC INDEX, 161 es Subfamily Bracuyropinm, . Alcurus striatus (Bl.) .. . Molpastes Gm . ——burmanicns (en) 173 . ——— intermedius » —— leucogenys (Gir.) .. » —— leucotis (Gould) . . Otocompsa emeria (Linn.) 178 . Criniger flaveolus(Gould) 163 . Hypsipetes psaroides, Vig. 164 - —— ganeesa, Sykes ..,. 167 . Hemixus macclellandi (Horsf) voc ceeeceeee heemorrhous J abneasenesaseninee 169 atricapillus (Viell.) 173 bengalensis (Bl.) .. 174 Hay) Cee ee ee ee wens 177 fuscicaudata, Gould 180 flaviventris (Zick.) 183 . Spizixus canifrons, Bl... 184 . Tole icterica (Strickl.) .. 185 299. Pycnonotus finlaysoni, Strichl.cccccceceeees 187 300, —— davisoni (Hume) .. 188 301. —— melanicterus (Gm.) 188 305. —— luteolus (Less.).... 189 306. —— blanfordi, Jerd..... 190 Family SITTID. 315. Sitta himalayensis, J. & S. 192 316. —— cinnamomeiventris, bled aiied via Gasset ya isectie 193 317. —— neglecta, Walden ., 193 321. —— castaneiventris, ETON bi severe 5 i oieg sek 194 323, —— leucopsis, Gould .. 196 325, —— frontalis, Horsf.... 196 Family DICRURID. . Dicrurus ater (Hermann) 198 longicaudatus, 4. Hay nigrescens, Oates ., 208 . ——— cerulescens (Linn.) 209 . —— leucopygialis, Bl. . 209 . Chaptia eenea (Viedll.) .. 210 . Chibiahottentotta(Linn.) 213 . Dissemurulus lophorhinus ssciounaan sete 215 (Vieilt. . Bhringa remifer (Temm.) 216 VOL. I. ix Page 340. Dissemurus paradiseus (Linn) voc cccccenes 217 Family CERTHIIDA. 341. Certhia himalayana, Vig. 220 342, hodgsoni, Brooks .. 220 347, Salpornis _ spilonota (Frankl) wo... e cee, 220 352, Anorthura neglecta (Brooks) ........045. 221 355. Urocichla caudata (Bl.).. 222 356. Pnoepyga = squamata (Gould) ....ceeeaen, 223 Family REGULIDA. 358, Regulus cristatus, Koch. 223 Family SYLVODA. 363. Acrocephalus stentoreus CEG Ba) eshte aus shal 224 366, —— dumetorum, Bl. ,. 22 367. agricola (Jerd.).... 229 371. Tribura thoracica (Bi.).. 229 372. luteiventris, Hodgs. 231 374, Orthotomus sutorius (BOrat 3) ese we aiestiace Stem 231 375, —— atrigularis, Temm.., 235 880. Cisticola volitans (Swin- MOC) jess acatecac ea ecicen-os 236 381 cursitans (Frankl.) 236 382, Franklinia gracilis (Frankl)... cc ccceee. 240 383, rufescens (B/l.) .... 242 384, —— buchanani (Bl.).... 248 385, cinereicapilla (Hodgs.) ...cevsceues 246 386, Laticilla burnesi (Bl) .. 247 388, Graminicola bengalensis, OL Rema an reer rer 248 389. Megalurus _ palustris, Ft Ae ee 249 390. Schcenicola _platyura TORU) Sci ecote 50 0 (i 251 391, Acanthoptila nepalensis . (Hoda se cdacshuae, 252 392. Cheetornis locustelloides (CB aceiceieate review 252 394. Hypolais rama (Sykes).. 254 402, Sylvia affinis (Bi.)...... 257 406, Phylloscopus _ tytleri, Brooks wees cvveveees 258 410 fuscatus (Bl) .... 259 415 os proregulus (Pail.).. 260 . —— subviridis Brooks) 262 b . Horeites . Suya crinigera, Hodgs. SYSTEMATIC INDEX. Page . Phylloscopus bhumii (Brooks) ......5+ pe 262 . Acanthopneuste occipi- talis (Jerd.) esses. 67 davisoni, Oates.... 269 . Oryptolopha xanthoschista (Hodgs.). cee eecenes 270 jerdoni (Brooks) .. 271 ” __ poliogenys (Bl)... 272 _— d claheiceus (Hodgs.) 272 cantator (Tick.) .. 272 . Abrornis _superciliaris, LDCs: tose ta wate 85 88 schisticeps (Aodgs.) 274 . — albigularis, Hodgs.. 275 . Seotocerca inquieta (Cretzschm.) ......+. 276 . Neornis flavolivaceus (Hodgs.) ...ccce cece 277 . Horornis fortipes, Hodgs. 279 pallidus (Brooks) .. 280 pallidipes (Blanf.) . 281 . ——— major (Hodgs.).... 281 . Phyllergates coronatus (Jerd. & Bi.) brunneifrons, ods. viv ceccceccuen 282 .. 282 atrigularis, Moore. . 285 , —— khasiana, Godw.- 286 . Prinia lepida, Bl. ...... 287 . —— flaviventris (Deless.) 289 .. 29) socialis, Sykes . . —— sylvatica, Jerd..... 299 . ——— inornata, Sykes.... 301 jerdoni (Bi.)...... 804 | —— blanfordi (Walden) 305 Family LANTID. Subfamily Lanz. . Lanius lahtora (Sykes) .. 306 vittatus, Valenc. .. 311 nigriceps (Frankl.) . 315 , —— erythronotus (Vig.) 318 tephronotus (Vig.) . 325 eristatus, Zinn..... 826 . Hemipus picatus (Sykes) 327 capitalis (McCilell.) . 328 . Tephrodornis pelvicus (HHodgs.) vec eer esvees 350 . —— sylvicola, Jerd..... 331 pondicerianus (Gm.) 332 . Pericrocotus speciosus ico eae 335 494, 495, 499. 500. 501. 505. 508. 509. 510. 512. 513, 518. 621. 522. 523. 524, 526. 527. 528. 529. 531. 537. 538. 539. 543. 544. 546, 549. 560. 551. 562. 555. 556. Page Pericrocotus flammeus (Forst.) cece ccc cees 336 brevirostris (Vigors) 337 —— roseus (Vieill.) .... 338 —— peregrinus (Linn.) . 339 erythropygius (Ferd.) oiccvccccneeee 344 Campophaga melano- schista (Hodgs.) ...... 345 —— sykesi (Strickl.).... 346 terat (Bodd.)...... 348 Graucalus macii, Lesson. 348 Subfamily ARTAMINZ. Artamus fuscus, Veil... 350 leucogaster ( Valence.) 358 Family ORIOLIDA. Oriolus kundoo, Sykes .. 354 melanocephalus, PUT» ncans on febacs aeranie's 359 —— traillii (Vigors).... 862 Family EULABETIDZ. Eulabes religiosa (Zinn.) . 868 intermedia (A. Hay) 365 ptilogenys (Bl.).... 366 Calornis chalybeius (Horsf). 6 excses esas 367 Family STURNIDA. Pastor roseus (Zinn.).... 368 Sturnus humii, Brooks .. 369 minor, Hume...... 370 Sturnia blythii (Jerd.) .. 371 —— malabarica (Gm.).. 372 nemoricola, Jerd. .. 373 Ampeliceps coronatus, Bl. 374 Temenuchus pagodarum CGI caresdnatnes Gis 374 Graculipica nigyricollis (BGK) aie shee cosas. 2tcalbia 377 Acridotheres _ tristis ANAND) ewes wae er earns 377 melanosternus, LAG GES cosh gvasscn sesce lesa 380 ginginianus (Lath.). 381 /Ethiopsar fuscus ( Wagl.) 383 Sturnopastor contra (Bim e233 ie saa nag eek 386 —— superciliaris, Bl. .. 388 ERRATA. Page 103. After Drymocataphus tickelli insert (Blyth). Page 216. For Bhringa tenuirostris read B. tectirostris. Page 223. For Pnoepyga albiventris (Hodgs.), rcad Pnoepyga squa- mata (Gould). Page 311. dfter Lanius vittatus insert Valenc. Wooopsury Comey. THOMAS CAVERHILL JERDON. Wooosury Compy. BRIAN HOUGHTON HODGSON. Wooosury CompPy. SAMUEL RICHARD TICKELL. THE NESTS AND EGGS OF INDIAN BIRDS. Order PASSERES. Family CORVID. Subfamily CORVIN A. 1. Corvus corax, Linn. The Raven. Corvus corax, Linn., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 293. Corvus lawrencii, Hume; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 657, I separated the Punjab Raven under the name of Corvus law- rencet (‘ Lahore to Yarkand,’ p. 83), and I then stated, what I wish now to repeat, that if we are prepared to consider C. corax, C. littoralis, C. thibetanus, and C. japonensis all as one and the same species, then C. lawrence too must be suppressed ; but if any of these are retained as distinct, then so must C. lawrencet be*. The Punjab Raven breeds throughout the Punjab (except perhaps in the Dehra Ghazee Khan District), in Bhawulpoor, Bikaneer, and the northern portions of Jeypoor and Jodhpoor, extending rarely as far south as Sambhur. To Sindh it is merely a seasonal * JT think it impossible to separate the Punjab Raven from the Ravens of Europe and other parts of the world, and I have therefore merged it into C. corax.—Ep. VOL, I. 1 2 CORVIDZ. visitant, and I could not learn that they breed there, nor have I ever known of one breeding anywhere east of the Jumna. Even in the Delhi Division of the Punjab they breed sparingly, and one must go further north and west to find many nests. The breeding-season lasts from early in December to quite the end of March; but this varies a little according to season and locality, though the majority of birds always, I think, lay in January. The nest is generally placed in single trees of no great size, standing in fields or open jungle. The thorny Acacias are often selected, but I have seen them on Sisoo and other trees. The nest, placed in a stout fork as a rule, is a large, strong, compact, stick structure, very like a Rook’s nest at home, and like these is used year after year, whether by the same birds or others of the same species I cannot say. Of course they never breed in company: I never found two of their nests within 100 yards of each other, and, as a rule, they will not be found within a quarter of a mile of each other. Five is, I think, the regular complement of eggs; very often I have only found four fully incubated eggs, and on two or three occasions six have, I know, been taken in one nest, though I never myself met with so many. I find the following old note of the first nest of this species that I ever took :— “ At Hansie, in Skinner’s Beerh, December 19, 1867, we found our first Raven’s nest. It was in a solitary Keekur tree, which originally of no great size had had all but two upright branches lopped away. Between these two branches was a large compact stick nest fully 10 inches deep and 18 inches in diameter, and not more than 20 feet from the ground. It contained five slightly incubated eggs, which the old birds evinced the greatest. objection to part with, not only flying at the head of the man who removed them, but some little time after they had been removed similarly attacking the man who ascended the tree to look at the nest. After the eggs were gone, they sat themselves on a small branch above the nest side by side, croaking most ominously, and shaking their heads at each other in the most amusing manner, every now and then alternately descending to the nest and scrutinizing every portion of the cavity with their heads on one side as if to make sure that the eggs were really gone.” Mr. W. Theobald makes the following note of this bird’s nidifi- cation in the neighbourhood of Pind Dadan Khan and Katas in the Salt Range :— “ Lay in January and February ; eggs, four only ; shape, ovato- pyriform ; size, 1-7 by 1:3; colour, dirty sap green, blotched with blackish brown ; also pale green spotted with greenish brown and neutral; nest of sticks difficult to get at, placed in well-selected trees or holes in cliffs.” I have not verified the fact of their breeding in holes in cliffs, but it is very possible that they do. All I found near Pind Dadan Khan and in the Salt Range were doubtless in trees, but I explored a very limited portion of these hills. CORVUS. 3 Colonel C. H. T. Marshall, writing from Bhawulpoor on the 17th February, says: “I succeeded yesterday in getting four eggs of the Punjab Raven. The eggs were hard-set and very difficult to clean.” From Sambhur Mr. R. M. Adam tells us :— This Raven is pretty common during the cold weather, but pairs are seen about here throughout the year. They are very fond of attaching them- selves to the camps of the numerous parties of Banjaras who visit the lake. “T obtained a nest at the end of January which contained three eggs, and a fourth was found in the parent bird. The nest was about 15 feet from the ground in a Kaggera tree (Acacia leuco- phlea) which stood on a bare sandy waste with no other tree within half a mile in any direction.” The eggs of the Punjab bird are, as might be expected, much the same as those of the European Raven. In shape they are moderately broad ovals, a good deal pointed towards the small end, but, as in the Oriole, greatly elongated varieties are very common, and short globular ones almost unknown. The texture of the egg is close and hard, but they usually exhibit little or no gloss. In the colour of the ground, as well as in the colour, extent, and character of the markings, the eggs vary surprisingly. The ground-colour is in some a clear pale greenish blue ; in others pale blue; in others a dingy olive ; and in others again a pale stone-colour. The markings are blackish brown, sepia and olive-brown, and rather pale inky purple. Some have the markings small, sharply defined, and thinly sprinkled; others are extensively blotched and streakily clouded ; others are freckled or smeared over the entire surface, so as to leave but little, if any, of the ground-colour visible. Often several styles of marking and shades of colouring are com- bined in the same egg. Almost each nest of eggs exhibits some peculiarity, and varieties are endless. With sixty or seventy eggs before one, it is easy to pick out in almost every case all the eggs that belong to the same nest, and this is a peculiarity that I have observed in the eggs of many members of this family. All the eggs out of the same nest usually closely resemble each other, while almost any two eggs out of different nests are markedly dissimilar. They vary from 1°72 to 2°25 in length, and from 1-2 to 1°37 in width ; but the average of seventy-two eggs measured is 1:94 by 1-31. Mandelli’s men found four eggs of the larger Sikhim bird in Native Sikhim, high up towards the snows, where they were shooting Blood-Pheasants. These eggs are long ovals, considerably pointed towards one end ; the shell is strong and firm, and has scarcely any gloss. The ground-colour is pale bluish green, and the eggs are smudged and clouded all over with pale sepia; on the top of the eggs there are a few small spots and streaks of deep brownish black. They were found on the 5th March, and vary in length from 1°83 to 1:96, in breadth from 1:18 to 1°25. , 1 4 CORVIDA. 3. Corvus corone, Linn. The Carrion-Crow. Corvus corone, Linn., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 295; Hume, Rough Draft N.S E. no. 659 *, . The only Indian eggs of the Carrion-Crow which I have seen, and one of which, with the parent bird, I owe to Mr. Brooks, were taken by the latter gentleman on the 30th May at Sonamerg, Cashmere. The eggs were broad ovals, somewhat compressed towards one end, and of the regular Corvine type—a pretty pale green ground, blotched, smeared, streaked, spotted, and clouded, nowhere very profusely but most densely about the large end, with a greenish or olive-brown and pale sepia. The brown is a brighter and greener, or duller and more olive, lighter or darker, in different eggs, and even in different parts of the same egg. The shell is fine and close, but has only a faint gloss. The eggs only varied from 1-67 to 1:68 in length, and from 1:14 to 1:18 in breadth. Whether this bird breeds regularly or only as a straggler in Cashmere we do not know ; it is always overlooked and passed by as a “Common Crow.” Future visitors to Cashmere should try and clear up both the identity of the bird and all particulars about its nidification. 4. Corvus macrorhynchus, Wagler. The Jungle-Crow. Corvus culminatus, Sykes, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 295. Corvus levaillantii, Less., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 660. The Jungle-Crow (under which head I include tT C. cudminatus, Sykes, C. intermedius, Adams, C. andamanensis, Tytler, and each and all of the races that occur within our limits) breeds almost: every where in India, alike in the low country and in the hills both Southern and Northern India, to an elevation of fully 8000 eet. March to May is, I consider, the normal breeding-season ; in the plains the majority lay in April, rarely later, and in the hills in May ; but in the plains a few birds lay also in February. The nest is placed as a rule on good-sized trees and pretty near their summits. In the plains mangos and tamarinds seem to be preferred, but I have found the nests on many different kinds of trees. The nest is large, circular, and composed of moderate-sized twigs; sometimes it is thick, massive, and compact; sometimes loose and straggling ; always with a considerable depression in the centre, which is smoothly lined with large quantities of horsehair, * My. Hume, at one time separated the Indian Carrion-Crow from Corvus corone under the name C. pseudo-corone. In his‘ Catalogue’ he re-unites them. I quite agree with him that the two birds are inseparable.—Ep. + See ‘Stray Feathers,’ vol. ii. 1874, p. 248, and ‘Lahore to Yarkand,’ p. 85. CORVUS. 5 or other stiff hair, grass, grass-roots, cocoanut-fibre, &c. In the hills they use any animal’s hair or fur, if the latter is pretty stiff. They do not, according to my experience, affect luxuries in the way of soft down; it is always something moderately stiff, of the coir or horsehair type; nothing soft and fluffy. Coarse human hair, such as some of our native fellow-subjects can boast of, is often taken, when it can be got, in lieu of horsehair. They lay four or five eggs. I have quite as often found the latter as the former number. I have never myself seen six eggs in one nest, butI have heard, on good authority, of six eggs being found. Captain Unwin writes: “I found a nest of the Bow-billed Corby in the Agrore Valley, containing four eggs, on the 30th April. It was placed in a Cheer tree about 40 feet from the ground, and was made of sticks and lined with dry grass and hair.” Mr. W. Theobald makes the following remarks on the breeding of this bird in the Valley of Cashmere :— “Lays in the third week of April. Eggs four in number, ovato- pyriform, measuring from 1:6 to 1-7 in length and from 1:2 to 1:25 in breadth. Colour green spotted with brown; valley generally. Nest placed in Chinar and difficult trees.” Captain Hutton tells us that the Corby “occurs at Mussoorie throughout the year, and is very destructive to young fowls and pigeons; it breeds in May and June, and selects a tall tree, near a house or village, on which to build its nest, which is composed externally of dried sticks and twigs, and lined with grass and hair, which latter material it will pick from the backs of horses and cows, or from skins of animals laid out to dry. I have had skins of the Surrow (Nemorhadus thar) nearly destroyed by their de- predations. The eggs are three or four in number.” From the plains I have very few notes. I transcribe a few of my own. “ On the 11th March, near Oreyah, I found a nest of a Corby— a good large stick nest, built with tamarind twigs, and placed fully 40 feet from the ground in the fork of a mango-tree standing by itself, The nest measured quite 18 inches in diameter and five in thickness. It was a nearly flat platform with a central depression 8 inches in diameter, and not more than 2 deep, but there was a solid pad of horsehair more than an inch thick below this. I took the mass out; it must have weighed half a pound. Four eggs much incubated. “* Etawah, 14th March.—Another nest at the top of one of thehuge tamarind-trees behind the Asthul: could not get up to it. A boy brought the nest down; it was not above a foot across, and perhaps 8 inches deep; cavity about 6 inches in diameter, thickly lined. with grass-roots, inside which again was a coating of horsehair perhaps a rupee in thickness; nest swarming with vermin. Eggs five, quite fresh; four eggs normal; one quite round, a pure pale slightly greenish blue, with only a few very minute spots and specks of brown having a tendency to form a feeble zone round 6 CORVIDA. the large end. Measures only 1:25 by 1:2. Neither in shape, size, nor colour is it like a Corby’s egg; but it is not a Koel’s, or that of any of our parasitic Cuckoos, and I have seen at home similar pale eggs of the Rook, Hooded Crow, Carrion-Crow, and Raven. “ Bareilly, May 10th.—Three fresh eggs in large nest on a mango-tree. Nest as usual, but lined with an immense quantity of horsehair. We brought this home and weighed it ; it weighed six ounces, and horsehair is very light.” Major C. T. Bingham writes :— “This Crow, so common at Allahabad, is very scarce here at Delhi. In fact I have only seen one pair. & At Allahabad it lays in February and March. I have, how- ever, only found one nest, a rather loose structure of twigs and a few thick branches with rather a deep depression in the centre. It was placed on the very crown of a high toddy palm (Borassus flabelliformis), and was unlined save for a wad of human hair, on which the eggs, two in number, lay; these JI found hard-set (on the 13th March); in colour they were a pale greenish blue, boldly blotched, spotted, and speckled with brown.” Colonel Butler has furnished me with the following note on the breeding of the Jungle-Crow :— “Belgaum, 12th March, 1880.—A nest containing four fresh eggs. It consisted of a loose structure of sticks lined with hair and leaves, and was placed at the top of and in the centre of a -green-foliaged tree in a well-concealed situation about 30 feet from the ground. 18th March: Two nests, each containing three slightly incubated eggs; one of the nests was quite low down in the centre of an ‘arbor vite’ about 12 feet from the ground. 31st March: Another nest containing four slightly incubated eggs. Some of the latter nests were very solidly built, and not so well concealed. 11th April: Two more nests, containing five incubated and three slightly mcubated eggs respectively; and on the 14th April a nest containing four slightly incubated eggs. These birds, when the eggs are at all incubated, often sit very close, especially if the nest is in an open situation, and in many instances I have thrown several stones at the nest, and made as much row as I could below without driving the old bird off, and I have seen my nest-seeker within a few yards of the nest after climbing the tree before the old bird flew off. On the 26th of April I found two more nests, one containing four young birds just hatched, the other three fresh eggs. On the 27th another nest containing three fresh eggs, and on the 28th a nest of three fresh eggs. On the 5th May two more nests containing four fresh and four incubated eggs respectively.” “In the Nilghiris,” writes Mr. Davison, “the Corby builds a coarse nest of twigs, lined with cocoanut-fibre or dry grass hich up in some densely-foliaged tree. The eggs are usually four, often five, in number. The birds lay in April and May.” Miss Cockburn again says :—‘‘ They build like all Crows on large trees merely by laying a few sticks together on some strong branch, CORVUS. 7 generally very high up in the tree. I do not remember ever seeing more than one nest on a tree at a time, so that they differ very much from the Rook in that respect. They lay four eggs of a bluish green, with dusky blotches and spots, and nothing can exceed the care and attention they bestow on their young. Even when the latter are able to leave their nests and take long flights, the parent birds will accompany them as if to prevent their getting into mischief. The nests are found in April and May.” Mr. J. Darling, jun., writes from the Nilghiris :—“ 1 have found the nest of this Crow pretty nearly all over the Nilghiris. The usual number of eggs laid is four, but on one occasion, near the Quinine Laboratory in the Government Gardens at Ooty, I pro- cured six from one nest. The breeding-season is from March to May, but I have taken eggs as early as the 12th February.” From Ceylon, we hear from Mr. Layard that “about the villages the Carrion-Crow builds its nest in the cocoanut-trees. In the jungles it selects a tall tree, amid the upper branches of which it fixes a framework of sticks, and on this constructs a nest of twigs and grasses. The eggs, from three to five, are usually of a dull greenish-brown colour, thickly mottled with brown, these markings being most prevalent at the small end. They are usually laid in January and February.” Mr. J. R. Cripps informs us that in Eastern Bengal it is “common and a permanent resident. Occasionally found in the clumps of jungle that are found about the country, which the next species never affects. Breeds in the cold weather. I had noticed a pair building on a Casuarina tree in my garden, about 50 feet off the ground, and on the 18th December, 1877, I took two per- fectly fresh eges from it; and again on the 9th January, 1878, I found two callow young in this same nest, the birds never having deserted it. The lining used for this nest was principally jute- fibre—any tree is selected to build on; the nests are placed from 15 to 50 feet off the ground. Some nests are very well concealed, whereas others are quite exposed. On the 15th January I found a nest about 15 feet up a small kudum tree, standing in a large plain, and which had a lining of hair from the tail-tufts of cows. There was one fresh egg, and a week later I got another fresh egg from this very nest. From two to four eggs are in each nest.” Mr. Oates writes from Pegu :—“ These birds all begin to build about the same time, and I have taken numerous nests at the end of January. At the end of February most nests contain young birds.” Mr. W. Theobald gives the following notes on the nidification of this bird in Tenasserim and near Deoghur :— “ Lays in the third week of February and fourth week of March ; eges ovato-pyriform ; size 1:66 by 1:15; colour, dull sap-green much blotched with brown ; nest carefully placed in tall trees.” The eggs, though smaller, closely resemble, as might have been expected, those of the Raven, but they are, I think, typically some- what broader and shorter. Almost every variety, as far as colora- 8 CORVIDE. tion goes, to be found amongst those of the Raven, are found amongst the eggs of the present species, and vice versd ; and for a description of these it is only necessary to refer to the account of the former species; but I may notice that amongst the eggs of C. macrorhynchus I have not yet noticed any so boldly blotched as is occasionally the case with somé of the eggs of the Raven, which remind one not a little, so far as the character of the markings go, of eggs of Edicnemus crepitans and Esacus recurvirostris. Like those of the Raven the eggs exhibit little gloss, though here and there a fairly glossy egg is met with. Eggs from various parts of the Himalayas, of the plains of Upper India, of the hills and plains of Southern India, do not differ in any respect. Inter se the eggs from each locality differ surprisingly in size, in tone of colour, and in character of markings; but when you compare a dozen or twenty from each locality, you find that these differences are purely indi- vidual and in no degree referable to locality. There are just as big eggs and just as small ones from Simla and Kotegurh, from Cashmere, from Etawah, Bareilly, Futtehgurh, from Kotagherry, and Conoor ; all that one can possibly say is that perhaps the Plains birds do on the average lay a shade larger eggs than the Himalayan or Nilghiri ones. Taking the eggs as a whole, I think that in size and shape they are about intermediate between the eggs of the European Carrion- Crow and Rook. But they vary, as I said, astonishingly in size, from 1°5 to 1:95 in length, and in breadth from 1:12 to 1:22, and I have one perfectly spherical egg, a deformity of course, which measures 1°25 by 1:2. The average of thirty Himalayan eggs is 1°73 by 1-18, of twenty Plains eggs 1:74 by 1:2, and of fifteen Nilghiri eggs 1-7 by 1-18. I would venture to predict that with fifty of each, there would not be a hundredth of an inch between their averages. 7. Corvus splendens, Vieill. Zhe Indian House-Crow. Corvus splendens, Vieill. Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 298. Corvus impudicus, Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. §& E. no, 663. Throughout India and Upper Burma the Common Crow resides and breeds, not ascending the hills either in Southern or Northern India to any great elevation, but breeding up to 4000 feet in the Himalayas. The breeding-season par excellence is June and July, but occa- sional nests will be found earlier even in Upper India, and in Southern and Eastern Indiaa great number lay in May. The nests are commonly placed in trees without much regard to size or kind, though densely foliaged ones are preferred, and I have just as often found several in the same tree as single ones. At times they will build in nooks of ruins or large deserted buildings, where these are in well inhabited localities, but out-of many thousands I have only seen three or four nests in such abnormal positions. The nest is placed in some fork, and is usually a ragged stick CORVUS. 9 platform, with a central depression lined with grass-roots; but they are not particular as to material; I have found wool, rags, grass, and all kinds of vegetable fibre, and Mr. Blyth mentions that he has “ seen several nests composed more or less, and two almost exclusively, of the wires taken from soda-water bottles, which had been purloined from the heaps of these wires commonly set aside by the native servants until they amount to a saleable quantity.” Four is the normal number of eggs laid, but I often have found five, and on two occasions six. It is in this bird’s nest that the Koel chiefly lays. Writing of Nepal, Dr. Scully remarks :—“ In the valley it lays in May and June; some twenty nests were once examined on the 28rd June, and half the number then contained young birds.” Major Bingham says:—‘“ Very common, of course, both at Allahabad and at Delhi, and breeds in June, July, and beginning of August. At Allahabad it is much persecuted by the Koel (Eudynamys orientalis), every fourth or fifth nest that I found in some topes of mango-trees having one or two of the Koel’s eggs.” Colonel Butler informs me that in Karachi it “ begins to lay in the mangrove bushes in the harbour as early as the end of May ;” and that it “ breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa in June, July, and August, commencing to build in the last week of May.” Later, he writes :—“ Belgaum, 15th May, 1879. Found nume- rous nests in the native infantry lines in low trees, containing fresh and incubated eggs and young birds of all sizes. In the same locality, on the 30th March, 1880, I found a nest containing four young birds able to fly; the eggs must therefore have been laid quite as early as the middle of February, if not earlier.” Mr. G. W. Vidal writes :—“ The Common Crow appears to have two broods in the year in our district (Ratnagiri), the first in April and May, and the second in November and December. In these four months I have found nests, eggs, and young birds in several different places in the district, and as yet at no other times. It is extremely improbable that there should be one breeding-season lasting from April to December, and I think I may state with certainty that the Crows do not breed at Ratnagiri during the months of heaviest rainfall, viz. July, August, and September. As their breeding in November and December appears to be exceptional, I subjoin a record of the few nests I examined. “ Noy. 22, 1878. Ratnagiri : “ One nest with 3 young birds. 53 5 1 fresh ege. “Nov. 23, 1878. Ratnagiri: “ One nest with 1 fresh egg. es 35 1 fresh egg. “Dec. 4, 1878. Saugmeshwar.—One nest with 3 eggs hard-set ; another nest probably containing young birds, but the Crows pecked so viciously at the man who was climbing the tree, that he got frightened and came down again without reaching the nest. 10 CORVIDE. Crows with sticks and feathers in their mouths are flying about all day. “Dec. 5, 1878. Aroli.—Found a nest with a Crow sitting in it; no one to climb the tree.” Mr. Benjamin Aitken has favoured me with the following in- teresting note :—“ I send you anaccount of a nest of the Common Crow, found in October, 1874, in the town of Madras. My attention was first directed to the remarkable pair of Crows to which the nest belonged, in the end of July, when they were determinedly and industriously attempting to fix a nest on the top ledge of a pillar in the verandah of the ‘ Madras Mail’ office. The ledge was so narrow that one would have thought the Sparrow alone of all known birds would have selected it for a site; and even the Sparrow only under the condition of a writing or toilet- table being underneath to catch the lime, sticks, straws, rags, feathers, and other innumerable materials that commonly strew the ground below a Sparrow’s nest. I was told that the Crows had been at their task for two months before I saw them, and I then watched them till nearly the end of October. The celebrated spider that taught King Bruce a lesson in patience was eager and fitful compared with this pair of Crows. I kept no account of the number of times their structure was blown down, only to be immediately begun again; but as there wasa good deal of rain and wind at that season, in addition to the regular sea-breeze, it was a common thing for the sticks to be cleared off day after day. But perseverance will often achieve seeming impossibilities, and, more- over, the Crows worked more indefatigably as the season went on, and used to run up their nest with great rapidity (no doubt, also, they improved by their practice); so that several times the struc- ture was completed, or nearly completed, before being swept to the ground, though how it remained in its place for a moment seems a mystery; and twice I saw a broken egg among the scattered débris. At length, about the middle of September, the Crows de- termined to try the pillar at the other end of the verandah. By this time, of course, all the Crows in Madras had long brought up their broods and sent them adrift ; and what they thought to see an eccentric pair of their own species forsaking society, and building in September, may be imagined. The new site selected differed in no respect from the old one, and was no less exposed to the wind; but the birds had grown expert at building ‘castles in the air, and now met with fewer mishaps. In the first week of October the hen bird was sitting regularly, so on the 8th of the month I sent a man up by a ladder, and he held. up four eggs for me to look at. It fairly seemed after this that patience was to have its reward, but on the night of the 20th there came a storm of wind and rain, and when I went to the office in the morning, the nest was lying on the ground, with two young Crows in it, with the feathers just beginning to appear. The other two, I suppose, had fallen over into the street. And thus ended one of the most persevering attempts on record to overcome a difficulty insurmountable from CORVUS. 11 the first. The old birds thought it time now to stop operations, and frequented the office no more. “T am told by a gentleman in the ‘ Mail’ office that the Crows have built in that verandah regularly for five or six years past, but nobody seems to have watched the nests. Iam, therefore, hopeful that the attempt will be repeated this year, in which case I will keep a diary of all that takes place.” He writes subsequently :—*I sent you a long story in my last batch of notes about two eccentric Crows that succeeded in building a nest upon the narrow ledge of a pillar in the verandah of my office, several months after all well-conducted Crows had sent out their progeny to battle with the world. I mentioned to you that they were said to build in that unnatural place every year, and I said that I would watch them this year. “Well, would you believe it? on the 26th July, when every other Crow’s nest in Madras had hard-set eggs, or newly-hatched young ones, these two indefatigable birds set methodically to work to construct a nest on the south pilldr—the one where all their earlier efforts were made last year, but not the one on which they suc- ceeded in fixing their nest. They worked all the 26th and 27th, putting up sticks as fast as they fell down, and then desisted till the 4th August, when they began operations on the opposite (north) pillar with redoubled energy. Meeting with no better success they left off operations after a couple of days’ fruitless labour. Yester- day (after a delay of five weeks) they set to work on the south pillar again and succeeded in raising a great pile, which, however, was ignominiously blown down in the afternoon. Today they are continuing their work indefatigably.” Mr. J. R. Cripps has the following note in his list of birds of Furreedpore, Eastern Bengal :—‘ Very common, and a permanent resident, affecting the haunts of man. They build and lay in May. The Koel lays its eggs in this bird’s nest. In.April, 1876, I saw two nests in the compound of the house in which I lived at Howrah, which were made entirely of galvanized wire, the thickest piece of which was as thick asa slate pencil. How the birds managed to bend these thick pieces of wire was a marvel to us ; not a stick was incorporated with the wires, and the lining of the nest (which was of the ordinary size) was jute and a few feathers. The railway goods-yard, which was alongside the house, supplied the wire, of which there was ever so much lying about there.” Typically the eggs may, I think, be said to be rather broad ovals, a good deal pointed towards the small end ; but really the eggs vary so much in shape that, even with nearly two hundred before me, it is difficult to decide what is really the most typical form. Pyriform, elongated, and globular varieties are common; long Cormorant-shaped eggs and perfect ovals are not uncommon. As regards the colour of the ground, and colour, character, and extent of marking, all that I have above said of the Raven’s eggs applies to those of this species, but varieties occur amongst those of the latter which I have not observed in those of the former. In some the 12 CORVIDE. ground is a very pale pire bluish green, in others it is dingier and greener. All are blotched, speckled, and streaked more or less with somewhat pale sepia markings; but in some the spots and specks are a darker brown and, as a rule, well defined, and there is very little streaking, while in others the brown is pale and muddy, the markings ill-defined, and nearly the whole surface of the egg is freckled over with smudgy streaks. Sometimes the markings are most numerous at the large end, sometimes at the small; no two eggs are exactly alike, and yet they have so strong a family resemblance that there is no possibility of mistaking them. Generally the markings as a whole are Jess bold, and the general colour of a large body of them laid together is bluer and brighter than that of a similar drawer-full of Ravens’ eggs. As a whole, too, they are more glossy. I have one egg before me bright blue and almost as glossy as a Mynah’s, thickly blotched and speckled at the broad end, and thinly spotted elsewhere with olive-green, blackish-brown, and pale purple. Another egg, a pale pure blue, is spotless, except at the large end, where there is a conspicuous cap of olive-brown and olive-green spots and speckles, and there are numerous other abnormal varieties which I have not observed amongst the Ravens. On the whole the eggs do not vary much in size; out of one hundred and ninety-seven, one hundred and ninety-five varied between 1:28 and 1°65 in length, and 0-98 and 1:15 in breadth. One egg measures only 1:2 in length, and one is only 0-96 in breadth ; but the average of the whole is 1-44 by 1:06. 8. Corvus insolens, Hume. The Burmese House-Crow, Corvus insolens, Hume; Hume, Cat. no, 663 bis. The Burmese House-Crow breeds pretty well over the whole of Burma. Mr. Oates, writing from Pegu, says :—‘ Nesting operations are commenced about the 20th March. The nest and eggs require no separate description, for both appear to be similar to those of CO. splendens.” When large series of the eggs of both these species are com- pared, those of the Burmese Crow strike one as averaging some- what brighter coloured, otherwise they are precisely alike and need no separate description. 9. Corvus monedula, Linn. The Jackdaw. Coleeus monedula (Linn.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 302. Corvus monedula, Linn., Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no. 665, I only know positively of Jackdaws breeding in one district within our limits, viz. Cashmere; but I have seen it in the hills in summer, as far east as the Valley of the Beas, and it must breed everywhere in suitable localities between the two. PIOA. 13 In the cold season of course the Jackdaw descends into the plains of the North-west Punjaub, is very numerous near the foot of the hills, and has been found in cis-Indus as far east as Umballa, and south at Ferozpoor, Jhelum, and Kalabagh. In Trans-Indus it extends unto the Dehra Ghazi Khan district. I have never taken its eges myself. Mr. W. Theobald makes the following remarks on its nidifica- tion in the Valley of Cashmere :— “Lays in the first week of May; eggs four, five, and six in number, ovato-pyriform and long ovato-pyriform, measuring from 1:26, 1-45, to 1-60 in length, and from 0-9 to 1:00 in breadth ; colour pale, clear bluish green, dotted and spotted with brownish black; valley generally; in holes of rocks, beneath roofs, and in tall trees.” Dr. Jerdon says :—‘‘ It builds in Cashmere in old ruined palaces, holes in rocks, beneath roofs of houses, and also in tall trees, laying four to six eggs, pale bluish green, dotted and spotted with brownish black.” Mr. Brookes writes :—‘ The Jackdaw breeds in Cashmere in all suitable places: holes in old Chinar (Plane) trees, and in house- walls, under the eaves of houses, &c. I did not note the materials of the nests, but these will be the same as in England.” The eges of this species are typically rather elongated ovals, somewhat compressed towards one end. The shell is fine, but has only a faint gloss. The ground-colour is a pale greenish white, but in some eggs there is very little green, while in a very few the ground is quite a bright green. The markings, sometimes very fine and close, sometimes rather bold and thinly set, consist of specks or spots of deep blackish brown, olive-brown, and pale inky purple. In most eggs all these colours are represented, but in some eggs the olive-, in others the blackish brown is almost entirely wanting. In some eggs the markings are very dense towards the large end, in others they are pretty uniformly dis- tributed over the whole surface ; in some they are very minute and speckly, in others they average the tenth of an inch in diameter. The eggs that I possess vary from 1:34 to 1:52 in length, and from 0:93 to 1-02 in breadth ; but the average of sixteen eggs was 1:4 by 0:98. 10. Pica rustica (Scop.). The Magpie. Pica bactriana, Bp., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 668 bis. The Magpie breeds, we know, in Afghanistan, and also through- out Ladak from the Zojee-la Pass right up to the Pangong Lake, but it breeds so early that one is never in time for the eggs. The passes are not open until long after they are hatched. Captain Hutton says this bird “is found all the year round from Quettah to Girishk, and is very common. They breed in 14 CORVIDA. March, and the young are fledged by the end of April. The nest is like that of the European bird, and all the manners of the Afghan Magpie are precisely the same. They may be seen at all seasons.” From Afghanistan, Lieut. H. E. Barnes writes :— “The Magpie is not uncommon in the hills wherever there are trees, but it seldom descends to the plains. They commence breeding in March, in which month and April I have examined scores of nests, which in every case were built in the ‘ Wun,’ a species of Pistacia—the only tree found hereabouts. A stout fork near the top is usually selected. “The nest is shallow and cup-shaped, with a superstructure of twigs, forming a canopy over the ege-cavity. The eggs, generally five in number, are of the usual corvine green, blotched, spotted, and streaked, as a rule, most densely about the large end with umber mingled with sepia-brown. The average of thirty eggs is 1:25 by ‘97.” Colonel Biddulph writes in ‘The Ibis’ that in Gilgit he took a nest with five eggs, hard set, in a mulberry-tree at Nonval (5600 feet) on the 9th May. Also another nest with three fresh eggs at Dayour (5200 feet) on the 25th May. The eggs are typically rather elongated ovals, rather pointed towards the small end, but shorter and broader varieties, and occa- sionally ones with a pyriform tendency, occur. The ground is a greenish or brownish white. In some eggs it has none, in others a slight gloss. Everywhere the eggs are finely and _ streakly freckled with a brown that varies from olive almost to sepia; about the large end the markings are almost always most dense, forming there a more or less noticeable, but quite irregular and undefined cap or zone. In one or two eggs dull purplish-brown clouds or blotches underlie and intermingle with this cap, and occasionally a small spot of this same tint may be noticed elsewhere when the ege is closely examined. 12. Urocissa occipitalis (Bl.). The Red-billed Blue Magpie. Urocissa sinensis (Linn.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 309. Urocissa occipitalis (B/.), Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no. 671. I have never myself found the nest of the Red-billed Blue Mag- pie; although it does breed sparingly as far east as Simla and Kote- gurh, itis not till you cross the Jumna that it is abundant. East of the Jumna, about Mussoorie, Teeree, Gurhwal, Kumaon, and in Nepal, it is common. From Mussoorie Captain Hutton tells us that “this species occurs at Mussoorie throughout the year. It breeds at an elevation of 5000 feet in May and June, making a loose nest of twigs exter- nally and lined with roots. The nest is built on trees, sometimes high up, at others about 8 or 10 feet from the ground. The eggs are from three to five, of a dull greenish ash-grey, blotched and UROOCISSA. 15 speckled with brown dashes confluent at the larger end, the ends nearly equal in size. Itis very terrene in its habits, feeding almost entirely on the ground.” Colonel G. F. I. Marshall remarks :— “The Red-billed Blue Magpie is, as far as I know, an early breeder at Naini Tal; common as the bird is I have only found one nest and that on the 24th April; it was a shallow slenderly built structure of fine roots, chiefly of maiden-hair fern, in a rough outer casing of twigs, placed on a horizontal bough overhanging a nullah about fifteen feet from the ground. The tree had mode- rately dense foliage, and was about twenty-five feet high in a small clump on a hillside covered with low scrub at 5000 feet elevation above the sea. Around the nest several small boughs and twigs grew out, and being very slight in structure it was not easy to see. The old bird sat very close. There were six eggs in the nest about halfincubated ; in two of them the markings were densest at the small end. The egg-cavity was 6 inches in diameter by about 13 deep. On the 5th June I saw old birds accompanied by young ones able to fly, but without the long tails.” . The eggs of this species much resemble those of the European Magpie, but are considerably smaller. They are broad, rather perfect ovals, somewhat elongated and pointed in many specimens. They exhibit but little gloss. The ground-colour varies much, but in all the examples that I possess, which I owe to Captain Hutton’s kindness, it is either of a yellowish-cream, pale café uu lait or buff colour, or pale dull greenish. The ground is profusely blotched, spotted, and streaked (the general character of the markings being striations parallel to the major axis), with various shades of reddish and yellowish brown and pale inky purple. The markings vary much in intensity as well as in frequency, some being so closely set as to hide the greater part of the ground-colour; but in the majority of the eggs they are more or less confluent at the large end, where they form a comparatively dark, irregular blotchy zone. The eggs vary from 1:25 to 1:4 in length, and from 0°89 to 0°96 in breadth; but the ayerage of 11 eggs is 1:33 by 0°93. Major Bingham, referring to the Burmese Magpie, which has been separated under by the name of U. magnirostris, says :— “This species I have only found common in the Thoungyeen Valley. Elsewhere it seemed to me scarce. Below I give a note about its breeding. “T have found three nests of this handsome Magpie—two on the bank of the Meplay choung on the 14th April, 1879, and 5th March, 1880, respectively, and one near Meeawuddy on the Thoungyeen river on the 19th March, 1880. “The first contained three, the second four, and the third two egos. eS These are all of the same type, dead white, with pale claret- coloured dashes and spots rather washed-out looking, and lying chiefly at the large end. One egg has the spots thicker at the 16 CORVID. small end. They are moderately broad ovals, and vary from 1:19 to 1:35 in length, and from 0:93 to 1°08 in breadth. “The nests were all alike, thick solid structures of twigs and branches, lined with finer twigs about 8 or 9 inches in diameter, and placed invariably at the top of tall straight saplings of teak, pynkado (Xylia dolabriformis), and other trees at a height of about 15 feet from the ground.” All the eggs of the Burmese bird that I have seen, nine taken by Major Bingham, were of one and the same type. The eggs broad ovals, in most cases pointed towards the small end. The shell fine, but as a rule with scarcely any perceptible gloss. The ground- colour a delicate creamy white. The markings moderate-sized blotches, spots, streaks, and specks, as a rule comparatively dense about one, generally the large, end, where only as a rule any at all considerable sized blotches occur, elsewhere more or less sparsely set, and generally of a speckly character. The markings are of two colours: brown, varying in shade in different eggs, olive-yel- lowish, chocolate, and a grey, equally varying in different eggs from pale purple to pale sepia. None of my eggs of the Himalayan bird (I have unfortunately but few of these) correspond at all closely with these. 13. Urocissa flavirostris (Bl.). The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie. Urocissa flavirostris (Bl.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 310; Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no. 672, The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie breeds throughout the lower ranges of the Himalayes in well-wooded localities from Hazara to Bhootan, and very likely further east still, from April to August, mostly however, I think, laying in May. The nest, which is rather coarse and large, made of sticks and lined with fine grass or grass-roots, is, so far as my experience goes, commonly placed in a fork near the top of some moderate-sized but densely foliaged tree. I have never found a nest at a lower elevation than about 5000 feet ; as a rule they are a good deal higher up. They lay from four to six eggs, but the usual number is five. Colonel CO. H. T. Marshall writes :—“ The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie breeds commonly about Murree. I have never seen the bird below 6000 feet in the breeding-season. They do not com- mence laying till May, and I have taken eggs nearly fresh as late as the 15th August. J do not think the bird breeds twice, as the earliest eggs taken were found on the 10th May. “They build in hill oaks as a rule, the height of the nest from the ground varying much, some being as low as 10 feet, others nearer 30 feet. The hen bird sits close, and sometimes (when the nest is high up) does not even leave the nest when the tree is struck below. The nest is a rough structure built close to the trunk, externally consisting of twigs and roots and lined with fibres. The egg-cavity is circular and shallow, not at all neatly CISA, 17 lined. The outer part of the nest is large compared to what I should call the true nest, and consists of a heap of twigs, &c., like what is gathered together for the platform of a Crow’s nest. “The eggs, which are four in number, vary in length from 1:45 to 1-25, and in breadth from 0:9 to 0°75. The ordinary type is an egg a good deal pointed at the thinner end. The ground-colour is greenish white, blotched and freckled with ruddy brown, with a ring at the larger end of confluent spots. The young birds are of a very dull colour until after the first month. The normal number of eggs laid appears to be four.” Captain Cock wrote to me :—* U. flavirostris is common at Dhurmsala, but the nest is rather difficult to find. Ihave only taken six in three years. It is usually placed amongst the branches of the hill oak, where it has been polled, and the thickly growing shoots afford a good cover; but sometimes it is on the top of a small slender sapling. The nest is a good-sized structure of sticks with a rather deep cup lined with dried roots; in fact, it is very much like the nest of Garrulus lanceolatus, only larger and much deeper. They generally lay four eggs, which differ much in colour and markings.” Dr. Jerdon says :—“ I had the nest and eggs brought me once. The nest was made of sticks and roots. The eggs, three in number, were of a greenish-fawn colour very faintly blotched with brown.” The eggs are of the ordinary Indian Magpie type, scarcely, if at all, smaller than those of U. occipitalis, and larger than the average of eggs of either Dendrociita rufa or D. himalayensis. Doubtless all kinds of varieties occur, as the eggs of this family are very variable ; but I have only seen two types—in the one the ground is a pale dingy yellowish stone-colour, profusely streaked, blotched, and mottled with a somewhat pale brown, more or less olivaceous in some eggs, the markings even in this type being generally densest towards the large end, where they form an irregular mottled cap: in the other type the ground is a very pale greenish-drab colour; there is a dense confluent raw-sienna-coloured zone round the large end, and only a few spots and specks of the same colour scattered about the rest of the egg. AJ] hinds of intermediate varieties occur. The texture of the shell is fine and compact, and the eggs are mostly more or less glossy. The eggs vary from 1°22 to 1:48 in length, and from 0°8 to 0-96 in breadth ; but the average of twenty-seven eggs is 1°3 by 0:92. 14. Cissa chinensis (Bodd.). The Green Magpie. Cissa sinensis (Briss.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 812. Cissa specioea (Shaw), Hume, Rough Draft N. § L. no. 673. According to Mr. Hodgson’s notes the Green Magpie breeds in Nepal in the lower valleys and in the Terai from April to July. The nest is built in clumps of bamboos and is large and cup-shaped, composed of sticks and leaves, coated externally with bamboo-leaves “VOL. I. 18 CORVIDE. and vegetable fibres, and lined inside with fine roots. It lays four eggs, one of which is figured as a broad oval, a good deal pointed towards one end, with a pale stone-coloured ground freckled and mottled all over with sepia-brown, and measuring 1:27 by 0°89. Mr. Oates writes:—In the Pegu Hills on the 19th April I found the nest of the Green Magpie, and shot the female off it. “The nest was placed ina small tree, about 20 feet from the ground, in a nullah and well exposed to view. The nest was neatly built, exteriorly of leaves and coarse roots, and finished off interiorly with finer fibres and roots ; depth about 2 inches ; inside diameter 6 inches. Contained three eggs nearly hatched ; all got broken; I have the fragments of one. The ground-colour is greenish white, much spotted and freckled with pale yellowish- brown spots and dashes, more soat the larger end than elsewhere.” Sundry fragments that reached me, kindly sent to me by Mr. Oates, had a dull white ground, very thickly freckled and mottled all over, as far as I could judge, with dull, pale, yellowish brown and purplish grey, the former preponderating greatly. As to size and shape, this deponent sayeth nought. Major Bingham writes from Tenasserim :—* On the 18th April I found a nest of this most lovely bird placed at a height of 5 feet from the ground in the fork of a bamboo-bush. It was a broad, massive, and rather shallow cup of twigs, roots, and bamboo-leaves outside, and lined with finer roots. It contained three eggs of a pale greenish stone-colour, thickly and very minutely speckled with brown, which tend to coalesce and form a cap at the larger end. I shot the female as she flew off the nest.” Major Bingham subsequently found another nest in Tenasserim, about which he says :— “Crossing the Wananatchoung, a little tributary of the Thoun- gyeen, by the highroad leading from Meeawuddy to the sources of the Thoungyeen, I found in a small thorny tree on the 8th April a nest of the above bird—a great, firmly-built but shallow saucer of twigs, 6 feet or so above the ground, and lined with fine black roots. It contained three fresh eggs of a dingy greyish white, thickly speckled chiefly at the large end, where it forms a cap, with light purplish brown. The eggs measure 1-25 x 0°89, 1:18 x 0-92, and 1:20 x 0:90.” Mr. James Inglis notes from Cachar :—“ This Jay is rather rare; it frequents low quiet jungle. In April last a Kuki brought me three young ones he had taken from a nest in a clump of tree- jungle; he said the nest was some 20 feet from the ground and made of bamboo-leaves and grass.” A nest of this species taken below Yendong in Native Sikhim, on the 28th April, contained four fresh eggs. It was placed on the branches of a medium-sized tree at a height of about 12 feet from the ground ; it was a large oval saucer, 8 inches by 6, and about 2°5 in depth, composed mainly of dry bamboo-leaves, bound firmly together with fine stems of creepers, and was lined with CISSA.—DENDROCITTA, 19 moderately fine roots; the cavity was 5 inches by 4, and about 1 in depth. The eggs received from Major Bingham, as also others received from Sikhim, where they were procured by Mr. Mandelli on the 21st and 28th of April, are rather broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards the small end. ‘The shell is fine, but has only a little gloss. The ground-colour is white or slightly greyish white, and they are uni- formly freckled all over with very pale yellowish and greyish brown. The frecklings are always somewhat densest at the large end, where in some eggs they form a dull brown cap or zone. In some eggs the markings are everywhere denser, in some sparser, so that some eggs look yellower or browner, and others paler. The eggs are altogether of the Garruline type, not of that of the Dendrocitta or Urocissa type. I have eggs of G. lanceolatus, that but for being smaller precisely match some of the Cissa eggs. Jerdon is, I think, certainly wrong in placing Cissa between Uro- cissa and Dendrocitta, the eggs of which two last are of the same and quite a distinct type*. The eggs vary from 1°15 to 1-26 in length, and from 0:9 to 0:95 in breadth, but the average of eight is 1:21 by 0:92. 15. Cissa ornata (Wagler). The Ceylonese Magpie. Cissa ornata (Wagl.), Hume, Cat. no. 673 bis, Colonel Legge writes in his ‘ Birds of Ceylon’ :—“ This bird breeds during the cool season. I found its nest in the Kandapolla jungles in January ; it was situated in a fork of the top branch of a tall sapling, about 45 feet in height, and was a tolerably bulky structure, externally made of small sticks, in the centre of which was a deep cup 5 inches in diameter by 23 in depth, made entirely of fine roots ; there was but one egg in the nest, which unfortu- nately got broken in being lowered to the ground. It was ovate and slightly pyriform, of a faded bluish-green ground thickly spotted all over with very light umber-brown over larger spots of bluish- grey. It measured 0:98 inch in diameter by about 1-3 in length.” 16. Dendrocitta rufa (Scop.). The Indian Tree-pie. Dendrocitta rufa (Scop.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 314; Hume, Rough Notes N. §& E. no, 674, The Indian Tree-pie breeds throughout the continent of India, alike in the plains and in the hills, up to an elevation of 6000 or 7000 feet. * I am responsible, and not Mr. Hume, for calling this bird a Magpie. Jerdon calls it a Jay, but places it among the Magpies, which is, I cunsider, its proper position, notwithstanding the colour of its eggs.—Iip. ae 20 CORVIDE. I personally have found the nest with eggs-in May, June, July, and during the first week of August, in various districts in the North-West Provinces, and have had them sent me from Saugor (taken in July) and from Hansi (taken in April, May, and June) ; but perhaps because the bird is so common scarcely any one has sent me notes about its nidification, and I hardly know whether in other parts of India and Burma its breeding-season is the same as with us. The nest is always placed in trees, generally in a fork, near the top of good large ones; babool and mango are very commonly chosen in the North-West Provinces, though I have also found it on neem and sisso trees. It is usually built with dry twigs as a foundation, very commonly thorny and prickly twigs being used, on which the true nest, composed of fine twigs and lined with grass-roots, is constructed. The nests vary much: some are large and loosely put together, say, fully 9 inches in diameter and 6 inches in height externally ; some are smaller and more densely built, and perbaps not above 7 inches in diameter and 4 inches in depth. The egg-cavity is usually about 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches in depth, but they vary very much both in size and materials; and I see that I note of one nest taken at Agra on the 3rd August— “A very shallow saucer some 6 inches in diameter, and with a central depression not above 14 inch in depth. It was composed exclusively of roots; externally somewhat coarse, internally of somewhat finer ones. It was very loosely put together.” Five is the full complement of eggs, but it is very common to find only four fully incubated ones. Mr. W. Blewitt writes that he “found several nests in the latter half of April, May, and the early part of June in the neigh- bourhood of Hansie. “ Four was the greatest number of eges I found in any nest. “The nests were placed in neem, keekur, and shishum trees, at heights of from 10 to 17 feet from the ground, and were densely built of twigs mostly of the keekur and shishum, and more or less thickly lined with fine straw and leaves. They varied from 6 to 8 inches in diameter and from 4% to 3 inches in depth.” Mr. A. Anderson writes :—‘‘ The Indian Magpie lays from April to July, and I have once actually seen a pair building in February. Their eggs are of two very distinct types,—the one which, accord- ing to my experience, is the ordinary one, is covered all over with reddish-brown spots or rather blotches, chiefly towards the big end, on a pale greenish-white ground, and is rather a handsome ege ; the other is a pale green egg with faint brown markings, which are confined almost entirely to the obtuse end. I have another clutch of eggs taken at Budaon in 1865, which presents an intermediate variety between the above two extremes; these are profusely blotched with russet-brown on a dirty-white ground. “The second and third nests above referred to contained five eggs; but the usual complement is not more than four. On the 2nd August, 1872, I made the following note relative to the breeding DENDROCITTA, 21 of this bird :—The bird flew off immediately we approached the tree, and never appeared again. The nest viewed from below looked larger; this is owing to dry babool twigs or rather small branches (some of them having thorns from an inch to 2 inches long!) having been used as a foundation, and actually encircling the nest, no doubt by way of protection against vermin ; some of these thorny twigs were a foot long, and they had to be removed piecemeal before the nest proper could be got at. The egg-cavity is deep, measuring 5 inches in depth by 4 in breadth inside mea- surement; it is well lined with khus grass.” Major Bingham says :— “Common as is this bird I have only found one nest, and that was at Allahabad on the 9th July, and contained one half-fledged young one and an addled egg. The nest, which was placed at the very top of a large mango-tree, was constructed of branches and twigs of the same lined with fine grass-roots. The egg is a yellowish white, thickly speckled, chiefly at the large end, with rusty. Length 1-10 by 0°82 in breadth.” Colonel Butler tells us that it “breeds in Sind, in the hot weather. Mr. Doig took a nest containing three fresh eggs on the lst May, 1878. The eggs, which seem to me to be remarkably small for the size of the bird, are of the first type mentioned in Rough Draft of ‘Nests and Eggs,’ p. 422.” Ineut. H. E. Barnes says in his ‘ Birds of Bombay : ’—“ In Sind they breed during May and June, always choosing babool trees, placing the nest in astoutish fork near the top; they are composed at the bottom of thorny twigs, which form a sort of foundation upon which the true nest is built; the latter consists of fine twigs lined with grass-roots; the nest is frequently of large size.” Mr. G. W. Vidal, writing of the South Konkan, says :—‘ Com- mon about all well-wooded villages from coast to Ghats. Breeds in April.” With regard to Cachar Mr. Inglis writes:—“ This Magpie is very common in all the neighbouring villages, but I have not often seen it in the jungles. It remains all the year and breeds during April and May.” The eggs are typically somewhat elongated ovals, a good deal pointed towards the small end. They vary extraordinarily in colour and character, as well as extent of markings, but, as remarked when speaking of the Raven, all the eggs out of the same nest closely resemble each other, while the eggs of different nests are almost invariably markedly distinct. There are, however, two leading types—the one in which the markings are bright red, brownish red, or pale pinkish purple; and the other in which they are olive-brown and pale purplish brown. In the first type the ground-colour is either pale salmon, or else very pale greenish white, and the markings are either bold blotches, more or less con- fluent at the large end, where they are far most numerous, and only afew specks and spots towards the smaller end, or they are spots and small blotches thickly distributed over the whole surface, 22 CORVIDE. or they are streaky smudges forming a mottled ill-defined cap at the large end, and running down thence in streaks and spots longi- tudinally ; in the other type the ground-colour is greenish white or pale yellowish stone-colour, and the character of the markings varies as inthe preceding type. Besides these there are a few eggs with a dingy greyish-white ground, with very faint, cloudy, ill- defined spots of pale yellowish brown pretty uniformly distributed over the whole surface. In nine eggs out of ten the markings are most dense at the large end, where they form irregular, more or less imperfect caps or zones. A few of the eggs are slightly glossy. Of the salmon-pink type some specimens in their coloration resemble eggs of Dicrurus longicaudatus and some of our Goat- suckers, while of those with the greenish-white ground-colour some strongly recall the eggs of Lantus lahtora, In length the eggs vary from 1-0 to 1:3, and in breadth from 0-78 to 0°95; but the average of forty-four eggs is 1:17 by 0-87. 17. Dendrocitta leucogastra, Gould. The Southern Tree-pie. Dendrocitta leucogastra, Gould, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 817; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 678. From Travancore Mr. Bourdillon has kindly sent me an egg and the following note on the nidification of the Southern Tree-pie :— “Three eggs, very hard-set, of an ashy-white colour, marked with ashv and greenish-brown blotches, 1-12 long and 0°87 broad, were taken on 9th March, 1873, from a nest in a bush 8 or 10 feet from the ground. The nest of twigs was built after the style of the English Magpie’s nest, minus the dome. It consisted of a large platform 6 inches deep and 8 or 10 inches broad, supporting a nest 14 inch deep and 33 inches broad. The bird is not at all uncom- mon on the Assamboo Hills between the elevations of 1500 and 3000 feet above the sea, seeming to prefer the smaller jungle and more open parts of the heavy forest.” Later he writes :—‘‘ On the 8th April I found another nest con- taining three half-fledged Magpies (D. leucogastra). The nest was entirely composed of twigs, roughly but securely put together ; interior diameter 3 inches and depth 2 inches, though there was a good-sized base or platform, say, 5 inches in diameter. The nest was situated on the top fork of a sapling about 12 feet from the ground. I tried to rear the young birds, but they all died within a week.” The egg is very like that of our other Indian Tree-pies. It is in shape a broad and regular oval, only slightly compressed towards one end. The shell is fine and compact and is moderately glossy. The ground is acreamy stone-colour. It is profusely blotched and streaked with a somewhat pale yellowish brown, these markings being most numerous and darkest in a broad, irregular, imperfect zone round the large end, and it exhibits further a number of pale inky-purple clouds and blotches, which seem to underlie the brown markings, and which are chiefly confined to the broader half of the egg. The latter measures 1:13 by 0:86. DENDROCITTA, 23 18. Dendrocitta himalayensis, Bl. The Himalayan Tree-pie. Dendrocitta sinensis (Lath.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 816. Dendrocitta himalayensis, Bl, Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no, 676. Common as is the Himalayan Tree-pie throughout the lower ranges of those mountains from which it derives its name, I per- sonally have never taken a nest. It breeds, I know, at elevations of from 2000 to 6000 feet, during the latter half of May, June, July, and probably the first half of August. A nest in my museum taken by Mr. Gammie in Sikhim, at an elevation of about 2500 feet, out of a small tree, on the 30th of July, contained two fresh eggs. It was a very shallow cup, com- posed entirely of fine stems, apparently of some kind of creeper, strongly but not at all compactly interwoven ; in fact, though the nest holds together firmly, you can see through it everywhere. It is about 6 inches in external diameter, and has an ege-cavity of about 4 inches wide and 1:5 deep. It has no pretence for lining of any kind. Of another nest which he took Mr. Gammie says :—“TI found a nest containing three fresh eggs in a bush, at a height of about 10 feet from the ground. The nest was a very loose, shallow, saucer- like affair, some 6 or 7 inches in diameter and an inch or s0 in thickness, composed entirely of the dry stems and tendrils of creepers. This was at Labdah, in Sikhim, at an elevation of about 8000 feet, and the date the 14th May, 1873.” Later he writes :— ; “This Magpie breeds in the Darjeeling District in May, June, and July, most commonly at elevations between 2000 and 4000 feet. It affects clear cultivated tracts interspersed with a few standing shrubs and bamboos, in which it builds. The nest is generally placed from 6 to 12 feet from the ground in the inner part of the shrubs, and is made of pieces of creeper stems inter- mixed with a few small twigs loosely put together without any lining. There is scarcely any cup, merely a depression towards the centre for the eggs torest in. Internally it measures about 4°8 in breadth by 1:5 in depth. The eggs are three or four in number. “ This is a very common and abundant bird between 2000 and 4000 feet, but is rarely found far from cultivated fields. It seems to be exceedingly fond of chestnuts, and, in autumn, when they are ripe, lives almost entirely on them; but at other times is a great pest in the grain-fields, devouring large quantities of the grain and being held in detestation by the natives in consequence. Jerdon says ‘it usually feeds on trees,’ but I have seen it quite as frequently feeding on the ground as on trees.” Mr. Hodgson has two notes on the nidification of this species in Nepal :—‘ May 18th.—Nest, two eggs and two young ; nest on the fork of a small tree, saucer-shaped, made of slender twigs twisted circularly and without lining ; cavity 3°5.in diameter by 0°5 deep; 24 CORVIDE. eggs yellowish white, blotched with pale olive chiefly at the larger end; young just born. “ Jaha Powah, 6th June—Female and nest in forest on a largish tree placed on the fork of a branch ; a mere bunch of sticks like a Crow’s nest; three eggs, short and thick, fawny white blotched with fawn-brown chiefly.at the thick end.” Dr. Jerdon says :—‘‘ I have had the nest and eggs brought me at Darjeeling frequently. The nest is made of sticks and roots, and the eggs, three or four in number, are of a pale dull greenish-fawn colour, with a few pale reddish-brown spots and blotches, some- times very indistinct.” Captain Hutton tells us that this species “occurs abundantly at Mussoorie, at about 5000 feet elevation, during summer, and more sparingly at greater elevations. Inthe winter it leaves the moun- tains for the Dhoon. “ It breeds in May, on the 27th of which month I took a nest with three eggs and another with three young ones. The nest is like that of Urocissa occipitalis, being composed externally of twigs and lined with finer materials, according to the situation; one nest, taken in a deep glen by the side of a stream, was lined with the long fibrous leaves of the Mare’s tail (Zquisetum) which grew abun- dantly by the water’s edge; another, taken much higher on the hillside and away from the water, was lined with tendrils and fine roots. The nest is placed rather low, generally about 8 or 10 feet from the ground, sometimes at the extremity of a horizontal branch, sometimes in the forks of young bushy oaks. The eggs somewhat resemble those of U. occipitalis, but are paler and less spotted, being of a dull greenish ash with brown blotches and spots, somewhat thickly clustered at the larger end.” Mr. J. R. Cripps says :—“ On the 15th June, 1880, I found a nest [in the Dibragarh District] with three fresh eggs. It was fixed in the middle branches of a sapling, about ten feet off the ground, in dense forest, and was built of twigs, presenting a fragile appearance ; the egg-cavity was 44 inches [in diameter] and 1 inch deep, and lined with fine twigs and grass-roots.” Captain Wardlaw Ramsay writes :—‘ I obtained two eggs of this species at an elevation of 4200 feet in the Karen hills east of Toungngoo on the 16th April, 1875.” Taking the eggs as a body they are rather regular, somewhat elongated ovals, but broader and again more pointed varieties occur. The ground-colour varies a great deal: in a few it is nearly pure white, generally it has a dull greenish or yellowish-brown tinge, in some it is creamy, in some it has a decided pinky tinge. The markings are large irregular blotches and streaks, almost always most dense at the large end, where they are often more or less confluent, forming an irregular mottled cap, and not un- frequently very thinly set over the rest of the surface of the egg. In one egg, however, the zone is about the thick end, and there are scarcely any markings elsewhere. As a rule the markings are of an olive-brown of one shade or another; but when the ground CRYPSIRHINA, 25 is at all pinkish then the markings are more or less of a reddish brown. Besides these primary markings, all the eggs exhibit a greater or smaller number of faint lilac or purple spots or blotches, which chiefly occur where the other markings are most dense. In length they vary from 1:06 to 1-22, and in breadth from 0°8 to 1:0, but the average of 34 eggs is 1:14 by 0°85. 21. Crypsirhina varians (Lath.). The Black Racket-tailed Magpie. Crypsirhina varians (Lath.), Hume, Cat. no. 678 quat. This Magpie is very common in Lower Pegu, where Mr. Oates found many nests. He says :— “This bird appears to lay from the Ist of June to the 15th of July; most of my nests were taken in the latter month. It selects either one of the outer branches of a very leafy thorny bush, or perhaps more commonly a branch of a bamboo, at heights varying from 5 to 20 feet. “The nest is composed of fine dead twigs firmly woven together. The interior is lined with twisted tendrils of convolvulus and other creepers. The uniformity with which this latter material is used in all nests is remarkable. The inside diameter is 5 inches, and the depth only 1, thus making the structure very flat. The ex- terior dimensions are not so definite, for the twigs and creepers stick out in all directions ; but making all allowances, the outside diameter may be put down at 7 or 8 inches, and the total depth at 14 inches. “The eggs are usually three in number, but occasionally only two well incubated eggs may be found. In a uest from which two fresh eggs had been taken, a third was found a few days later. “ The eges measure from 1:09 to *88 in length, and from °76 to *63 in breadth. The average of 22 eggs is ‘98 by °72.” In shape the eggs are typically moderately broad, rather regular ovals, but some are distinctly compressed towards the small end, some are slightly pyriform, some even pointed, though in the great majority of cases the egg is pretty obtuse at the small end; tke shell is compact and tolerably fine, and has a faint gloss. The ground-colour seems to be invariably a pale yellowish stone-colour. The markings vary a good deal: in some they are more speckly, in others more streaky, but taking them as a whole they are inter- mediate between those of Dendrocitta and those of Garrulus, neither so bold and streaky as the former, nor so speckly as the latter. The markings area yellowish olive-brown; they consist of spots, specks, small streaky blotches and frecklings; they are always pretty densely set over the whole surface of the egg, but they are always most dense in a zone or sometimes a cap at the large end, where they are often, to a great extent, confluent. In some eggs small dingy brownish-purple spots and little blotches are intermingled in the zone. The eggs differ in general appear- 26 CORVIDA. ance a good deal, because in some almost all the markings are fine grained and freckly, and in such eggs but little of the ground- colour is visible, while in other eggs the markings are bolder (in comparison, for they are never really bold) and thinner set, and leave a good deal of the ground-colour visible. 23. Platysmurus leucopterus (Temm.). The White-winged Jay. Platysmurus leucopterus (Temm.), Hume, Cat. no. 678 quint. Mr. W. Davison writes :— “JT found a nest of this bird on the 8th of April at the hot springs at Ulu Laugat. The nest was built on the frond of a Calamus, the end of which rested in the fork of a small sapling. The nest was a great coarse structure like a Crow’s, but even more coarsely and irregularly built, and with the egg-cavity shallower. It was composed externally of small branches and twigs, and loosely lined with coarse fibres and strips of bark. It contained two young birds about a couple cf days old. The nest was placed about 6 feet from the ground. The surrounding jungle was moderately thick, with a good deal of undergrowth.” 24, Garrulus lanceolatus, Vigors. The Black-throated Jay. Garrulus lanceolatus, Vig., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 808; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 670. The Black-throated Jay breeds throughout the Himalayas, at elevations of from 4000 to 8000 feet, from the Valley of Nepal to Murree. They lay from the middle of April until the middle of June. They build on trees or thick bushes, never at any great height from the ground, and often within reach of the hand. They always, 1 think, choose a densely foliaged tree, and place the nest sometimes in a main fork and sometimes on some horizontal bough supported by one or more upright shoots. All the nests I have seen were moderately shallow cups, built with slender twigs and sticks, some 6 inches in external diameter, and from less than 8 inches to nearly 4 inches in height, with a nest-cavity some 4 inches across and 2 inches deep, lined with grass and moss-roots. Once only I found a nest almost entirely composed of grass, and with no lining but fine grass-stems. The eggs vary from four to six, but this latter number is rarely met with. Colonel C. H. T, Marshall writes:—“This is one of the com- monest birds about Murree; we always found it well to the front during our rambles, chattering about in the trees. They breed from the middle of April till the end of June. We have taken their eggs between the 20th April and the 16th June. They keep above 5000 feet. I 1ever observed any in the lower ranges. The nest is not a difficult one to find, being large and of loose con- GARRULUS, Dy struction ; from 15 to 30 feet up a medium-sized tree close to the trunk or sometimes in a large fork. They never seem to build in ‘the spruce firs which abound about Murree. They are by no means shy birds, and hop about the trees close by while their nest is being examined. Five is the ordinary number of eggs, which differ very much in appearance and size: the longest I have measures 1-25 and the shortest 1-1. Some are paler, some darker ; some are of a uniform pale greenish-ash colour with a darker ring, while others are thickly speckled and freckled with a darker shade of the same colour. Some lack the odd ink-scratch which is so often to be seen on the larger end, and is the most peculiar feature of the egg, while a few have it at the thinner end. “T should describe the average type as a long egg for its breadth; ground-colour greenish ashy with very thick sprinklings of spots of a darker and more greenish shade of the same colour, a ring of a darker dull olive round the large end, on which are one or two lines that look like a haphazard scratch from a fine steel pen.” From Dhurmsala Captain Cock wrote to me that this was “a most common bird at Dhurmsala; appears in large flocks during the winter, and often mixes with Garrulus bispecularis and Urocissa Jinvirostris, Pairs off about the end of April, when nidification begins. Builds a rather rough nest of sticks, generally placed on a tall sapling oak near the top; sometimes among the thicker branches of a pollard oak: outer nest small twigs roughly put together; inner nest dry roots and fibres, rather deep cup-shaped. Eggs number from four to five and vary in shape. I have found them sometimes nearly round, but more generally the usual shape. They vary in their colour, too, some being much lighter than others, but most of them have a few hair-like streaks on the larger end.” From Mussoorie Captain Hutton tells us that “the Black- throated Jay breeds in May and June, placing the nest sometimes on the branch of a tall oak tree (Quercus incana), at other times ina thick bush. It is composed of a foundation of twigs, and lined with fine roots of grass &c. mixed with the long black fibres of ferns-and mosses, which hang upon the forest trees, and have much the appearance of black horse-hair. The nest is cup-shaped, rather shallow, loosely put together, circular, and abont 43 inches in diameter. The eggs are sometimes three, sometimes four in number, of a greenish stone-grey, freckled, chiefly at the larger end, with dusky and a few black hair-like streaks, which are not always present ; they vary also in the amount of dusky freckling at the larger end. The nestling bird is devoid of the lanceolate markings on the throat.” ; From Nynee Tal Colonel G. F. L. Marshall writes :—‘“ The Black-throated Jay builds a very small cup-shaped nest of black hair-like creepers and roots, intertwined and placed in a rough irregular casing of twigs. A nest found on the 2nd June con- taining three hard-set eggs was placed conspicuously on the top of a young oak sapling about 7 feet high, standing alone in an open 28 .CORVIDA. glade, in the forest on Aya Pata, which is about 7000 feet above the sea. Another nest, found at an elevation of about 4500 feet on the 9th June, contained two eggs ; it was placed about 10 feet from the ground in a small tree in a hedgerow amongst cultivated fields.” Mr. Hodgson notes from Jaha Powah:—“ Found five nests of this species between 18th and 30th May. Builds near the tops of moderate-sized trees in open districts, making a very shallow nest of thin elastic grasses sparingly used and without lining. The nest is placed on some horizontal branch against some upright twig, or at some horizontal fork. It is nearly round and has a diameter of about 6 inches. They lay three or four eggs of a sordid vernal green clouded with obscure brown.” ; The eggs are somewhat lengthened ovals, very much smaller than, though so far as coloration goes very similar to, those of G. glandarius. The ground-colour in some is a brown stone colour, in others pale greenish white, and intermediate shades occur, and they are very minutely and feebly freckled and mottled over the whole surface with a somewhat pale sepia-brown. This mottling differs much in intensity ; in some few eggs indeed it is absolutely wanting, while in others, though feeble elsewhere, it forms a dis- tinct, though undefined, brownish cap or zone at the large end. The eggs generally have little or no gloss. It is not uncommon to find a few hair-like dark brown lines, more or less zigzag, about the larger end. In length they vary from 1:03 to 1:23, and in breadth from 0-78 to 0°88; but the average of twenty-four eggs is 1:12 by 0-85. 25. Garrulus leucotis, Hume. The Burmese Jay. Garrulus leucotis, Hume, Hume, Cat. no. 669 bis. The nest of this Jay has not yet been found, but Capt. Bingham writes :— “Tike Mr. Davison I have found this very handsome Jay affecting only the dry Dillenia and pine-forests so common in the Thoungyeen valley. I have seen it feeding on the ground in such places with Gecinus nigrigenys, Upupa longirostris, and other birds. I shot one specimen, a female, in April, near the Meplay river, that must have had a nest somewhere, which, however, I failed to find, for she had a full-formed but shell-less ege inside her.” ~ 26. Garrulus bispecularis, Vigors. The Himalayan Jay. Garrulus bispecularis, Vig., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 807; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no, 669. The Himalayan Jay breeds pretty well throughout the lower ranges of the Himalayas. It is nowhere, that I have seen, numerically very abundant, but it is to be met with everywhere. It lays in March and April, and, though I have never taken the GARRULUS. 29 nest myself, I have now repeatedly had it sent me. It builds at- moderate heights, rarely above 25 feet from the ground, in trees or thick shrubs, at elevations of from 3000 to 7000 feet. The nest is a moderate -sized one, 6 to 8 inches in external diameter, composed of fine twigs and grass, and lined with finer grass and roots. The nest is usually placed in a fork. The eggs are four to six in number. Mr. Hodgson notes that he “found a nest” of this species * on the 20th April, in the forest of Shewpoori, at an elevation of 7000 feet. The nest was placed in the midst of a large tree in a fork. The nest was very shallow, but regularly formed and compact. It was composed of long seeding grasses wound round and round, and lined with finer and more elastic grass-stems. The nest measured about 63 inches in diameter, but the cavity was only about half an inch deep.” Colonel C. H. T. Marshall remarks :—*“ I only took one authen- ticated set of eggs of this species (I found several with young), as it is an early breeder—I say authenticated eggs, because I think we may have attributed some to Garrulus lanceolatus, as the nests and eggs are very similar, and having a large number of the eggs of the latter, [ took some from my shikaree without verifying them. — “The nest I took on the 6th May, 1873, at Murree, was at an elevation, I should say, of between 6500 and 7000 feet (as it was near the top of the hill), in the forest. The tree selected was a horse-chestnut, about 25 feet high. The nest was near the top, which is the case with nearly all the Crows’ and Magpies’ nests that I have taken. It was of loose construction, made of twigs and fibres, and contained five partially incubated eggs. “The eggs are similar to those of G. lanceolatus. I have care- fully compared the five of the species which I am now describing with twenty of the other, and find that the following differences exist. The egg of Gi. bispecularis is more obtuse and broader, there is a brighter gloss on it, and the speckling is more marked ; but with a large series of each I think the only perceptible dif- ference would be its greater breadth, which makes the egg look larger than that of the Black-throated Jay. My four eggs measure 1:15 by 0°85 each. “This species only breeds once in a year, and from my observa- tions lays in April, all the young being hatched by the 15th May. Captain Cock and myself carefully bunted up all the forests round Murree, where the birds were constantly to be seen, commencing our work after the 10th May, and we found nothing but young ones.” Colonel G. F. L. Marshall writes :—‘‘ J have found nests of this species for the first time this year; the first on the 22nd of May, by which time, as all recorded evidence shows it to be an early breeder, I had given up all hopes of getting eggs. The first uest contained two fresh eggs; it was on a horizontal limb of a large 30 CORVIDE. oak, at a bifurcation about eight feet from the trunk and about the same from the ground. The nest was more substantial than that of G. lanceolatus, much more moss having been used in the outer casing, but the lining was similar; it was a misshapen nest, and appeared, in the distance, like an old deserted one; the bird was sitting at the time; I took one egg, hoping more would be laid, but the other was deserted and destroyed by vermin. Another nest I found on the 2nd June ; it contained three eggs just so much incubated that it is probable no more would be laid; this nest was much neater in construction and better concealed than the former one; it was in a rhododendron tree, in a bend about ten feet from the ground, between two branches upwards of a foot each in diameter, and covered with moss and dead fern ; the tree grew out of a precipitous bank just below a road, and though the nest was on the level of the edge it was almost impossible to detect it; it was a very compact thick cup of roots covered with moss outside. The eggs were larger, more elongated, and much more richly coloured than in the first nest. Both nests were at about 7000 feet eleva- tion, and in both instances the bird sat very close.” The eggs of this species are, as might be expected, very similar to those of G. lanceolatus, but they are perhaps slightly larger, and the markings somewhat coarser. The eggs are rather broad ovals, a good deal pointed towards one end. The ground-colour is pale greenish white, and they are pretty finely freckled and speckled (most densely so towards the large end, where the markings are almost confluent) with dull, rather pale, olive-brown, amongst which a little speckling and clouding of pale greyish purple is observable. The eggs are decidedly smaller than those of the English Jay, and few of the specimens I have exhibit any of those black hair-like lines often noticeable in both the English Jay and G. lanceolatus. In length the eggs that I have measured varied from 1-1 to 1°21, aud in breadth they only varied from 0-84 to 0:87. 27. Nucifraga hemispila, Vigors. The Himalayan Nutcracker. Nucifraga hemispila, Vig., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 804; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 666. The Himalayan Nutcracker is very common in the fir-clad hills north of Simla, where it particularly affects forests of the so-called pencil cedar, which is, I think, the Pinus excelsa. I have never been able to obtain the eggs, for they must lay in March or early in April; but I have found the nest near Fagoo early in May with nearly full-fledged young ones, and my people have taken them with young in April below the Jalouri Pass. The tree where I found the nest is, or rather was (for the whole hill-slope has been denuded for potatoe cultivation), situated on a steeply sloping hill facing the south, at an elevation of about 6500 feet. The nest was about 50 feet from the ground, and placed on GRACULUS.—PARUS. 31 two side branches just where, about 6 inches apart, they shot out of the trunk. The nest was just like a Crow’s—a broad platform of sticks, but rather more neatly built, and with a number of green juniper twigs with a little moss and a good deal of grey lichen intermingled. The nest was about 11 inches across and nearly 4 inches in external height. There was a broad, shallow, central depression 5 or 6 inches in diameter and perhaps 2 inches in depth, of which an inch was filled in with a profuse lining of grass and fir-needles (the long ones of Pinus longifolia) and a little moss. This was found on the 11th May, and the young, four in number, were sufficiently advanced to hop out to the ends of the bough and half-fly half-tumble into the neighbouring trees, when my man with much difficulty got up to the nest. 29. Graculus eremita (Linn.). The Red-billed Chough. Fregilus himalayanus, Gould, Jerd. B. I. ii, p. 319. Mr. Mandelli obtained three eggs of this species from Chumbi in Thibet; they were taken on the 8th of May from a nest under the eaves of a high wooden house. Though larger than those of the European Chough, they resemble them so closely that there can be no doubt as to their authenticity. In shape the eggs are moderately elongated ovals, very slightly compressed towards the small end. The shell is tolerably fine and has a slight gloss. The ground-colour is white with a faint creamy tinge, and the whole egg is profusely spotted and striated with a pale, somewhat yellowish brown and a very pale purplish grey. The markings are most dense at the large end, and there, too, the largest streaks of the grey occur. One egg measures 1°74 by 1:2. Subfamily PARINA. 31. Parus atriceps, Horsf. The Indian Grey Tit. Parus cinereus, Vieill., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 278. Parus cesius, Tick., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 645. The Indian Grey Tit breeds throughout the more wooded moun- tains of the Indian Empire, wherever these attain an altitude of 5000 feet, at elevations of from 4000 or 5000 to even (where the hills exceed this height) 9000 feet. In the Himalayas the breeding-season extends from the end of March to the end of June, or even a little later, according to the season. They have two broods—the first clutch of eggs is generally laid in the last week of March or early in April; the second towards the end of May or during the first half of June. In the Nilghiris they lay from February to May, and probably a second time in September or October. 32 CORVIDA. The nests are placed in holes in banks, in walls of buildings or of terraced fields, in outhouses of dwellings or deserted huts and houses, and in holes in trees, and very frequently in those cut in some previous year for their own nests by Barbets and Wood- peckers. : Occasionally it builds on a branch of a tree, and my friend Sir E. CO. Buck, C.8., found a nest containing six half-set eggs thus situated on the 19th June at Gowra. It was on a “ Banj” tree 10 feet from the ground. The only nest that I have myself seen in such a situation was a pretty large pad of soft moss, slightly saucer-shaped, about 4 inches in diameter, with a slight depression on the upper surface, which was everywhere thinly coated with sheep’s wool and the fine white silky hair of some animal. The nest is usually a shapeless mass of downy fur, cattle-hair, and even feathers and wool, but when on a branch is strengthened exteriorly with moss. Even when in holes, they sometimes round the nest into a more or less regular though shallow cup, and use a good deal of moss or a little grass or grass-roots ; but as a rule the hairs of soft and downy fur con- stitute the chief material, and this is picked out by the birds, I believe, from the dung of the various cats, polecats, and ferrets so common in all our hills. I have never found more than six eggs, and often smaller numbers, more or less incubated. Mr. Brooks tells us that the Indian Grey Tit is ‘common at Almorah. In April and May I found the nest two or three times in holes in terrace-walls. It was composed of grass-roots and feathers, and contained in each case nearly fully-grown young, five in number.” From Dhurmsala Captain Cock wrote :—“ Parus cinereus built in the walls of Dr. C.’s stables this year. When I found the nest it contained young ones. I watched the parents flying in and out, but to make sure put my ear to the wall and could hear the young ones chirrupping. The nest was found in the early part of May 1869.’ Colonel Butler writes :—‘ Belgaum, 12th June, 1879. A nest built in a hollow bamboo which supported the roof of a house in the native infantry lines. I did not see the nest myself, as un- fortunately the old bird was captured on it, and the nest and eggs destroyed ; however, the hen bird was brought to me alive by the man who caught her, and I saw at once, by the bare breast, that she had been sitting, and on making enquiries the above facts were elicited. The broken egg-shells were white thickly spotted with rusty red. 3 “Belgaum, 8th June, 1880.—A nest in a hole of a tree about 7 feet from the ground, containing five fresh eggs. The nest con- sisted of a dense pad of fur (goat-hair, cow-hair, human hair, and hare’s fur mixed) with a few feathers intermixed, laid on the top of a small quantity of dry grass and moss, which formed the foundation.” PARUS. 33 Lieut. H. E. Barnes notes from Chaman in Afghanistan :— “This Tit is very common, and remains with us all the year round. I found a nest on the 10th April, built in a hole in a tree ; it was composed entirely of sheep’s wool, and contained three incu- bated eggs, white, with light red blotches, forming a zone at the larger end. They measured 69 by 48.” Mr. Benjamin Aitkin says :— “When J was in Poona, in the hot season of 1878, the Grey Tits, which are very common there, became exceedingly busy about the end of May, courting with all their spirit, and examining every hole they could find. One was seen to disappear up the mouth of a cannon at the arsenal. Finally, in July, two nests with youn birds were discovered, one by myself, and one by my brother. The nests were in the roofs of houses, and were not easily accessible, but the parent birds were watched assiduously carrying food to the hungry brood, which kept up a screaming almost equal to that of a nest of minahs. On the 27th July a young one was picked up that had escaped too soon from a third nest. The Indian Grey Tit does not occur in Bombay, and I never saw it in Berar.” Speaking of Southern India Mr. Davison remarks that “the Grey Tit breeds in holes either of trees or banks; when it builds in trees it very often (whenever it can apparently) takes possession of the deserted nest-hole of Megalema viridis; when in banks a rat- hole is not uncommonly chosen. All the nests I have ever seen or taken were composed in every single instance of fur obtained.from the dried droppings of wild cats.” From Kotagherry, Miss Cockburn sends the following interesting note :— “Their nests are found in deep holes in earth-banks, and some- times in stone walls. Once a pair took possession of a bamboo in one of our thatched out-houses—the safest place they could have chosen, as no hand could get into the small hole by which they entered. These Tits show great affection and care for their young. While hatching their eggs, if a hand or stick is put into the nest they rise with enlarged throats, and, hissing like a snake, peck at it till it is withdrawn, On one occasion I told my horse-keeper to put his hand into a hole into which I had seen one of these birds enter. He did so, but soon drew it out with a scream, saying a ‘snake had bit him.’ J told him to try again, but with no better success; he would not attempt it the third time, so the nest was left with the bold little proprietor, who no doubt rejoiced to find she had succeeded in frightening away the unwelcome intruder. The materials used by these birds for their nests consist of soft hair, downy feathers, and moss, all of which they collect in large quantities. They build in the mouths of February and March ; but I once found a nest of young Indian Grey Tits so late as the 10th November. They lay six eggs, white with light red spots. On one occasion I saw a nest in a bank by the side of the road ; when the only young bird it contained was nearly fledged the road had to be widened, and workmen were employed in one down VOL. I. ' 34 CORVID.E. the bank. The poor parent birds appeared to be perfectly aware that their nest would soon be reached, and after trying in vain to persuade the young one to come out, they pushed it down into the road but could get it no further, though they did their utmost to take it out of the reach of danger. ‘I placed it among the bushes above the road, and then the parents seemed to be immediately conscious of its safety.” Mr. H. R. P. Carter notes that he “found a nest of the Grey Tit at Coonoor, on the Nilgiris, on the 15th May. It was placed in a hole in a bank by the roadside. It was a flat pad, composed of the fur of the hill-hare, hairs of cattle, &c., and was fluffy and without consistence. It contained three half-set eggs.” Mr. J. Darling, Jun., says:—‘‘I have found the nests at Ooty, Coonoor, Neddivattam, and Kartary, at all heights from 5000 to nearly 8000 feet above the sea, on various dates between 17th February and 10th May. “Tt builds in banks, or holes in trees, at all heights from the ground, from 3 to 30 feet. It is fond of taking possession of the old nest-holes of the Green Woodpecker. The nest is built of fur or fur and moss, and always lined with fine fur, generally that of hares. Its shape depends upon that of the hole in which it is placed, but the egg-cavity or depression is about 3 inches in diameter and an inch in depth. “Tt lays four, five, and sometimes six eggs, but I think more commonly only four.” Dr. Jerdon remarks :—“I once found its nest in a deserted bungalow at Kallia, in the corner of the house. It was made chiefly of the down of hares (Lepus nigricollis), mixed with feathers, and contained six eggs, white spotted with rusty red.” The eggs resemble in their general character those of many of our English Tits, and though, I think, typically slightly longer, they appear to me to be very close to those of Parus palustris. In shape they are a broad oval, but somewhat elongated and pointed towards the small end. The ground-colour is pinkish white, and round the large end there is a conspicuous, though irregular and imperfect, zone of red blotches, spots, and streaks. Spots and specks of the same colour,-or occasionally of a pale purple, are scantily sprinkled over the rest of the surface of the egg, and are most numerous in the neighbourhood of the zone. The eggs have a faint gloss. Some eggs do not exhibit the zone above referred to but even in these the markings are much more numerous and dense towards the large end. ’ In length the eggs vary from 0°65 to 0-78, and in breadth from 0-5 to 0°58 ; but the average of thirty-eight is 0-71 by 0°54, so that they are really, as indeed they look as a body, a shade ahorisr and decidedly broader than those of P. monticola. PARUS. 35 34, Parus monticola, Vig. The Green-backed Tit. Parus monticolus, Vig., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 277 ; Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no. 644, The Green-backed Tit breeds through the Himalayas, at eleva- tions of from 4000 to 7000 or 8000 feet. The breeding-season lasts from March to June, and some birds at any rate must have two broods, since I found three fresh eggs in the wall of the Pownda dak bungalow about the 20th June. More eggs are, however, to be got in April than in any other month. They build in holes, in trees, bamboos, walls, and even banks, but walls receive, I think, the preference. The nests are loose dense masses of soft downy fur or feathers, with more or less moss, according to the situation. The eggs vary from six to eight, and I have repeatedly found seven and eight young ones; but Captain Beavan has found only five of these latter, and although I consider from six to eight the normal complement, I believe they very often fail to complete the full number. : Captain Beavan says :—‘ At Simla, on May 4th, 1866, I found a nest of this species in the wall of one of my servant’s houses. It contained five young ones, and was composed of fine grey pushm or wool resting on an understructure of moss.” At Murree Colonel C. H. T. Marshall notes that this species ‘breeds early in May in holes in walls and trees, laying white eggs covered with red spots.” Speaking of a nest he took at Dhurmsala, Captain Cock says :— “The nest was in a cavity of a rhododendron tree, and was a large mass of down of some animal; it looked like rabbit’s fur, which of course it was not, but it was some dark, soft, dense fur. The nest contained seven eggs, and was found on the 28th April, 1869. The eggs were all fresh.” Mr. Gammie says :—“I got one nest of this Tit here on the 14th May in the Chinchona reserves (Sikhim), at an elevation of about 4500 feet. It was in partially cleared country, in a natural hole of a stump, about 5 feet from the ground. The nest was made of moss and lined with soft matted hair; but I puiled it out of the hole carelessly and cannot say whether it had originally any defined shape. It contained four hard-set eggs.” The eggs are very like those of Parus atriceps; but they are somewhat longer and more slender, and as a rule are rather more thickly and richly marked. They are moderately broad ovals, sometimes almost perfectly symmetrical, at times slightly pointed towards one end, and almost entirely devoid of gloss. The ground is white, or occasionally a delicate pinkish white, in some richly and profusely spotted and blotched, in others more or less thickly speckled and spotted with darker or lighter shades of blood-, brick-, slightly ee or e 36 CORVIDE. brownish-red, as the case may be. The markings are much denser towards the large end, where in some eggs they form an imperfect and irregular cap. In size they vary from 0°68 to 0°76 in length, and from 0°49 to 0:54 in breadth; but the average of thirty-two eggs is 0°72 by 0°52 nearly. 35. Migithaliscus erythrocephalus (Vig.). The Red-headed Tit. ABgithaliscus erythrocephalus (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind, ii, p. 270 ; Hume, Rough Draft N. & £. no. 684. The Red-headed Tit breeds throughout the Himalayas from Murree to Bhootan, at elevations of from 6000 to 9000 or perhaps 10,000 feet. They commence breeding very early. I have known nests to be taken quite at the beginning of March, and they continue laying till the end of May. The nest is, I think, most commonly placed in low stunted hill - oak bushes, either suspended between several twigs, to all of which it is more or less attached, or wedged into a fork. JI have found the nest in a deodar tree, laid on a horizontal bough. I have seen them in tufts of grass, in banks and other unusual situations ; but the great bulk build in low bushes, and of these the hill-oak is, I think, their favourite. The nests closely resemble those of the Long-tailed Tit (Acredula rosea). They are large ovoidal masses of moss, lichen, and moss- roots, often tacked together a good deal outside with cotton-wool, down of different descriptions, and cobwebs. They average about 43 inches in height or length, and about 34 inches in diameter. The aperture is on one side near the top. The egg-cavity, which may average about 22 inches in diameter and about the same in depth below the lower edge of the aperture, is densely lined with very soft down or feathers. They lay from six to eight eggs, but I once found only four eggs in a nest, and these fully incubated. From Murree, Colonel C. H. T. Marshall notes that this species “builds a globular nest of moss and hair and feathers in thorny bushes. The eggs we found were pinkish white, with a ring of obso- lete brown spots at the larger end. Size 0°55 by 0°43. Lays in May.” Captain Hutton tells us that the Red-cap Tit is “common at Mussoorie and in the hills generally, throughout the year. It breeds in April and May. The situation chosen is various, as one taken in the former month at Mussoorie, at 7000 feet elevation, was placed on the side of a bank among overhanging coarse grass, while another taken in the latter month, at 5000 feet, was built amon some ivy twining round a tree, and at least 14 feet from the ground. The nest is in shape a round ball with a small lateral entrance, and is composed of green mosses warmly lined with feathers. The eggs are five im number, white with a pinkish MACHLOLOPHUS. 37 tinge, and sparingly sprinkled with lilac spots or specks, and having a well-defined lilac ring at the larger end.” From Nynee Tal, Colonel G. F. L. Marshall writes :—“ This species makes a beautifully neat nest of fine moss and lichens, globular, with side entrance, and thickly lined with soft feathers. A nest found on Cheena, above Nynee Tal, on the 24th May, 1873, at an elevation of about 7000 feet, was wedged into a fork at the end of a bough of a cypress tree, about 10 feet from the ground, the entrance turned inwards towards the trunk of the tree. It con- tained one tiny egg, white, with a dark cloudy zone round the larger end. “ About the 10th’ of May, at Naini Tal, I was watching one of these little birds, which kept hanging about a small rhododendron stump about 2 feet high, with very few leaves on it, but I could, see no nest. A few days later I saw the bird carry a big cater- pillar to the same stump and come away shortly without it; so I looked more closely and found the nest, containing nearly full- fledged young, so beautifully wedged into the stump that it ap- peared to be part of it, and nothing but the tiny circular entrance revealed that the nest was there. It was the best-concealed nest for that style of position that I have ever seen.” These tiny eggs, almost smaller than those of any European bird that I know, are broad ovals, sometimes almost globular, but generally somewhat compressed towards one end, so as to assume something of a pyriform shape. They are almost entirely glossless, have a pinkish or at times creamy-white ground, and exhibit a conspicuous reddish or purple zone towards the large end, com- posed of multitudes of minute spots almost confluent, and inter- spaced with a purplish cloud. Faint traces of similar excessively minute purple or red points extend more or less above and below the zone. The eggs vary from 0°53 to 0°58 in length, and from 0-43 to 0°46 in breadth; but the average of twenty-five is 0-56 nearly by 0°45 nearly. 41, Machlolophus spilonotus (Bl.). Zhe Black-spotted Yellow Tit. Machlolophus spilonotus (B/.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 281. Mr. Mandelli found a nest of this species at Lebong in Sikhim on the 15th June in a hole ina, dead tree, about 5 feet from the ground. The nest was a mere pad of the soft fur of some animal, in which a little of the brown silky down from fern-stems and a little moss was intermingled. It contained three hard-set eggs. One of these eggs is a very regular oval, scarcely, if at all, pointed towards the lesser end; the ground-colour is a pure dead white, and the markings, spots, and specks of pale reddish brown, and underlying spots of pale purple, are evenly scattered all over the egg ; it measures 0°78 by 0°55. 3 38 CORVID. 42. Machlolophus xanthogenys (Vig.). The Yellow-cheeled Tit. Machlolophus xanthogenys (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 279; Hume, Rough Draft N. § £. no. 647. The Yellow-cheeked Tit is one of the commonest birds in the neighbourhood of Simla, yet curiously enough I have never found a nest. T have had eggs and nest sent me, and I know it breeds through- out the Western Himalayas, at elevations of from 4000 to 7000 feet; and that it lays during April and May (and probably other months), making a soft pad-like nest, composed of hair and fur, in holes in trees and walls; but I can give no further particulars. Captain Hutton tells us that it is “common in the hills through- out the year. It breeds in April, in which month a nest containing four fledged young ones was found at 5000 feet elevation; it was constructed of moss, hair, and feathers, and placed at the bottom of a deep hole in a stump at the foot of an oak tree.” Writing from Dhurmsala, Captain Cock says :—‘ Towards the end of April this bird made its nest in a hole of a tree just below the terrace of my house. Before the nest was quite finished a air of Passer cinnamomeus bullied the old birds out of the place, which they deserted. After they had left it I cut the nest out and found it nearly ready to lay in, lined with soft goat-hair and that same dark fur noticed in the nest of Parus monticola.” Later he wrote to me that this species “ breeds up at Dhurmsala in April and May. - It chooses an old cleft or natural cavity in a tree, usually the hill-oak, and makes a nest of wool and fur at the bottom of the cavity, upon which it lays five eggs much like the eggs of Parus monticola. Perhaps the blotches are a little larger, otherwise I can see no difference. I noticed on one occasion the male bird carry wool to the nest, which, when I cut it out the same day, I found contained hard-set eggs. I used to nail a sheepskin up in a hill-oak, and watch it with glasses, during April and May, and many a nest have I found by its help. Parus atriceps, P. monti- cola, Machlolophus xanthogenys, Abrornis albisuperciliaris, and many others used to visit it and pull off flocks of wool for their nests. Following up a little bird with wool in its bill through jungle requires sharp eyes and is no easy matter at first, but one soon becomes practised at it.” The eggs are regular, somewhat elongated ovals, in some cases slightly compressed towards one end. The ground is white or reddish white, and they are thickly speckled, spotted, and even blotched with brick-dust red; they have little or no gloss, They vary in length from 0-7 to 0°78, and in breadth from 0:52 to 0°55; but I have only measured six eggs. MACHLOLOPHUS, 39 43. Machlolophus haplonotus (Bl.). The Southern Yellow Tit. Machlolophus jerdoni (Bi.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 280, Col. E. A. Butler writes :—‘ Belgaum, 12th Sept., 1879.—Found a nest of the Southern Yellow Tit in a hole of a small tree about 10 feet from the ground. My attention was first attracted to it by seeing the hen-bird with her wings spread and feathers erect angrily mobbing a palm-squirrel that bad incautiously ascended the tree, and thinking there must be a nest close by, I watched the sequel, and in a few seconds the squirrel descended the tree and the Tit disappeared in a small hole about halfway up. I then put a net over the hole and tapped the bough to drive her out, but this was no easy matter, for although the nest was only about 2 foot from the entrance, and I made as much noise as a thick stick could well make against a hollow bough, nothing would induce her to leave the nest until I had cut a large wedge out of the branch, with a saw and chisel, close to the nest, when she flew out into the net. “The nest, which contained, to my great disappointment, five young birds about a week old, was very massively built, and com- pletely choked up the hollow passage in which it was placed. The foundation consisted of a quantity of dry green moss, of the kind that natives bring in from the jungles in the rains, and sell for ornamenting flower vases, &c. Next came a thick layer of coir, mixed with a few dry skeleton-leaves and some short ends of old rope and a scrap or two of paper, and finally a substantial pad of blackish hair, principally human, but with cow- and horse-hair intermixed, forming a snug little bed for the young ones. The total depth of the nest exteriorly was at least 7 inches. “ The bough, about 8 inches in diameter, was partly rotten and hollow the whole way down, having a small hole at the side above by which the birds entered, and another rather larger about a foot below ‘the nest all choked up with moss that had fallen from the base of the nest. It is strange that it should have escaped my eye previously, as the tree overhung my gateway, through which I passed constantly during the day. Immediately below the nest a large black board bearing my name was nailed to the tree. “At Belgaum, on the 10th July, 1880, I observed a pair of Yellow its building in a crevice of a large banian tree about 9 feet from the ground. The two birds were flying to and from the nest in company, the hen carrying building-materials in her beak. I watched the nest constantly for several days, but never saw the birds near it again until the 18th inst., when the hen flew out of the hole as I passed the tree. I visited the spot on the 19th and 20th inst., tapping the tree loudly with a stick as I passed, but without any result, as the bird did not fly off the nest. “On the 21st, thinking the nest must either be forsaken or contain eggs, I got up and looked into the hole, and to my surprise found the hen bird comfortably seated on the nest, notwithstanding the noise I had been making to try and put her off. As the crevice 40 CORVIDA. was too small to admit my hand, I commenced to enlarge the entrance with a chisel, the old bird sitting closer than ever the whole time. Finding all attempts to drive her off the eggs fruitless, I tried to poke her off with a piece of stick, whereupon she stuck her head into one of the far corners and sulked. I then inserted my hand with some difficulty and drew her gently out of the hole, but as soon as she caught sight of me, she commenced fighting in the most pugnacious manner, digging her claws and beak into my hand, and finally breaking loose, flying, not away as might have been expected, but straight back into the hole again, to commence sulking once more, Again I drew her out, keeping a firm hold of one leg until I got her well away from the hole, when I released her. I then extracted five fresh eges from the hole by means of a small round net attached to the loop end of a short piece of wire. The nest was a simple pad of human and cows’ hair, with a few horse- hairs interwoven, and one or two bits of snake’s skin in the lining, having a thin layer of green moss and thin strips of inner bark below as a foundation—in fact a regular Tit’s nest. The eggs, of the usual parine type, were considerably larger than the eggs of P. atriceps, broad ovals, slightly smaller at one end than the other, having a white ground spotted moderately thickly all over with reddish chestnut ; no zone or cap, but in some eggs more freely marked at one end (either small or large end) than the other, some of the markings almost amounting to blotches and the spots as a rule rather large.” Messrs. Davidson and Wenden remark of this bird in the Deccan :—‘ Specimens of this Tit were procured at Lanoli in August and at Egutpoora in March. They certainly breed at these places, as in September, at the latter place, W. observed two parent birds with four young ones capable of flying out very short distances.” And Mr. Davidson further states that it is “common through- out the district of Western Kandeish. I saw a pair building in the hole of a large mango tree at Malpur in Pimpalnir in the end of May.” 44, Lophophanes melanolophus (Vig.). Zhe Crested Black Tit. Lophophanes melanolophus (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 273; Hume, Rough Draft N. §& E. no. 638. The Crested Black Tit breeds throughout the Lower Himalayas west of Nepal, at elevations of from 6000 to 8000 feet. : The breeding-season lasts from March to June, but the majority have laid, I think, for the first hatch by the end of the first week in April, unless the season has been a very backward one. They usually rear two broods. They build, so far as I know, always in holes, in trees, rocks, and walls, preferentially in the latter. Their nests involve gener- ally two different kinds of work—the working up of the true nests LOPHOPHANES. 41 on which the eggs repose, and the preliminary closing in and making comfortable the cavity in which the former is placed. For this latter work they use almost exclusively moss. Sometimes very little filling-in is required ; sometimes the mass of moss used to level and close in an awkward-shaped recess is surprisingly great. A pair breed every year in a terrace-wall of my garden at Simla; elevation about 7800 feet. One year they selected an opening a foot high and 6 inches wide, and they closed up the whole of this, leaving an entrance not 2inches in diameter. Some years ago I disturbed them there, and found nearly half a cubic foot of dry green moss. Now they build in a cavity behind one of the stones, the entrance to which is barely an inch wide, and in this, as far as I can see, they have no moss at all. The nests are nothing but larger or smaller pads of closely felted wool and fur; sometimes a little moss, and sometimes a little vegetable down, is mingled in the moss, but the great body of the material is always wool and fur. They vary very much in size: you may meet with them fully 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches thick, comparatively loosely and coarsely massed together; and you may meet with them shallow saucers 3 inches in diameter and barely half an inch in thickness anywhere, as closely felted as if manufactured by human agency. Six to eight is considered the full complement of eggs, but the number is very variable, and I have taken three, four, and five well-incubated eggs. Captain Beavan, to judge from his description, seems to have found a regular cup-shaped nest such as I have never seen. He says :—“ At Simla, April 20th, 1866, I found a nest of this species with young ones in it in an old wall in the garden. I secured the old bird for identification, and then released her. The nest con- tained seven young ones, and was large in proportion. The out- side and bottom consists of the softest moss, the nest being carefully built between two stones, about a foot inside the wall; the rest of it is composed of the finest grey wool or fur. Diameter inside 2-5; outside about 5 inches. Depth inside nearly 3 inches; outside 36.” Captain Cock told me that he “ found several nests in May and June in Cashmere. The first nest I found was in a natural cavity high up in a tree, containing three eggs, which I unfortunately broke while taking them out of the nest. The interior of the cavity was thickly lined with fur from some small animal, such as a hare or rat. I found my second nest close to my tent in a cleft of a pine, quite low down, only 3 feet from the ground, I cut it out and it contained five eggs of the usual type—broad, blunt little eggs, white, with rusty blotches.” Colonel G. F. L. Marshall writes:—“I have only found two nests of this species in Naini Tal, both had young (two in one nest, in the other I could not count) on the 25th April; they were at about 7000 feet elevation, built in holes in walls, the entrance in both cases being very small, having nothing to distinguish it from 42 CORVIDZ. other tiny crevices, and nothing to lead any one to suppose that there was a nest inside. It was only by seeing the parent birds go in that the nest was discovered.” The eggs of this species are moderately broad ovals, with a very slight gloss. The ground-colour isa slightly pinkish white, and they are richly blotched and spotted, and more or less speckled (chiefly towards the larger end), with bright, somewhat brownish red. The markings very commonly form a dense, almost confluent zone or cap about the large end, and they are- generally more thinly scattered elsewhere, but the amount of the markings varies much in different eggs. In some, although they are thicker in the zone, they are still pretty thickly set over the entire surface, while in others they are almost confined to one end of the egg, generally the broad end. ; These eggs vary much in size and in density of marking. The ordinary dimensions are about 0-61 by 0°47, but in a large series they vary in length from 0°57 to 0°72, and in breadth from 0-43 to 0°54. The very large eggs, however, indicated by these maxima are rare and abnormal. 47. Lophophanes rufinuchalis (Bl.). The Simla Black Tit. Lophophanes rufonuchalis (B/.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 274. Mr. Brooks informs us that this Tit is common at Derali and other places of similar elevation. “I found a nest under a large stone in the middle of a hill foot-path, up and down which people and cattle were constantly passing; the nest contained newly- hatched young.. This was the middle of May.” Dr. Scully, writing of the Gilgit district, tells us that this Tit is a denizen of the pine-forests, where it breeds. Finally Captain Wardlaw Ramsay, writing in the ‘Ibis,’ states that this Tit was breeding in Afghanistan in May: Subfamily PARADOXORNITHIN A. 50, Conostoma emodium, Hodgs. The Red-billed Crow-Tit. Conostoma emodium, Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p.10; Hume, Rou Draft N. & E.no. 381. Rae ec A nest of the Red-billed Crow-Tit was sent me from Native Sikhim, where it was found at an elevation of about 10,000 feet in a cluster of the small Ringal bamboo. It contained three eggs, two of which were broken in blowing them. The nest is a very regular and perfect hemisphere, both exter- nally and internally. It is very compactly made, externally of coarse grass and strips of bamboo-leaves, and internally very thickly lined with stiff but very fine grass-stems, about the thickness of SCEORHYNCHUS. 43 an ordinary pin, very carefully curved to the shape of the nest. The coarser exterior grass appears to have been used when dry ; but the fine grass, with which the interior is so densely lined, is still green. It is the most perfectly hemispherical nest I ever saw. Exteriorly it is exactly 6 inches in diameter and 3 in height; internally the cavity measures 4-5 in diameter and 2-25 in depth. The egg is a regular moderately elongated oval, slightly com- pressed towards the smaller end. The shell is fine and thin, and has only a faint gloss. The ground-colour is a dull white, and it is sparsely blotched, streaked, and smudged with pale yellowish brown, besides which, about the large end, there are a number of small pale inky purple spots and clouds, looking as if they were beneath the surface of the shell. The single egg preserved measures 1:11 by 0°8. A nest sent me by Mr. Mandelli was found, he says, in May, in Native Sikhim, in a cluster of Ringal (hill-bamboo) at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet. It is a large, rather broad and shallow cup, the great bulk of the nest composed of extremely fine hair-like grass-stems, obviously used when green, and coated thinly exteriorly with coarse blades of grass, giving the outside a ragged and untidy appearance. The greatest external diameter is 5-5, the height 3-2, but the cavity is 4:5 in diameter and 2:2 in depth, so that, though owing to the fine material used throughout except in the outer coating the nest is extremely firm and compact, it is not at all a massive-looking one. 60. Sczorhynchus ruficeps (Bl.). The Larger Red-headed Crow-Tit. Paradoxornis ruficeps, Bl., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 5. Mr. Gammie writes from Sikhim:—“In May, at 2000 feet elevation, I took a nest of this bird, which appears to have been rarely, if ever, taken by any European, and is not described in your Rough Draft of ‘Nests and Eggs.’ 1t was seated among, and fastened to, the spray of a bamboo near its top, and is a deep, compactly built cup, measuring externally 3:5 inches wide and the same in depth; internally 2-7 wide by 1:9deep. The material used is particularly clean and new-looking, and has none of the second- hand appearance of much of the building-stuffs of many birds. The outer layer is of strips torn off large grass-stalks and a very few cobwebs ; the lining, of fine fibrous strips, or rather threads, of bamboo-stems. There were three eggs, which were ready for hatching-off. They averaged 0°83 in. by 0°63 in. I send you the nest and two of the eggs. “ Both Jerdon and Tickell say they found this bird feeding on grain and other seeds, but those ] examined had all confined their diet to different sorts of insects, such as would be found about the flowers of bamboo, buckwheat, &c. Probably they do eat afew seeds occasionally, but their principal food is certainly insects. Verv usually, in winter especially, they feed in company with 44 CORVID#. Gampsorhynchus rufulus. Rather curious that the two Red-heads should affect each other’s society.” The eggs are broad ovals, rather cylindrical, very blunt at both ends. The shell fine, with a slight gloss. The ground is white, and it is rather thinly and irregularly spotted, blotched, and smeared in patches with a dingy yellowish brown, chiefly about the larger end, to which also are nearly confined the secondary markings, which are pale greyish lilac or purplish grey. 61. Sceorhynchus gularis (Horsf.). The Hoary-headed Crow-Tit. Paradoxornis gularis, Horsf, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 5. A nest sent me by Mr. Mandelli as belonging to this species was found, he tells me, at an elevation of 8000 feet in Native Sikhim on the 17th May. It was placed in a fork amongst the branches of a medium-sized tree at a height of about 30 feet from the ground. The nest is a very massive cup, composed of soft grass- blades, none of them much exceeding ‘1 inch in width, wound round and round together very closely and compactly, and then tied over exteriorly everywhere, but not thickly, with just enough wool and wild silk to keep the nest perfectly strong and firm. Inside, the nest is lined with extremely fine grass-stems ; the nest is barely 4 inches in diameter exteriorly and 2°5 in height ; the egg-cavity is 2-4 in diameter and 1:2 in depth. Mr. Mandelli sends me an egg which he considers to belong to this species, found near Darjeeling on the 7th May. It is a broad oval, very slightly compressed at one end; the shell dull and glossless ; the ground a dead white, profusely streaked and smudged pretty thickly all over with pale yellowish brown; the whole bigger end of the egg clouded with dull inky purple and two or three hair-lines of burnt sienna in different parts of the egg. The egg measures 0°8 by 0°61. Two eggs of this species, procured in Sikhim on the 17th May, are very regular ovals, scarcely at all pointed towards the lesser end. The ground-colour is creamy white, and the markings con- sist of large indistinct blotches of pale yellow; round the large end is an almost confluent zone or cap of purplish grey, darker in one egg; they have no gloss, and both measure 0°82 by 0°61. CRATEROPODID&. 45 Family CRATEROPODID. Subfamily CRATEROPODINA. 62. Dryonastes ruficollis (J. &S.). The Rufous-necked Laughing- Thrush. Garrulax ruficollis (J. § S.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 38; Hume, Rough Draft N. & £. no. 410. Of the Rufous-necked Laughing-Thrush, Mr. Blyth remarks :— “ Mr. Hodgsoa figures the egg of a fine green colour.” The egg is not figured in my collection of Mr. Hodgson’s drawings. Writing from near Darjeeling, in Sikhim, Mr. Gammie says :— “T have seen two nests of this bird ; both were in bramble-bushes about five feet from the ground, and exactly resembled those of Dryonastes cerulatus, only they were a little smaller. One nest had three young ones, the other three very pale blue unspotted eggs, which I left in the nest intending to get them in another day or two, as I wanted to see if more eggs would be laid, but when I went back to the place the nest had been taken away by some one. Both nests were found here in May, one at 3500 feet, the other at 4500 feet. “T have taken numerous nests of this species from April to June, from the warmest elevations up to about 4000 feet. They are cup-shaped ; composed of dry leaves and small climber-stems, and lined with a few fibrous roots. They measure externally about 5 inches in width by 3°5 in depth ; internally 3:25 across by 2°25 deep. Usually they are found in scrubby jungle, fixed in bushes, within five or six feet of the ground. .The eggs are three or four in number.” Many nests of this species sent me from Sikhim by my friends Messrs. Mandelli and Gammie are all precisely of the same type— deep and rather compact cups, varying from 5 to 6 inches in external diameter, and 3:25 to 3°75 in height; the cavities about 3-25 in diameter and 2-25 in depth. The nest is composed almost entirely of dry bamboo-leaves bound together loosely with stems of creepers or roots, and the cavity is lined with black and brown rootlets, generally not very fine. They seem never to be placed at any very great elevation from the ground. The eggs of this species, of which I have received a very large number from Mr. Gammie, are distinguishable at once from those of all the other species of this group with which I am acquainted. Just as the ege of Garrwlax albigularis is distinguished by its very deep tone of coloration,the egg of the present species is distinguished by its extreme paleness. In shape the eggs are moderately broad ovals, often, however, somewhat pyriform, often a good deal pointed towards the small end. The shell is extremely fine and smooth, 46 CRATEROPODIDE. and has a very fine gloss ; they may be said to be almost white with a delicate bluish-green tinge. In length they vary from 0°95 to 1-1, in breadth from 0°6 to 0°83; but the average of forty-one eggs is 1:02 by 0°75. -65. Dryonastes cerulatus (Hodgs.). The Grey-sided Laughing- Thrush. Garrulax cerulatus (Hodgs.), Jerd, B. Ind. ii, p. 836; Hume, Rough Draft N. § £. no, 408, A nest of the Grey-sided Laughing-Thrush found by Mr. Gam- mie on the 17th June near Darjeeling, below Rishap, at an elevation of about 3500 feet, was placed in a shrub, at a height of about six feet from the ground, and contained one fresh egg. It wasa large, -deep, compact cup, measuring about 5:5 inches in external diameter and about 4 in height, the ege-cavity being 4 inches in diameter and 23 inches in depth. Externally it was entirely composed of very broad. flag-like grass-leaves firmly twisted together, and internally of coarse black grass and moss-roots very neatly and compactly put together. The nest had no other lining. This year (1874) Mr. Gammie writes :—“ This species breeds in Sikhim in May and June. I have found the nests in our Chinchona reserves, at various elevations from 3500 to 5000 feet, always in forests with a more or less dense undergrowth. The nest is placed in trees, at heights of from 6 to 12 feet from the ground, between - and firmly attached to several slender upright shoots. It is cup- shaped, usually rather shallow, composed of dry bamboo-leaves and twigs and lined with root-fibres. One I measured was 5 inches in diameter by 2°5 in height exteriorly ; the cavity was 4 inches across and only 1:3 deep. Of course they vary slightly. As far as my experience goes, they do not lay more than three eggs; indeed, at times only two.” : Dr. Jerdon remarks that “a nest and eggs, said to be of this bird, were brought to me at Darjeeling ; the nest loosely made with roots and grass, and containing two pale blue eggs.” One nest of this species taken in Native Sikhim in July, was placed in the fork of four leafy twigs, and was in shape a slightly truncated inverted cone, nearly 7 inches in heightand 5:5 in diameter at the base of the cone, which was uppermost. The leaves attached to the twigs almost completely enveloped it. The nest itself was composed almost entirely of stems of creepers, several of which were wound round the living leaves of the twigs so as to hold them in position on the outside of the nest ; a few bamboo-leaves were intermingled with the creeper’s stems in the body of the nest. The cavity, which is almost perfectly hemispherical, only rather deeper, is 3°5 inches in diameter and 2°25 in depth, and is entirely and very neatly lined with very fine black roots. Another nest, which was taken at Rishap on the 21st May, with two fresh eggs, was placed in some small bamboos ata height of about 10 feet from the GARRULAX. 47 ground. It is composed externally entirely of dry bamboo-leaves, loosely tied together by a few creepers and a little vegetable fibre, and it is lined pretty thickly with fine black fibrous roots. This nest is about 6 inches in diameter and 3°5 high exteriorly, while the cavity measures 3:5 by 2. The eggs sent me by Mr. Gammie are a beautiful clear, rather pale, greenish blue, without any spots or markings. They have a slight gloss. In shape they are typically much elongated and somewhat pyriform ovals, very obtuse at both ends ; but moderately broad examples are met with. In length they vary from 1:05 to 1-33, and in breadth from 0°76 to 0°86; but the average of thirty- five eggs is 1:18 nearly by 0°82 nearly. 69. Garrulax leucolophus (Hardw.). The Himalayan White-crested Laughing-Thrush. Garrulax leucolophus (Hardw.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 85; - Hume, Rough Draft N. §& FE. no. 407, According to Mr. Hodgson’s notes, the Himalayan White-crested Laughing-Thrush breeds at various elevations in Sikhim and Nepal, from the Terai to an elevation of 5000 or 6000 feet, from April to June. It lays from four to six eggs, which are described and figured as pure white, very broad ovals, measuring 1-2 by 0-9. It breeds, we are told, in small trees, constructing a rude cup-shaped nest amongst a clump of shoots, or between a number of slender twigs, of dry bamboo-leaves, creepers, scales of the turmeric plant, &c., and lined with fine roots. Dr. Jerdon says :—“ I have had the nest and eggs brought me more than once when at Darjeeling, the former being a large mass of roots, moss, and grass, with a few pure white eggs.” One nest taken in July at Darjeeling was placed on the outer branches of a tree, at about the height of 8 feet from the ground. It was a very broad shallow saucer, 8 inches in diameter, about an inch in thickness, and with a depression of about an inch in depth. It was composed of dead bamboo-leaves bound together with creepers, and lined thinly with coarse roots. It contained four fresh eggs. Other similar nests contained four or three eggs each. From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes :—“ I have found this Laugh- ing-Thrush breeding in May and June, up to about 3500 feet ; I have rarely seen it at higher elevations, and cannot but think that Mr. Hodgson is mistaken in stating that it breeds up to 5000 or 6000 feet. The nests are generally placed in shrubs, within reach of the hand, among low, dense jungle, and are rather loosely built cup-shaped structures, composed of twigs and grass, and lined with fibrous roots. Externally they measure about 6 inches in diameter by 3:5 in depth ; internally 4 by 2-25. “The eggs are usually four or five in number, but on several occasions I have found as few as two well-set eggs.” Numerous nests of this species have now been sent me, taken 48 CRATEROPODID E. in May, June, and July, at elevations of from 2000 to fully 4000 feet, and in one case it is said 5000. They are all very similar, large, very shallow cups, from 6 to nearly 8 inches in external diameter, and from 2°5 to 35 in height ; exteriorly all are composed of coarse grass, of bamboo-spathes, with occasionally a few dead leaves intermingled, loosely wound round with creepers or pliant twigs, while interiorly they are composed and lined with black, only moderately fine roots or pliant flower-stems of some flowering-tree, or both. Sometimes the exterior coating of grass is not very coarse; at other times bamboo-spathes exclusively are used, and the nest seems to be completely packed up in these. The eggs of this species are broad ovals, pure white and glossy. They vary from 1-05 to 1:18 in length, and from 0°86 to 0-95 in width, but the average of eighteen eggs is a little over 1-1 by 0-9. 70. Garrulax belangeri, Less. The Burmese White-crested Laughing-Thrush. Garrulax belangeri, Less., Hume, Cat. no. 407 bis. Mr. Oates, who found the nest of this bird many years ago in Burma, has the following note: —‘ Nest in a bush a few feet from the ground, on the 8th June, near Pegu. In shape hemispherical, the foundation being of small branches and leaves of the bamboo, and the interior and sides of small branches of the coarser weeds and fine twigs. The latter form the egg-chamber lining and are nicely curved. Exterior and interior diameters respectively 7 and 34 inches. Total depth 34 and interior depth 2 inches. Three eggs, pure white and highly glossy, and they measure 1°14 by -87, 1-1 by °88, and 1-03 by °86.” The nests of this species are large, loosely constructed cups, much resembling those of its Himalayan congeners. The base and sides consist chiefly of dry bamboo-leaves with a few dead tree-leaves scantily held together by a few creepers, while the interior portion of the nest, which has no separate lining, is composed of fine twigs and stems of herbaceous plants and the slender flower-stems of trees which bear their flowers in clusters. The nests vary a good deal in exterior dimensions as the materials straggle far and wide in some cases, and the external diameter may be said to vary from 6 to 8 inches, and the height from 3:25 to 4:5; the cavities are more uniform in size, and are about 3°5 in diameter by 2 in depth. The eggs are moderately broad ovals, at times somewhat pointed perhaps towards the small end, pure white and fairly lossy. js Major C. T. Bingham thus writes of this bird :—“ It is very diffi- cult to either watch these birds, unseen yourself, at one of their dancing parties, or to catch one of them actually sitting on the nest. Twice had I in the end of March this year come across nests with one or two of these birds in the vicinity, and yet have had to leave the eggs in them as uncertain to what bird they belonged. GARRULAX, 49 At last, on the 2nd April, I came in for a piece of luck. I was roaming about in the vicinity of my camp on the Gawbechoung, the main source of the Thoungyeen river, and moving very slowly and silently amid the dense clumps of bamboo, when my ears were saluted by the hearty laughter of a flock of these birds, evidently not far off. Very quietly I crept up, and looking cautiously from behind a thick bamboo-clump, saw ten or twelve of them going through a most intricate dance, flirting their wings and tails, and every now and then bursting into a chorus of shouts, joined in by a few others. who were seated looking on from neighbouring bushes. During one of the pauses of the applause, and while the dancers were busy twining in and out, a single rather squeaky ‘ bravo’ came from a bamboo-bush right opposite to me. Looking up I was astonished to see a nest in a fork of the bamboo, and on the nest a Garrulaw who, probably too busy with her maternal duties to watch the performance going on below her attentively, came in with a solitary shout of approbation at an unseemly time. I watched the per- formance a few minutes longer, and then frightened the old hen on the nest. The terrific scare I caused by my sudden appearance is beyond description. The dancers scattered with screeches, and the old hen dropped fainting over the side of her nest with a feeble remonstrance, and disappeared in the most mysterious way. After all the nest contained only one egg, very glossy, white, and fresh. The nest was better and stronger built, though very like that of Garrulax moniliger, constructed of twigs, and finely lined with black hair-like roots; it measured some 6 inches in diameter, the egg-cavity about 14 inch deep. Subsequently I took three other nests, on the 4th April and 23rd May. ‘The first contained three, the two latter three and four eggs respectively. A considerable number of eggs measure from 1°22 to 1-06 in length, and from -92 to *81 in breadth, and average 1:13 by 0-88.” 72. Garrulax pectoralis (Gould). The Black-gorgeted Laughing-T hrush, Garrulax pectoralis (Gould), Jerd. B. Ind, ii, p. 39; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no, 412, Mr. Oates tells us that he “found the nest of the Black- gorgeted Laughing-Thrush in the Pegu Hills, on the 27th April, containing three fresh eggs; the bird was sitting. The nest was placed in a bamboo-clump about 7 feet from the ground, made out- wardly of dead bamboo-leaves and coarse roots, lined with finer roots and a few feathers; inside diameter 6 inches, depth 2 inches. Two eggs measured 1-04 by 0:83 and 0°86. Colour, a beautiful clear blue.” One of these eggs sent by Mr. Oates* seems rather small for * I fear 1 may have made a mistake in identifying the nest referred to. With this caution, however, I allow my note to stand.—Eb. ' VOL. I. 4 50 CRATEROPODIDE. the bird. It is a very broad, slightly pyriform oval, of a uniform pale greenish-blue tint, and very fairly glossy. It measures 1-05 by 0°87. This egg appears to me to be an abnormally small one. A nest sent me from Sikhim, where it was found in July, contained much larger eggs, and more in proportion to the size of the bird. The nest I refer to was placed in a clump of bamboos about 5 feet from the ground. lt was a tolerably compact, moderately deep, saucer- shaped nest, between 6 and 7 inches in diameter, composed of dead bamboo-sheaths and leaves bound together with creepers and her- baceous stems, and thinly lined with roots. It contained two eggs. These are rather broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards one end, of a uniform pale greenish blue, and are fairly glossy. _ These eges measured 1:33 and 1:30 in length, and 0-98 in breadth. . Mr. Mandelli sent me two nests of this species, both taken in Native Sikhim, the one on the 4th, the other on the 20th July. Each contained two fresh eggs. One was placed in a small tree in heavy jungle, at a height of about 6 feet from the ground, the other in a clump of bamboos a foot lower. Both are large, coarse, saucer-shaped nests, 7 to 8 inches in diameter, and 3°5 to 4 in height externally ; the cavities are about 4'5 inches in diameter, and less than 2 in depth; the basal portion of the nests is com- posed entirely of dry leaves, chiefly those of the bamboo, loosely held together by a few stems of creepers; the sides of the nest are stems of creepers wound round and round and loosely intertwined, and the cavity is lined with rather coarse rootlets, and in one case with fine twigs. 73. Garrulax moniliger (Hodgs.). Zhe Necklaced Laughwy- Thrush. Garrulax moniliger (ZHodgs.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 40; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 413. Of the Necklaced Laughing-Thrush Dr. Jerdon says :—‘“‘I pro- cured both this and the last (the Black-gorgeted Laughing-Thrush) at Darjeeling, and have also seen one or both in Sylhet, Cachar, and Upper Burmah. They both associate in large flocks, and fre- quent more open forest than most of the previous species. The eggs are greenish blue.” From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes :—“ In the first week of June 1 found a nest in low jungle, at 2000 feet, containing four greenish- blue eggs, but, as I did not see the bird, left it until my return a week later. I then saw the female, but in the interval the young had been hatched. The nest closely resembled that of D. cerulatus [p. 46], both in shape and composition, and was similarly situated between several upright slender shoots to which it was firmly attached. It was, however, within five feet of the ground, which is lower by 5 feet or so than D. cwrulatus generally builds. “T have found this species breeding from April to June, up to GARRULAX. 51 elevations not much exceeding 2500 feet. It affects the low, dense scrub growing in moist situations, and usually fixes its nest between several upright sprays, within 5 or 6 feet of the ground. The nest is cup-shaped, made of dry bamboo-leaves, intermixed with a very few pieces of climber-stems, and thickly lined with old leaf-stalks of some pinnate-leaved tree. Externally it measures about 5°5 inches in diameter by 4 in height; internally 3°5 by 2°75. “The eggs are four or five in number.” Mr. Oates writes:—“‘On the 27th April I shot a female in the Pegu Hills off her nest. This latter contained one young one, and one deformed egg, which unfortunately got broken ; colour a deep blue. The nest was placed in a small seedling bamboo about 6 feet from the ground at a joint where a number of small twigs shot out, inverted umbrella fashion. The nest in every respect closely resembled that of G. pectoralis.” He subsequently remarked :—“ Breeds in Lower Pegu chiefly in July. Average of six eggs, 1:16 by 88; colour, very glossy deep blue. Nest placed in forks of saplings within reach of the hand, massive, cup-shaped, and made of dead leaves and small branches ; lined with fine twigs. Outside diameter 7 inches and depth 4; interior 42 by 2.” : A nest found below Darjeeling in the first week of June on the branch of a good-sized tree, at a height of 12 feet from the ground, was similar to that described by Mr. Gammie, and contained a single fresh egg. This is a moderately broad oval, somewhat pointed towards the small end, and exhibits very little gloss. It is of pre- cisely the same colour as those of the preceding species, but mea- sures only 1-2 in length by 0°9 in breadth. , Writing from Tenasserim, Major C. T. Bingham says :—* Be- tween the 25th March and 28th April I found at least twenty nests of this bird. ‘They were broad, shallow cups of roots and twigs, lined with fine black grass-roots, and placed at heights varying from 4 to 10 feet above the ground, invariably in the forks of low bamboo. The number of eggs varied from 3 to 5; blue in colour, and fairly glossy.” Numerous nests from Sikhim, Pegu, and Tenasserim are all of precisely the same type as described by Mr.Gammie; but some are fully 7 inches in external diameter, and in several the cavity is at least 4 inches in diameter. The eggs of this species obtained by Mr. Gammie vary very much in size and shape, and somewhat in colour. Some are considerably elongated ovals, with a marked pyriform tendency. Others are particularly broad ovals for this class of egg. The shell is fine and compact, and as a rule they seem to have a fine gloss; but one or two specimens almost want this. In colour they are a pale, clear, slightly greenish blue, unspotted and unmarked. In length they vary from 1:01 to 1:13, and in breadth from 0°81 to 0-9, but the average of thirteen is 1:07 by 0°85. Ae 52 ORATEROPODID 2. 76. Garrulax albigularis (Gould). The White-throated Laughing-Thrush. Garrulax albogularis (Gould), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 838; Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no. 411. The White-throated Laughing-Thrush breeds throughout the lower southern ranges of the Himalayas from Assam to Afghanistan at elevations of from 4000 to nearly 8000 feet. They lay from the commencement of April to the end of June. The nest varies in shape from a moderately deep cup to a broad shallow saucer, and from 5 to 7 or even 8 inches in external diameter, and from less than 2 to nearly 4 inches in depth internally. Coarse grass, flags, creepers, dead leaves, moss, moss- and grass-roots, all at times enter more or less largely into the composition of the nest, which, though sometimes wholly unlined, is often neatly cushioned with red and black fern and moss-roots. The nests are placed in small bushes, shrubs, or trees, at heights of from 3 to 10 feet, sometimes in forks, but more often, I think, on low horizontal branches, between two or three upright shoots. Three is, I think, the regular complement of eggs, and this is the number I have always found when the eggs were much incubated. I have not myself observed that this species breeds in company, nor can I ever remember to have taken two nests within 100 yards of each other. Captain Hutton remarks :—* This is very common in Mussoorie at all seasons, and congregates into large and noisy flocks, turning up the dead leaves, and screaming and chattering together in most discordant concert. Itbreedsin April and May, placing the nest in the forks of young oaks and other trees, about 7 or 8 feet from the ground, though sometimes higher, and fastening the sides of it firmly to the supporting twigs by tendrils of climbing-plants. It is sometimes composed externally almost entirely of such woody ten- drils, intermixed with a few other twigs, and lined with black hair- like fibres of mosses and lichens; at other times it is externally composed of coarse dry grasses and leaves of different kinds of orchids, and lined with fibres, the materials varying with the locality. The eggs are of a deep and beautiful green, shining as if recently varnished, and three in number. In shape they taper somewhat suddenly to the smaller end, which may almost be termed obtusely pointed. The size 1:19 by 0°87 inch. The usual number of eggs is three, though sometimes only one or two are found; but onl on one occasion out of more than a dozen nests have I found four eggs. The old bird will remain on the nest until within reach of the hand.” From Murree, Colonel C. H. T. Marshall writes :—“ This was the most beautiful egg taken this season, being of a rich, deep, glossy, greenish-blue colour. The nest is composed of fresh ivy- twigs, with the leaves attached, tightly woven together. The birds breed on small trees, not high up, at the end of a branch. While GARRULAX. 53 their nests were being examined, they came round in flocks to see what was happening, chattering and making that peculiar laughing note from which this genus takes its name. They are even gre- garious in the breeding-season, and all the nests were found pretty near each other about 6000 feet up.” The nest sent me by Colonel Marshall is a broad, shallow cup, or saucer as I should perhaps call it, some 6 inches in diameter, with a central depression of at most 1:5 inch, below which the nest is an inch or 1:5 in thickness. It is very loosely put together, and composed interiorly of moderately fine dry twigs and roots, but exteriorly it is completely wound round with slender green ivy- twigs to which the leaves are attached. It has no lining or pre- tence for such. Captain Cock says:—‘“The White-throated Laughing-Thrush lays one of the most lovely eggs with which I am acquainted. The nest is usually low, never more than 10 feet or so from the ground; and of some fifteen or more nests that I have taken, all were con- structed of long stalks of the ground-ivy, twisted round and round into a wreath. The nest is notadeep cup; if anything it is rather shallow, but itis very wide. I always found these nests in thick forest, at high elevations from 6000 to 7000 feet. The birds used to sit close, and when put off their nests would commence their outcries, and from all parts they would assemble and flit about almost within reach of one’s hand, making an awful noise, and in the dark shade of the forest their white gorgets had quite a ghostly look. The eggs are always three in number, of a beautiful shining blue-green, sometimes of a very long oval type. J have found the nests at Murree from the 8rd May to quite the end of June.” Colonel G. F. L. Marshall writing of this species says:—‘“ A nest found at Nynee Tal on Ayar Pata, about 7000 feet above the sea, contained two fresh eggs on the 31st May. The eggs were of a rich deep greenish blue, unspotted. The nest was a scanty and loosely-built. structure, composed of roots and stems of grass and creepers, cup-shaped, rather shallow, and lined with a curious black creeper, very like coarse hair. The birds were gregarious even though breeding, and were moving about the underwood in parties of three to five. The nest was near the top of an oak-sapling in a dense coppice, placed close against the stem in a bunch of leaves at the top. The only difficulty in finding it lay in the scantiness of the structure rather than in the concealment by the foliage. The bird was on the nest and only moved off about 3 feet, sitting close by and chattering indignantly during my inspection. They are noisy birds, constantly on the move, and their notes, though rather harsh, are very varied and quite conversational.” The eggs are long, and pointed at the small end, to which they sometimes taper much. They are very glossy, and vary from a deep dull blue (the blue of a dark oil-paint, very much deeper than that of any other of the Crateropodine with which I am acquainted) toa deep intense greenish blue. Possibly other as deeply coloured 54 ‘ CRATEROPODID A. eggs occur in this family, but I have seen none like them. They are of course entirely unspotted. In length they vary from 1°16 to 1:25, and in breadth from 0-8 to 0°86; but the average of some twenty eggs measured is 1:22 by 0:83. 78. Ianthocincla ocellata (Vig.). Zhe White-spotted Laughing-Thrush, Garrulax ocellatus (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 41; Hume, Rough Draft N. §& E. no. 414. I know nothing personally of the nidification of the White- spotted Laughing-Thrush, which breeds nowhere, so far as I know, west of Nepal, but I hada nest with a couple of eggs and one of the parent-birds sent me from Darjeeling. The nest was taken in May in one of the low warm valleys leading to the Great Runjeet, and is said to have been placed close to the ground in a thick clump of fern and grass. The nest is chiefly composed of these, intermingled with moss and roots, and is a large loose structure some 7 inches in diameter. Mr. Blyth remarked in ‘The Ibis’ (1867) that this species was “surely a Zrochalopteron rather than a Garrulax,” and the eggs seem to confirm this view. These are long, cylindrical ovals, very obtuse even at the smaller end. They are about the same size as those of Garrulaw albigularis, with a very delicate pale blue ground and little or no gloss. One egg is spotless; the other has a few chocolate-brown specks or spots towards the large end. They measure 1°18 by 0°86 and 1:25 by 0°85. 80. Ianthocincla rufigularis, Gould. The Rufous-chinned Laughing-Thrush. Trochalopteron rufogulare (Gould), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p.47; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 421. Common as this species is about Simla, I have never yet secured the nest, and know nothing certain about the eggs. Captain Hutton says :—‘This species appears usually in pairs, sometimes in a family of four or five. It breeds in May, in which month I took a nest, at about 6500 feet elevation, in a retired and wooded glen; it was composed of small twigs externally and lined with the fine black fibres of lichens. The nest was placed on a horizontal bough, about 7 feet from the ground, and contained three pure white eggs. Size 1-12 by 0°69; shape ordinary. The stomach of the old bird contained sand, seed, and the remains of wasps.” One egg that I possess of this species I owe to Captain Hutton, and it is of the Pomatorhinus type—a long oval, slightly pointed pure white egg, with but little gloss, measuring 1:08 by 0°75, TROCHALOPTERUM, 55 From Sikhim a nest, said to belong to this species, has been recently sent me. It was found below Darjeeling in July, and was placed in a double fork of the branchlets of a medium-sized tree. It is a moderately deep cup, composed almost entirely of dry, coarser and finer, tendrils of creepers, and is lined with a some black moss-roots and a few scraps of dead leaves. It con- tained three fresh eggs. Numerous nests of this species subsequently sent me from Sikhim are all of the same type, all moderately deep cups composed entirely of creeper-tendrils, the cavity only being lined with fine black roots. They appear from the specimens before me to be quite sui generis and unlike those of any of its congeners. No grass, no dead leaves, no moss seems to be employed ; nothing but the tendrils of some creeper. The nests appear to be always placed at the fork, where three, four, or more shoots diverge, and to be generally more or less like inverted cones, measuring say 4 to 5 inches in height, and about the same in breadth at the top, while the cavities are about 3 inches in diameter and 1°5 to 2in depth. The nests appear to have been found at very varying heights from the ground from 5 to 15 feet, and at elevations of from 3000 to 5000 feet. They appear to have contained three fresh or more or less incubated eggs. The eggs were found in Sikhim on different dates between 25th May and 8th September. Exceptional as the coloration of the eggs of this species may seem, there is no doubt that they are pure white. The shell is thin and fragile, but has generally a decided gloss, and the eggs are typically elongated ovals, obtuse-ended, and more or less pyriform or cylindrical. The eggs vary from 0:92 to 1:13 in length, and from 0-75 to 0-8 in breadth, but the average of eleven eggsis 1:06 by 0°77 nearly. 82. Trochalopterum erythrocephalum (Vig.). The Red-headed Luughing-Thrush. Trochalopteron erythrocephalum (Viy.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 48; Hume, Rough Draft N. §& E. no, 415. From Kumaon westwards, at any rate as far as the valley of the Beas, the Red-headed Laughing-Thrush is, next to 7. lineatum, the most common species of the genus. It lays in May and June, at elevations of from 4000 to 7000 feet, building on low branches of trees, ata height of from 3 to 10 feet from the ground. The nests are composed chiefly of dead leaves bound round into a deep cup with delicate fronds of ferns and coarse and fine grass, the cavities being scantily lined with fine grass and moss-roots, It is difficult by any description to convey an adequate idea of the beauty of some of these nests—the deep red-brown of the withered ferns, the black of the grass- and moss-roots, the pale yellow of the broad flagey grass, and the straw-yellow of some of the finer grass- stems, all blended together into an artistic wreath, in the centre of 56 CRATEROPODIDA. which the beautiful sky-blue and maroon-spotted eggs repose. Externally the nests may average about 6 inches in diameter, but the egg-cavity is comparatively large and very regular, measuring about 32 inches across and fully 2} inches in depth. Some nests of course are less regular and artistic in their appearance, but, as a tule, those of this species are particularly beautiful. The eggs vary from two to four in number. Sir E. C. Buck sent me the following note :— . “JT found a nest of this species near Narkunda (about 30 miles north of Simla) on the 26th June. It was placed on the branch of a banj tree, some & feet from the ground, and contained two eggs, half set. Nest and eggs forwarded.” Dr. Jerdon says that Shore, as quoted by Grould in his ‘ Century,’ says that “it is by no means uncommon in Kumaon, where it frequents shady ravines, building in hollows and their precipitous sides, and making its nest of small sticks and grasses, the eggs being five in number, of a sky-blue colour.” But Shore, as the showman would say, is, so far as eges and nests are concerned, “a fabulous writer,” and the eggs are always more or less spotted, and no nest that I ever saw of this species was composed of “small sticks.” Mr. Blyth says:—“ Mr. Hodgson figures a green egg, spotted much like that of Turdus musicus, as that of the present species ;” but in all Hodgson’s drawings this green represents a greenish blue, as I have tested in dozens of cases. Colonel G. F. L. Marshall remarks :—“I found a nest of this species on the 15th May at Nynee Tal on the top of Ayar Pata, at an elevation of about 7500 feet above the sea. The nest was a rather deep cup, neatly made and placed about 5 feet from the ground amongst the outer twigs of a thick barberry bush, the leaves of which entirely concealed it. It was composed of a thick layer of dead oak- and rhododendron-leaves, bound round outside with just enough of grass-stems and moss to keep the leaves in place; it had no lining of any description. The egg-cavity was 33 inches broad by nearly 24 inches deep. The eggs, two in number, were blue, with a few spots, streaks, and scrawls of brown tending to form a zone at the larger end. They were large for the size of the bird. The ground-colour was like that of the eges of a Song-Thrush in England. “Several more nests found subsequently with eggs up to 4th June were similar in structure, but placed in small oak trees from 5 to 15 or 18 feet from the ground. ‘‘T found a nest of this species containing a single hard-set egg on the 17th August ; both parent-birds were by the nest; this is unusually late, the chief breeding-month being June.” The eggs are very long ovals, of a delicate pale greenish-blue ground-colour, with a few spots, streaks, and streaky blotches of a very rich though slightly brownish red at the large end. These eggs, though somewhat longer in shape and less freely marked, are exactly of the same type as those of 7. cachinnans and T. variegatum. TROCHALOPTERUM. 57 The texture of the shell is very fine and compact, and they have a slight gloss. In some eggs the spottings are more numerous, and, besides the primary markings already mentioned, a few purple spots and blotches, mostly very pale, are intermingled with the darker markings. In almost all the eggs that I have seen the markings were absolutely confined to the larger end. In length the eggs vary from 1:15 to 1-22, and in breadth from 0°8 to 0°86; but the average is about 1:2 by 0°82. 85. Trochalopterum nigrimentum, Hodgs. The Western Vellow-winged Laughing-Thrush. Trochalopteron chrysopterum (Gould), apud Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 43; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 416. The Western Yellow-winged Laughing-Thrush breeds, so far as is yet known, only in Nepal, Sikhim, and Bhootan, from all which localities we have quite young birds, but no eggs. Dr. Jerdon says :—‘“ The eggs are greenish blue, in a nest neatly made with roots and moss.” This, of course, is wrong, as the eggs are now well known to be spotted. . From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes:—“The Yellow-winged Laughing-Thrush breeds from April to June at elevations from 5500 feet upwards. It prefers scrubby jungle, and places its nest in bushes about six feet or sofrom the ground. It is a broad, cup- shaped structure, neatly and strongly made of fine twigs and dry grass-leaves, lined with roots and with a few strings of green moss wound round the outside. Externally, it measures about 6 inches wide, and 43 deep; internally 33 by 23. “ The eggs are usually three in number.” Six nests of this species found between the 4th May and 2nd July in Native and British Sikhim were sent me by Mr. Mandelli. They were placed in small trees or dense bushes at heights of from 3 to 8 feet, and contained in some cases two, and in others three fresh or fully incubated eggs, so that sometimes the bird only lays two eggs. Three nests were also sent me by Mr. Gammie, taken in the neighbourhood of the Sikhim Cinchona-Plantations. Allare precisely of the same type, all constructed with the same materials, but owing to the different proportions in which these are: used some of the nests at first sight seem to differ widely from others. Some also are a good deal bigger than others, but all are massive, deep cups, varying from 5:25 to 6'5 inches in diameter, and from 3 to fully 4 in height externally ; the cavities vary from 3 to 3:5 in diameter, and from 2 to 2:5 in depth. The body of the nests is composed of grass; the cavity is lined first with dry leaves, and then thickly or thinly with black fibrous roots. Externally the nest is more or less bound together by creepers and stems of herbaceous plants. Some- times only a few strings of moss and afew sprays of Selaginella are to be seen on the outside of the nest; while, on the other hand, in some nests the entire outer surface is completely covered over with green moss, not only on the sides, but on the upper margin, so as 58 CRATEROPODID#. to conceal completely the rest of the materials of the nest, and in all the nine nests before me the extent to which the moss is used varies. The eggs of this species are typically somewhat elongated ovals, some are much pointed towards the small end, others are somewhat riform, and others again are subcylindrical. The shell is fine and soft, but has only a moderate amount of gloss. The ground- colour, which varies very little in shade, is a delicate pale, slightly greenish blue, almost precisely the same colour as that of Trocha- lopterum erythrocephalum. The eggs are sparingly (in fact, almost exclusively about the large end) marked with deep chocolate. These markings are in some spots and blotches, but in many assume the form of thicker or thinner hieroglyphic lines. As a rule, three fourths of the egg is spotless, occasionally a single speck or spot occurs towards the small end of the egg. One or two eggs are almost spotless. In length the eggs vary from 1-1 to 1:23, and in breadth from 0°73 to 0-87, but the average of sixteen eggs is 1:17 nearly by 0°82. 87. Trochalopterum pheniceum (Gould). The Crimson-winged Laughing-Thrush. Trochalopteron pheeniceum (Gould), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 48; Hume, Rough Draft N. §& E. no. 422., Mr. Gammie says:—‘“I have found altogether seven nests of the Crimson-winged Laughing-Thrush in and about Rishap, at. elevations between 4000 and 5000 feet, and on various dates be- tween the 4th and 23rd May. The locality chosen for the nest is in some moist forest amongst dense undergrowth. It is placed in shrubs, at heights of from 6 to 10 feet from the ground, and is generally suspended between several upright stems, to which it is firmly attached by fibres. It is chiefly composed of dry bamboo- leaves and a few twigs, and lined with black fibres and moss-roots. A few strings of moss are twisted round it externally to aid in concealing it. Itis a moderately deep cup, measuring externally about 5 inches in diameter and 4 inches in height, and internally 34 inches in width and 2 inches in depth. “The eggs are almost always three in number, but occasionally only two. Of the seven nests taken by me, five contained eggs and two young birds.” The Crimson-winged Laughing-Thrush, according to Mr. Hodg- son’s notes, breeds in Sikhim, at elevations of from 3000 to 5000 feet, during the months of April, May, and June. The nest is placed in the fork of some thick bush or small tree, where three or four sprays divide, at from 2 to 5 feet above the ground. The nest is a very deep compact cup. One measured zn situ was 4:5 inches in diameter and the same in height externally, while the cavity was 3 inches in diameter and 2-25 deep. It was very compact and was composed of dry leaves, creepers, grass-flowers, and vegetable fibres, more or less lined with moss-roots and coated externally with dry bamboo-leaves. They lay, we are told, three or four eggs. TROCHALOPTERUM, 59 Dr. Jerdon says :—* A nest and eggs said to be of this bird were brought to me at Darjeeling ; the nest made of roots and grass, and the eggs, three in number, pale blue, with a few narrow and wavy dusky streaks.” The eggs are singularly lovely. In shape they are elongated ovals, generally very obtuse at both ends, and many of them exhi- biting cylindrical or pyriform tendencies. The shell is very fine and fairly glossy, and the ground-colour is a most beautiful clear pale sea-green in some, greenish blue in others. The character of the markings is more that of the Buntings than of this family. There are a few strongly marked deep maroon, generally more or less angular, spots or dashes, principally about the large end, and there are a few spots and tiny clouds of pale soft purple, and then there are an infinite variety of hair-line hieroglyphics, twisted and scrawled in brownish or reddish purple, about the egg. The mark- ings are nowhere as a rule crowded, and towards the small end are usually sparse and occasionally wholly wanting. In some eggs a bad pen seems to have been used to scribble the pattern, and every here and there instead of a fine hair-line there is a coarse thick one. The eggs are pretty constant in size and colour, but here and there an abnormally pale specimen, in which the green has almost entirely disappeared, is met with. In length they vary from 0:98 to 1:15, and in breadth from 0-7 to 0°82, but the average of thirty-one eggs is 1:04 by 0°74. 88. Trochalopterum subunicolor, Hodgs. The Plain-colowred Laughing-T hrush. Trochalopteron subunicolor, Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind.ii, p. 44; Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no. 417. The Olivaceous or Plain-coloured Laughing-Thrush breeds, according to Mr. Hodgson’s notes, in the central region of Nepal from April to June. It nests in open forests and groves, building its nest on some low branch of a tree, 2 or 3 feet from the ground, between a number of twigs. The nest is large and cup-shaped: one measured externally 5-5 inches in diameter and 3°38 in height ; internally 2°75 deep and 3°12 in diameter. The nest is composed externally of grass and mosses lined with soft bamboo-leaves. Three or four eggs are laid, unspotted greenish blue. One is figured as 1:07 by 0-7. 90. Trochalopterum variegatum (Vig.). The Hustern Variegated Laughing-Thrush. Trochalopteron variegatum (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 45; Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no. 418 (part). The Eastern Variegated Laughing-Thrush breeds only at eleva- 60 CRATEROPODID. tions of from 4000 to 7000 or 8000 feet, from Simla to Nepal, during the latter half of April, May, and June. The nest is a pretty compact, rather shallow cup, composed exteriorly of coarse grass, in which a few dead leaves are intermingled ; it has no lining, but the interior is composed of rather finer and softer grass than the exterior, and a good number of dry needle-like fir-leaves are used towards the interior. It is from 5 to 8 inches in diameter exteriorly, and the cavity from 3 inches to 3°5 in diameter and about 2 inches deep. The nest is usually placed in some low, densely-foliaged branch of a tree, at say from 3 to 8 feet from the ground; but I recently obtained one placed in a thick tuft of grass, growing at the roots of a young Deodar, not above 6 inches from the ground. They lay four or five eggs. The first egg that I obtained of this species, sent me by Sir E. C. Buck, C.S., and taken by himself near Narkunda, late in June, out of a nest containing two eggs and two young ones, was a nearly perfect, rather long oval, and precisely the same type of egg as those of TZ. erythrocephalum and T. cachinnans, but considerably smaller than theformer. The ground-colour is a pale, rather dingy greenish blue, and it is blotched, spotted, and speckled, almost ex- clusively at the larger end, and even there not very thickly, with reddish brown. The egg appeared to have but little gloss. Other eggs subsequently obtained by myself were very similar, but slightly larger and rather more thickly and boldly blotched, the majority of the markings being still at the large end. The colour of the markings varies a good deal: a liver-red is perhaps the most common, but yellowish brown, pale purple, pur- plish red, and brownish red also occur. Here and there an egg is met with almost entirely devoid of markings, with perhaps only one moderately large spot and a dozen specks, and these so deep a red as to be all but black. The eggs vary from 1-07 to 1:15 in length, and from 0°76 to 0°82 in breadth. 91. Trochalopterum simile, Hume. The Western Variegated Laughing-Thrush. Trochalopterum simile, Hume; Hume, Cat. no. 418 bis. Messrs. Cock and Marshall write from Murree :—“ The nidifi- cation of this Trochalopterum was apparently unknown before. We found one nest on the 15th June, about twenty feet up a spruce- fir at the extremity of the bough. Nest deep, cup-shaped, solidly built of grass, roots, and twigs; the bird sits close. Eggs light greenish blue, sparingly spotted with pale purple, the same size as those of Merula castanea.” TROCHALOPTHRUM. 61 92. Trochalopterum squamatum (Gould). The Blue-winged Laughing-Thrush. Trochalopteron squamatum (Gould), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p.46; Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no, 420, From Sikhim my friend Mr. Gammie writes :—“ I have never as yet found more than one nest of the Blue-winged Laughing-Thrush, and this one was found on the 18th May at Mongphoo, at an ele- vation of about 3500 feet. ‘The nest was placed in a bush (one of the Zingiberacee), growing in a marshy place, in the midst of dense scrub, at a height of about 4 feet from the ground, and was firmly attached to several upright stems. It was composed of dry bamboo-leaves, held together by the stems of delicate creepers, and was lined with a few black fibres. It was cup-shaped, and mea- sured externally 5-7 in diameter by 3°6 in height, and internally 3-7 in width by 2°6 in depth. The nest contained three eggs, which were unfortunately almost ready to hatch off, so that three is probably the normal number of the eggs.” According to Mr. Hodgson’s notes the Blue-winged Laughing- Thrush breeds in May and June in the central region of Nepal in forests, at elevations of from 2000 to 6000 feet. The nest is placed in a fork of a branch on some small tree, and is a large mass of dry leaves and coarse dry grass, 7 or 8 inches in diameter externally, mortar-shaped, the cavity about 2°5 deep, and lined with hair-like fibres. The nest, though composed of loose materials, is very firm and compact. They lay four or five eggs, unspotted, verditer-blue, one of which is figured as a broad regular oval, only slightly compressed towards one end, measuring 1°2 by 0:9. One of the eggs taken by Mr. Gammie (the others were un- fortunately broken) is a long, almost cylindrical, oval, very obtuse at both ends and slightly compressed towards the smaller end, so that the egg has a pyriform tendency. It measures 1:25 by 0°82. The colour is an excessively pale greenish blue, precisely the same as that of the eges of Sturnia malabarica; but then this present egg was nearly ready to hatch off when taken, and the fresh eggs are somewhat deeper coloured. Subsequent to his letter above quoted, Mr. Gammie on the 10th June found a second nest of this species similar to the first, con- taining three nearly fresh eggs. These are similar in shape to that above described, but in colour are a beautiful clear verditer-blue, altogether a much brighter and richer tint than that of the first. They measure 1:2 and 1:25 by 0°88. One nest was taken by Mr. Gammie above Mongphoo at an elevation of about 4500 feet on the 30th of April. It was placed in a bush at a height of about 6 feet from the ground, and contained three fresh eggs. It was a loosely put together, massive cup, some 7 inches in diameter and 4 in height externally. It was com- posed mainly of fine twigs, creeper-stems, and grass, with a few bamboo-leaves intermingled, and the cavity was carefully lined 62 ORATEROPODIDZ. with bamboo-leaves, and then within that thinly with black fibrous roots; the cavity measured 3°7 inches in diameter and 2°3 in depth. The eggs of this species, of which I have now received many, appear to be typically somewhat elongated ovals, aud not unfre- quently they are more or less pyriform or even cylindrical. As a rule, they are fairly glossy, a bright pale, somewhat greenish blue, quite spotless, and varying a little in tint. In length they appear to vary from 1:11 to 1:25, and in breadth from 0°82 to 0:91; but the average of eleven eggs is 1-2 by 0°87. 93. Trochalopterum cachinnans (Jerd.). The Nilghiri Laughing-Thrush. Trochalopteron cachinnans (Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 48; Hume, Rough Draft N.§ E. no. 423. The Nilghiri Laughing-Thrush breeds, according to my many informants, throughout the more elevated portions of the moun- tains from which it derives its trivial name, from February to the beginning of June. A nest of this species sent me by Mr. H.R. P. Carter, who took it at Coonoor on April 22nd (when it contained two fresh eggs), is externally a rather coarse clumsy structure, composed of roots, dead leaves, small twigs, and a little lichen, about 5 inches in diameter, and standing about 44 inches high. The ege-cavity is, however, very regularly shaped, and neatly lined with very fine grass-stems and a little fine tow-like vegetable fibre. It is a deep cup, measuring 2} inches across and fully 32 inches in depth. A nest taken by Miss Cockburn was a much more compact: structure, placed between four or five twigs. It was composed of coarse grass, dead and skeleton leaves, a very little lichen, and a quantity of moss. The egg-cavity was lined with very fine grass. The nest was externally about 5} inches in diameter and nearly 6 inches in height, but the egg-cavity had a diameter of only about 24 inches and was only about 23 inches deep. It was Jerdon, I believe, who gave the name of Laughing- Thrushes to this group, and this name is applicable enough to this particular bird, the one with which he was most familiar, for it does laugh—albeit, a most maniacal laugh; but the majority of the group have not the shadow of a giggle even in them, and should have been designated “ Screaming Squabblers.” Mr. J. Darling, Jr., says :—“ This bird breeds from February to May. Ihave found the nests all over the Nilghiris, at eleva- tions of from 4500 to 7500 feet above the sea. The nest is placed indiscriminately in any bush or tree that happens to take the bird’s fancy, at heights of from 3 to 12 feet from the ground. “ In shape it is circular, adeep cup, externally some 6 inches in diameter and 5 or 6 inches in height, and with a cavity 3 to 4 inches wide and often fully 4 inches in depth. The nest is composed of moss and small twigs, at times of grass mingled with some spiders’ TROOHALOPTERUM. 63 webs: sometimes there is a foundation of dead leaves. The cavity is lined with fur, cotton-wool, feathers, &c. “ The eggs are two or three in number.” Mr. Wait, writing from Coonoor, says :—“ 1’. cachinnans breeds about May, and lays from three to five oval eggs. The ground is bluish, with ash-coloured and brown spots and blotches, and occa- sionally marks.” None of my other correspondents, however, admit that the bird ever lays more than three eggs. Mr. Davison tells me that “this bird breeds commonly on the Nilghiris, just before the rains set in, in May and the earlier part of June, but it occasionally breeds earlier (in April) or later (in the latter end of June). The nest is cup-shaped, composed of dead leaves, moss, grass, &c., and lined with a few moss-roots or fine grass. It is placed in the fork of a branch about 6 or 8 feet from the ground. The eggs area bluish green, mottled chiefly towards the larger end, and sometimes also streaked with purplish brown. The normal number of eggs is two; sometimes, however, three are laid.” From Kotagherry, Miss Cockburn remarks :—“« The name ‘Laughing-Thrush ’ is most applicable to this bird, and its notes are often mistaken for the sound of the human voice. This bird is very shy, except when its nest contains eggs or young, when it becomes extremely bold. I was quite surprised to see a pair whose nest I was taking come so close as to induce me to put out my hand to catch them. The Laughing-Thrush builds a pretty, though large, nest, and generally selects the forked branches of a thick bush, and commences its nest with a large quantity. of moss, after which there is a lining of fine grass and roots, and the withered fibrous covering of the Peruvian Cherry (Physalis peru- viana), the nest being finished with a few feathers, in general belonging to the bird. The inside of the nest is perfectly round, and rarely contains more than two eggs, belonging to the owner. The eggs are of a beautiful greenish-blue colour, with a few large and small brown blotches and streaks, mostly at the large end. I have found the nests of these birds in February, March, and April. Occasionally the Black-and-white Crested Cuckoo, which appears on these hills in the month of March, deposits its eggs (two in number) in the nest of this Thrush. They are easily distinguished, as their colour is quite different from the Thrush’s eggs, being entirely dark bluish green.” Mr. Rhodes W. Morgan writing from South India, says, in ‘ The Ibis ’:—* It builds a very neat nest of moss, dried leaves, and the outer husk of the fruit of the Brazil Cherry, lined with feathers, bits of fur, and other soft substances. The nest is cup-shaped, and generally contains three eggs, most peculiarly marked with blotches, streaks, and wavy lines of a dark claret-colour on a light blue ground. The markings are almost always at the larger end.” The first specimens that I obtained of the eggs of this species were kindly sent to me by the late Captain Mitchell and Mr. H. R. P. Carter of Madras ; they were taken on the Nilghiris. ‘I'hey 64. ORATEROPODID&. are moderately broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards one end, larger than the average eggs of 7. lineatum, and about the same size as large specimens of the eggs of Crateropus canorus and Argya maleolmi. The ground-colour is of a delicate pale blue, and towards the large end, and sometimes over the whole surface, they are speckled, spotted, and blotched, but only sparingly, with brownish red and blackish brown, and amongst these markings a few cloudy streaks and spots of dull faint reddish purple are observable. The eggs have not much gloss, Numerous other specimens subsequently received from Miss Cockburn and others correspond well with the above description. More or less pyriform varieties are common. In some eggs the markings are almost entirely wanting, there being only a very faint brownish-pink freckling at the large end; and in many eggs, even some that are profusely spotted all over, the markings con- sist only of darker or lighter brownish-pink shades. Occasionally a few, almost black, twisted lines are intermingled with the other markings, and in these cases the lines are frequently surrounded by a reddish-purple nimbus. The eggs vary in length from 0-92 to 1:08, and in breadth from 0-74 to 0-8, but the average of twenty eggs measured was 1-0 by 0°76. 96. Trochalopterum fairbanki, Blanf. The Palni Laughing- Thrush. Trochalopterum fairbanki, Blanf., Hume, Cat. no. 423 bis. The Rev. 8. B. Fairbank, the discoverer of this species, found its nest at Kodai Kanal, in the Palni Hills,in May. The nest was placed in the crotch of a tree, at about 10 feet from the ground, and at an elevation of nearly 6500 feet above the level of the sea. The eggs are moderately elongated ovals, with a fine, fairly glossy shell. The ground is pale greenish blue or bluish green ; the markings are spots, small blotches, hair-lines, and hiero- glyphic-like scrawls, rather thinly scattered about the surface, and varying in colour through several shades of brownish and reddish purple to bright claret-colour. The only egg I have measures 1 inch in length by 0:8 inch in breadth. 99. Trochalopterum lineatum (Vig.). The Himalayan Streaked Laughing-Thrush. Trochalopteron lineatum (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 50; Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no, 425 *, Next to the Common House-Sparrow, the Himalayan Streaked Laughing-Thrush is perhaps the most familiar bird about our * T omit the note on 7. imbricatum in the ‘Rough Draft, because, as I have shown in the ‘ Birds of India,’ this bird was unknown to Hodgson, and his note refers to J. lineatum. Sufficient is now known about the nidification of this latter to render the insertion of Hodgson’s note unnecessary.—Ep. TROCHALOPTERUM. 65 houses at all the hill-stations of the Himalayas westward of Nepal and throughout the lower ranges on which these stations are ee ; this species breeds at elevations of from 5000 to 8000 eet. It lays from the end of April to the beginning of September, and very possibly occasionally even earlier and later. I took a nest on the 29th April near Mussoorie; Mx. Brooks obtained eggs in May and June at Almorah; Colonel G. F. L. Marshall at Mussoorie in July and August; and Colonel C. H. T. Marshall at Murree from May to the end of July. I again took them in July and August near Simla, and Captain Beavan found them as late as the 6th of September near the same station. So far as my own experience goes, the nests are always placed in very thick bushes or in low thick branches of some tree, the Deodar appearing to be a great favourite. Those I found averaged about 4 feet from the ground, but I took a single one in a Deo 1 tree fully 8 feet up. The bird, as a rule, conceals its nest so well that, though a loose and, for the size of the architect, a large structure, it is difficult to find, even when one closely examines the bush in which it is. The nest is nearly circular, with a deep cup-like cavity in the centre, reminding one much of that of Crateropus canorus, and is constructed of dry grass and the fine stems of herbaceous plants, often intermingled with the bark of some fibrous plant, with a considerable number of dead leaves interwoven in the fabric, especially towards the base. The cavity is neatly lined with fine grass-roots, or occasionally very fine grass. The cavity varies from 3 inches to 3°5 in diameter, and from 2:25 inches to 2°75 in depth; the walls immediately surrounding the cavity are very compact, but the compact portion rarely exceeds from °75 to 1 inch in thickness, beyond which the loose ends of the material straggle more or less, so that the external diameter varies from 5°5 inches to nearly 10. The normal number of eggs appears to me to be three, although Captain Beavan cites an instance of four being found. Captain Hutton tells us (J. A. S. B. xvii.) that in the neigh- bourhood of Mussoorie “this bird is met with in pairs, sometimes in a family of four or five, and may be seen under every bush. The nest is placed near the ground, in the midst of some thick low bush, or on the side of a bank amidst overhanging coarse grass, and not unfrequently in exposed and well-frequented places ; it is loosely and rather slovenly constructed of coarse dry grasses and stalks externally, lined sometimes with fine grass, sometimes with fine roots. The eggs are three in number, and in shape and size exceedingly variable, being sometimes of an ordinary oval, at others nearly round.” From Almorah and Nynee Tal my friend Mr. Brooks writes to me “ that this bird is common everywhere. The nest is generally placed in a low tree or bush where the foliage is thick. It is com= posed of grass, and lined with finer grass. The eggs are three in number, one inch and one line long by nine lines broad. They are VOL. I. 66 CRATEROPODID A. of a light greenish blue, the tint being much the same as that of the eggs of Acridotheres tristis, They lay from the commencement of May to the end of June.” ; Colonel G. F. L. Marshall tells me that “ the Streaked Laughing- Thrush is very common at Mussoorie, where it is called by the public the Robin of India. It breeds in July and August all about Landour. The nest is cup-shaped, rather shallow, and loosely put together, made of grass and fibre with some moss and a few dead leaves twisted into it; it is placed in a low bush or else on the ground concealed among the grass-roots on the hill-side. The eges, three or four in number, are oval, rather large for the bird, and of a pure light-blue colour without spots. I took eggs on the 26th and 28th July and on the 16th August.” Sir E. C. Buck writes :—“ At Mutianee, three marches north of Simla, I found on the 28th June a nest in a bush on the side of a scantily ‘jungled’ hill. It was 2 feet from the ground, constructed of grass and stalks externally, and lined with fibrous roots. It con- tained three fresh eggs. The nest measured—exterior diameter 6 inches, height exteriorly 4 inches; the interior diameter was 3 inches, and the depth of the cavity 2 inches.” The late Captain Beavan tells us that “on the 16th of August, 1866, I fouud a nest in the garden, in a rose-bush, with four pale blue eggs in it, like those of Acridotheres tristis, The nest is a large structure, firmly built of dry twigs, bark, sticks, ferns, and roots. Another nest, with three eggs only, was found in a thick clump of everlasting peas close to the ground on the 6th of Sep- tember. The female sat very close, and this may have been the second nest of the same pair that built the nest mentioned above, as it was built not far from the first.” Major ©. T. Bingham writes :—“ Being at Landour for a few days in May I chanced on a nest of this bird, perhaps the com- monest in the hills. It was placed under an overhanging bush on the side of Lal Tiba hill, and on the ground, being constructed rather loosely of pieces of the withered stem of some creeper, intertwined with a quantity of oak-leaves, and lined with grass- roots.” _ The eggs, of which I must have seen some hundreds, as this is the commonest Laughing-Thrush about both Mussoorie and Simla, are typically regular and moderately broad ovals. Abnormally elon- gated, spherical, and pyriform varieties occur; some are nearly round like a Kingfisher’s, and I have seen one almost as slender as a Swift's, but, as a rule, the eggs vary but little either in shape or colour. They are perfectly spotless, moderately glossy, and of a delicate pale greenish blue, which of course varies a little in shade and intensity of colour, but which is very much paler on the average than those of any of the Crateropi, and at the same time less glossy. Iam not at all sure whether 7’. lincatum is rightly asso- ciated with species like 7. cachinnans, T. variegatwm, and T. ery- throcephalum, which all have spotted eggs. In length the eggs vary from 0°8 to 1:18, and in breadth from GRAMMATOPTILA. 67 0°63 to 0-8; but the average of fifty-eight eggs carefully measured is 1:01 by 0°73. 101. Grammatoptila striata (Vig.). The Striated Laughing- Thrush, Grammatoptila striata (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 11; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 382,” ls F The Striated Laughing-Thrush, remarks Mr. Blyth, “builds a compact Jay-like nest. The eggs are spotless blue, as shown by one of Mr. Hodgson’s drawings in the British Museum.” A nest of this species found near Darjeeling in July was placed on the branches of a large tree, at a height of about 12 feet. It was a huge shallow cup, composed mainly of moss, bound together with stems of créepers and fronds of a Selaginella, and lined with coarse roots and broken pieces of dry grass. A few dead leaves were incorporated in the body of the nest. The nest was about 8 or 9 inches in diameter and about 2 in thickness, the broad, shallow, saucer-like cavity being about an inch in depth. The nest contained two nearly fresh eggs. The eggs appear to be rather peculiarly shaped. They are moderately elongated ovals, a good deal pinched out and pointed towards the small end, in the same manner (though in a less degree) as those of some Plovers, Snipe, &c. I do not know whether this is the typical shape of this egg, or whether it is an abnorinal peculiarity of the eggs of this particular nest. The shell is fine, but the eggs have very little gloss. In colour they are a very pale spotless blue, not much darker than those of Zosterops palpebrosus. The eggs measure 1°3 and 1:32 in length, and 0-89 and 0-92 in breadth. From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes :—“ In the first week of May I took a nest of the Striated Laughing-Thrush out of a small tree grow- ing in the forest at 5500 feet above the sea. It was fixed among spray about 10 feet up. In shape it is a shallow, broad cup, and is built in three layers: the outer one of twining stems, which besides holding the nest together fastened it to the spray; the middle layer is an intermixture of green moss and fresh fern- fronds, and the inner a thick lining of roots. Externally it mea- sured 7°5 inches broad by 5:25 inches deep; internally 4 inches by 2°75 inches. “Tt contained two hard-set eggs.” Several nests of this species that I have now seen have all been of the same type, large nests 9 or 10 inches in diameter, and 4 to 5 in height, the body of the nest composed mainly of green moss interwoven with and bound round about with the stems of creepers and a few pliant twigs, many of which straggle away a good deal outside the limits which I have assigned in stating the dimensions above. The cavities are not quite hemispherical, a little shallower, say 4:5 inches in diameter and 2 inches in depth, aa lined 68 CRATEROPODIDZ. with fine black roots. ‘They have all been placed in the branches of trees at heights of from 8 to 20 feet. : Eggs of this species obtained by Mr. Gammie in May, and Mr. Mandelli in July, are of precisely the same type. They are rather elongated ovals, a good deal pointed towards the small end, near which they are not unfrequently a good deal compressed, so as to render the egg slightly pyriform. The shell is fine and smooth, but has little gloss. ‘The ground-colour is a very pale greenish blue or bluish green, in some almost white; some of them are absolutely spotless, none of them are at all well marked, but some bear from half a dozen to adozen tiny specks of a dark colour, On one only there is a triangular spot about 0-05 each way, which proves on examination with a microscope to be a deep brownish red. On the other eggs the markings are mere specks. The eggs vary from 1:25 to 1:35 in length, and from 0-89 to 0°92 in breadth. 104. Argya earlii (Blyth). The Striated Babbler. Chatarrhewa earlii (Blyth), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 68; Hume, Rough Draft N. § E. no. 439. The Striated Babbler breeds in suitable localities throughout Continental India, from Sindh to Tipperah and Assam, as also in Burmah. Reedy-margined lakes, canals and perennial streams are its favourite haunts, and wherever within the limits above indicated these abound, and the locality is moist and warm, A. earlii is pretty sure to be met with. They lay twice during the year, between the latter end of March and the early part of September, building a neat, compact, and rather massive cup-shaped nest, either between the close-growing reeds, to three or more of which it is firmly bound, or in some little bush or shrub more or less surrounded by high reed-grass. The broad leaves and stringy roots of the reed, common grass, and grass-roots are the materials of which it generally constructs its nest, which varies much in size, according to the situation and fineness of the material used. I have seen them composed almost wholly of reed-leaves, fully 7 inches in diameter and 5 in height, and again built entirely of fine grass-stems not more than 4 inches across and 3 inches in height. When semi-suspended between reeds, they are always smaller and more compact, while when placed in a fork of a low bush they are larger and more straggling. The cavity (always neatly finished off, but very rarely regularly lined, and then only with very fine grass-stems or roots) is usually about 3 inches in diameter by 2 inches in depth. Colonel G. F. L. Marshall remarks:—“In the Saharunpoor District A. earlii commences building about the middle of March, and the young are hatched towards the middle of April. The nest is usually placed in the middle of a tuft of Sarkerry grass, and sometimes in a bush or small tree, generally 8 or 4 feet from the ground. It is a deep cup-shaped structure, rather neatly made of ARGYA. 69 grass without lining, and woven in with the stems if in a clump of grass, or firmly fixed in a fork if ina bush or low tree. The interior diameter is about 3 inches, and the depth nearly 2 inches. The eggs, four in number, are of a clear blue colour without spots of any kind. In shape they are oval, rather thinner at one end; the shell is smooth and thin. The eggs are of the same colour, but considerably larger than those of Argya caudata.