NESTING IN WESTERN INDIA. 1)5 



The eggs have been described as white with a greenish tinge, 

 having large brown blotches at the larger end; another type is 

 creamy white, with a broad ring of pale yellowish-brown spots, and 

 clouds and specks of very pale lilac at the larger end. They average 

 0'95 inches in length by about 0*71 in breadth. 



288.— THE PARADISE FLYCATCHER. 



Muscipeta paradisi, Lin. 



With the exception of Sind,* where it is very rare, the Paradise 

 Flycatcher occurs more or less commonly throughout the Presidency, 

 but retires to the hilly and more wooded portions to breed during 

 the hot season. The nest is a very handsome one, cup-shaped, and 

 is composed of fine grass, fibres, moss, &c, firmly bound together 

 with cobwebs, and ornamented on the outside with small white silky 

 cocoons. It is seldom more than about one-quarter of an inch thick, 

 except perhaps at the bottom. A favourite place for it is a pendant 

 bamboo spray at a point where a few twigs spring up perpendicularly, 

 some of these being incorporated with it. I have found them in 

 similar positions on the outer branches of mango trees ; occasionally 

 it is placed in a fork, when it assumes the shape of an inverted 

 cone. The birds appear to breed in both phases of plumage, some- 

 times one bird is chestnut and the other white ; at others both are 

 chestnut. At Abu, where the birds are common, I never saw one in 

 the white plumage, but at Saugor, in Central India, the white ones 

 were most numerous. The eggs are usually four in number, but I 

 have found three much incubated, and Mr. Littledale once found 

 five ; but this is, I think, a most unusual number ; they are oval 

 in shape, somewhat pointed at the small end, and measure 0'82 inches 

 in length, by about 0*61 in breadth. The ground colour is pinkish- 

 white, sparingly dotted with brick red; these spots often form a cap 

 or zone at the large end; some of them much resemble warm-coloured 

 eggs of the Common King Crow, but are of course much smaller. 



Neemuch, June. H. E. Barnes. 



Saugor, C. P., May, June and July. „ 



Baroda, May, June and July. H. Littledale, Esq. 



Mysore, May and June. J. Davidson, C. 8. 



*A specimen was shot at the Munchur Lake, and I obtained another at Hyderabad, 

 Sind. These are, I believe, the only recorded inst ices of its occurrence in that 

 Province.— H. E. B. 



