SCEORHTNCHUS. 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 o-reen. It is the most perfectly hemispherical nest J 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 duU white, and it 

 is sparselv 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 

 Nati^•e Sikhirn, 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 

 owincr 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. Scseorhynchus ruficeps (Bl.). The Lavijer Jled-headed Croiv-Tit. 

 Paradoxoniis ruficeps, BL, Jerd. B. Tnd. 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 ni your 

 Eough Draft of ' Xests and Eggs.' It 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 1-9 deep. 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 J 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 a few- 

 seeds occasionally, but their principal food is certainly insects. 

 Very usually, in winter especially, they feed in company with 



