128 CRATEROPODIDiE. 



ground is a pale delicate clay-brown, and the markings consist only 

 of a zone about 0-2 wide round the large end of densely set dull 

 brownish-red specks, and a few similar specks inside the zone only. 

 In the other, the ground has a light greenish tinge, the zone is less 

 marked and merges in a dull brownish-red mottled cap, and a 

 faint marbling, of a paler shade of the cap, is scattered here and 

 there over the whole surface of the egg. They measure 1 by 0*65 

 and 0-98 by 0-65, 



The egg taken by Mr. Davison is an elongated, slightly pyri- 

 form oval. The shell is moderately fine, but with only a very slight 

 gloss. The ground-colour is a pale slightly greyish green, and the 

 whole egg is thickly (most thickly so about the large end, w here 

 the markings are almost perfectly confluent) mottled and streaked 

 with pale brownish red. It measures 0-98 by 0-67. 



193. Brachypteryx albiventris (Fairbank). The WJiite- bellied 

 8hort-iving. 



Callene albiventris, Fairb., Hume, Rmujh Draft N. ^' E. no. 339 bis. 



The Eev. S. B. Fairbank, to whom I have owed much useful 

 information and many valuable specimens, kindly sent me the sub- 

 joined account of the nidiflcation of the White-bellied Short-\\ ing 

 iu the Pulney Hills at an elevation of about G500 feet: — 



" In April, I found a nest in a hole in the side of the trunk of a 

 large tree some 2 feet from the ground. The hole was just large 

 enough for the nest, and was lined with fine roots. I surprised 

 the bird on her nest several times. There were two eggs in the 

 nest when I first found it that were ' hard-set.' A month after- 

 wards she laid two more in the same place, and I took them in 

 good condition. One egg measures 0-9 by 0-G8 inch, and another 

 U-94 by 0-68 inch. The ground-colour is grey, with a tinge of 

 green, "and it is thickly covered with small spots of bistre." 



Mr. Blanford, who saw the eggs, which I never did, describes 

 them (and by analogy, I should infer more correctly) as " of an 

 olive-brown colour, darker at the larger end, measuring 0-93 by 

 0-63 inch." 



An egg of this species sent me by Dr. Fairbank, measuring 

 0-93 by 0-G6, is a somewhat elongated oval, slightly pointed towards 

 the small end. The shell is fine and fairly glossy; the ground- 

 colour, so far as this is discernible, is greyish green, but it is so 

 thickly clouded and mottled all over with a warm brown, that but 

 little of the ground-colour is anywhere traceable, and the general 

 result when the egg is looked at from a short distance is that of a 

 nearly uniform olive-brown. 



Captain Horace Terry also found the nest of this bird on the Pulney 

 Hills, He says : — " I met with it a few times in the big shola at 

 Kodikanal, and got two nests, each with two fresh eggs ; the first 

 on the 7th June in a hole in a tree between 4 and 5 feet from the 

 ground, a deep cup of green moss ; the other, in a hoh^ in the bank 

 of a path runiiing through the shola was of green moss and a few 



