50 Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker om the 



Mr. H. E. Barnes. They measured l"-3 x 0"-93, l"-3 x 0"-92, 

 and l"-26 x 0"-87. 



8. Stactocichla merulina. (Oates, op. cit. i. p. 104.) 

 Breeds all over the east of North Cachar and in Manipur 

 above 3000 feet, keeping principally, however, to the Laising 

 Valley, where it is very abundant. It builds chiefly in ever- 

 green-forest, but in 1893 I took several nests from bamboo- 

 jungle. In the fox'mer, the evergreen-forest, the nest is 

 generally placed in some thick shrub, either in amongst the 

 lower twigs or branches or right down amongst the roots; 

 in the latter it is usually built low down in some thick 

 bamboo-clump, often well in the centre of it, sometimes on 

 the outside, at other times almost on the ground amongst 

 the thick clusters of small twigs and roots which spring 

 thence. When built in the first-described sort of position 

 the materials consist of roots, grass, bamboo and other leaves, 

 more or less mixed with moss and bracken-fronds, and the 

 lining is made of fern- and moss-roots, occasionally of fine 

 creeper-stems and tendrils or very fine pliant twigs. These 

 nests are somewhat bulky shallow cups, originally rather 

 well built and fairly compact, but soon becoming damp and 

 rotten from the constant dampness of these forests, so that 

 they thus bear little handling. Nests built in bamboo-jungle 

 differ considerably from these, and a description of the last 

 one found would do for all or any of the others which I have 

 taken. This is a compactly-made cup, measuring externally 

 4"-6 by 3"-2, and internally 2"-9 by l"-3. The material used 

 for the foundation and the outer framework consists entirely 

 of bamboo-leaves, these being bound together by a few soft 

 weed-stems and fine roots ; inside this there are numerous 

 coarse fern-roots and stringy, tough bamboo-roots, all 

 thoroughly intertwined together ; inside tliis, again, is the 

 true lining, a quantity of fern- and moss-roots, mostly of the 

 finer sort, but mixed with a few stouter ones. The base of 

 the nest is very thick and compact, and thence the walls grow 

 gradually thinner towards the top, where they are only 

 some 2" to 4" thick, though straggling leaves, loosely fixed 

 in weeds and roots, make the total diameter a good deal more 



