Nidijication uf Indian Birds. 221 



eggs. In accordance with my instructions he set a noose or 

 two about the nest for the bird and came down. \Ye both 

 then hid a little way off, and it was hardly a quarter of an 

 hour before the female returned and was trapped. The 

 bough of the tree was covered with long pendent lichen, 

 growing very thick and close, and it was between two long 

 pieces that hung either side of the branch that the nest was 

 suspended. In shape it is a very massive, compact little 

 cradle, the two ends prolonged and intertwined with the 

 lichen from which it hangs. Outwardly the longest way it 

 measures 3"'4, and across the narrowest way 2""8. The 

 depth of the actual nest is l"*85, or, including the lengthened 

 sides, 2"55. The egg-cavity !•< 1""75 across the top and 

 0""88 deep. The material consists almost entirely of moss- 

 roots, only a very few small scraps of dead moss being also 

 used, and the lining is composed of the very finest stems of 

 grasses and one flowering grass- end. Strength is added by 

 the help of numerous cobwebs, these being most numerous 

 about the portion which includes the supporting lichen. 



Of the eggs, one was broken by the hen bird in its struggles 

 to escape, the other three measure 0"-68 x 0"-50, 0"'67 x 0"-50, 

 and 0"'64 x 0""49. In colour they are a very pale but bright 

 sea-green, and they are rather profusely spotted all over with 

 very pale brown irregular blotches, which also form a ring 

 about the larger end nearly 0""]5 wide, inside which the 

 marks are very few. On the ring are a few dots of darker 

 brown, some quite dark Vandyke, and one or two of these are 

 also to be found inside the ring. 



The nest was taken at Guilang, a village some 4000 feet 

 above the sea, on the 29th of July ; the eggs were just com- 

 mencing to show signs of incubation. 



Another nest was brought to me by a Naga, together with 

 a male, and exactly corresponds in every single detail with 

 that already described, and was found attached to another 

 dead tree not 20 yards from that on which the other was 

 found. It contained four eggs very hard-set, which differ 

 from those in the first nest only in being slightly duller. 

 They measure 0""66xO'''51. 



SER. Vll. VOL. I. R 



