Trip to Kashmir. 11 



some sixty yards off. Through the glass I could be quite 

 certain as to the bird, but I wanted the specimen, and 

 waited ; she dropped into the undergrowth and disappeared, 

 so after half an hour I went to the nest, when she fluttered 

 off at my feet, disappearing in the bushes before she had 

 gone ten yards. I then sat near the tree she had formerly 

 lit upon, but she never showed, and on my again approach- 

 ing the nest she rose wild, and again at once disappeared. 

 I then went back to my original place, and in a few minutes 

 she hopped on to the stump to which she had originally gone, 

 and I secured her with a fortunate long shot. The nest was 

 on almost bare ground between the fallen tree and a bare 

 branch, and was a very large and loose mass of dead and 

 decayed leaves, lined with a very few horse-hairs. On the 

 14th we found another nest of a similar description with 

 four eggs, pretty hard set. It was in a hole in the ground in 

 thick forest. In both cases the eggs were of a pale spotless 

 blue. All previous records as to this bird to which we have 

 access describe the nest as built in a hole in a tree, and 

 the eggs as brownish or greenish mottled with red ; and as 

 there is no possibility of a mistake having occurred in our 

 case, we think it probable that previous observers must have 

 been mistaken and assumed that a Larvivora found in the 

 neighbourhood of a nest of some Cyornis or other Robin 

 was its owner. 



14. HODGSONIUS PH(ENICUR01DES (HodgS.). 



We did not notice this bird till we reached Sonamurg in 

 June ; but there we found it not uncommon over a limited 

 area along the edge of the forest on the right bank of the 

 river. We never saw it more than a hundred yards from the 

 verge of the forest, and it did not seem ever to enter the 

 high forest, keeping among the bushes along its border. On 

 returning we noticed one or two pairs between Gangadgir 

 and Kulan in a similar situation. The male has the habits 

 of a Robin, hopping about with its tail over its back, and 

 is very pugnacious to other birds trespassing in its vicinity. 

 Both sexes, however, were partial to thick cover, and, except 



