Trip to Kashmir. 25 



the wooded hills, l^he birds were anything but shy, and 

 kept calling and hopping all round whenever we were in the 

 neighbourhood of their nests. Of these we found a good 

 number in the beginning of June, but most contained young. 

 They were placed either among the roots of fallen trees or 

 on slopes so steep that it was difficult to traverse them with 

 a gun in one's hand. The eggs were three, four, or five in 

 number ; they varied in colour from pure white without 

 markings to fairly spotted eggs, white marked with pale 

 brown. In one nest, taken on the 10th June in a hole in 

 the root of a fallen tree, we found the egg of a Cuckoo, 

 apparently Cuculus saturatus, a bird which constantly kept 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of the nest. In most of 

 the pairs of Tanthia we saw both sexes were in the brown 

 plumage, and it was decidedly the exception to find a male 

 in the handsome blue plumage. 



54. CopsYCHus sAULARis (Liuu.). 



I saw only two pairs of this bird in Kashmir : one was at 

 Kagan, on the Sind River, on the 20th June, and the other 

 was near Kohala on the 28th. 



55. Merula castanea Gould. 



We saw a few pairs of this bird at Gund, and also at 

 Sonamurg. It must be a very early breeder, as we shot 

 young flying on the 28th May. We obtained also several 

 nests with eggs or small young during May and June: one 

 of these was in the face of a rock on a steep hill, and the 

 others were from three to seven feet from the ground 

 on stunted trees ; they were composed of dead leaves and 

 grass, lined with mud, and then neatly lined with fine grass- 

 roots. The number of eggs or young was either three or 

 four. 



56. Merula unicolor (Tick.), 



A very common bird in the Valley of Kashmir, but not 

 apparently coming up the Sind Valley more than a very few 

 miles. In the Kashmir Valley itself there were pairs in 

 every village and grove of trees. We obtained numbers of 

 nests about Gandarbal in May, and there were fresh eggs in 



