Birds of North-ivest Fohkien. 179 



This year we were unfortunate (owing, I suspect, to the 

 generally difficult position of these nests) and I only brought 

 back one nest, taken on the 4tli May from a ledge or recess 

 in the rocky bank of the torrent that rushes down the 

 narrow and steep glen below Kuatun. This nest was 

 admirably concealed by a tuft of long grass that hung 

 from above the edge in front of the nest, the bank being- 

 overgrown with bushes and trees. The nest was only about 

 3 feet above the stream. It is made of moss, earth, and 

 fine roots, with an inner cup of tine roots and dead leaves, 

 the moss and earth forming a large mass halfway round the 

 cup, and probably piled up to fill up the niche and put the 

 structure on a level keel. The depth of the cup is 2^ inches, 

 and the inner diameter is 4^ inches. There were four eggs, 

 nearly fresh. They are ovate in shape, one of them being a 

 rather short ovate. The colour is a reddish stone, very 

 faintly freckled all over with an extremely pale shade of red, 

 and one of the eggs has a very few small specks of dark red. 

 They measure 1-41 by 1 inch, 1*40 by 1 inch, 1-35 by 

 1"03 inch, and 1*35 by 1 inch. 



This bird appears to leave its nests on the slightest pro- 

 vocation. Two new nests thus deserted were seen by us 

 near Foochow ; while this spring (near Kuatun) the collectors 

 saw one being built on a tree (!), but this also, on their 

 returning to it afterwards, proved to have been abandoned. 



7. MONTICOLA ERYTHUOGASTEK (Vig.). 



This fine llock -Thrush occurs sparingly on the Kuatun 

 Mountains, from about 3000 feet above sea-level, whence we 

 have five adult males, three females, and two young. I have 

 seen one flying over the top of Mount David. Two nests were 

 found by our collector in 1897. They were taken from 

 ledges on the face of rocks close to the vilhige at an altitude 

 of about 3500 feet. 



One of the nests, taken on 20th May, contained two young 

 birds and two addled eggs. Our wily Celestials considered the 

 young too small to make into specimens, so they tied them by 

 the leg until the time came to take them, the parent birds 



