24 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



When I got back to Colombo I compared the eggs with the 

 Quail's eggs in my possession. They are distinctly glossier 

 than the eggs of Excalfactoria chinens's, slightly larger and 

 not so stumpy or pointed at the small end. The average of 

 their measurements was about 1 "07 X "88 of an inch. Hunt- 

 ing through " Legge " and Hume's " Nests and Eggs " for a 

 solution of the conundrum, I found that they may possibly 

 be those of Porzana pusilla, but I shall have to wait until I 

 can find another nest myself, or authenticate these eggs at the 

 British Museum, before I can be certain of the find. 



To take a third example. There is little definitely knoAvn 

 about the nidification of one of the commonest of the species 

 peculiar to Ceylon, the Brown -capped Quaker Thrush {Pellor- 

 neum fuscicapillum) . One may hear him any day in the 

 jungles of the North-Central Province singing away like a 

 street boy, whistling up and down the scale out of tune, and if 

 you watch closely you may see him hopping about on the 

 ground among the undergrowth — a little olive -brown fellow 

 with a chocolate-brown cap and a lighter-brown under 

 plumage. 



He belongs to a genus of which there are seven Indian species. 

 Gates, in the " Fauna of British India," remarks of the genus 

 that " their nests are domed and built on the ground with one 

 doubtful exception." That exception is our little Ceylon 

 representative. Legge records that Mr. Bligh found the nest 

 at Haputale. " It was placed in a bramble about 3 feet 

 from the ground, and was cup-shaped, loosely constructed of 

 moss and leaves : it contained three young." Later on, in the 

 appendix, he states that Mr. Parker had sent him an egg which 

 is illustrated in the plate at the end of the volume. Unfortu- 

 nately he gives no description of the nest or of the situation 

 in which it was found, and the illustration of the egg is not 

 very satisfactory. It is represented as of a whitey-brown 

 ground colour, with red-brown spots which form a cap at the 

 larger end, and some purple spots. 



Soon after I started collecting, a cooly brought me two eggs 

 somewhat answering to this description, which he said he had 

 found in a nest on the ground under a bush. This was at 

 Katuwana in the Southern Province in March, 1907. A year 



