sroi'AHor-A. 



11 



The colouring is a clouded zone or ciip at the best, never deliued 

 specks or spots. 



In length the eggs vary from 0-72 to (>85 inch, and in breadth 

 from 0-4G to 0-02 inch ; but the average of a very large series is 

 0-78 nearly by 0-57 inch. 



580. Stoparola sordida (Wald.). The Dnsh-ij-Blne 

 I'll /catcher. 

 Stoparola sordida ( Wald.), Hume, Cat. no. 302 bis. 



Mr. Bligh, as quoted by Colonel Legge in his ' Birds of Ceylon,' 

 yays : — " The nest is generally in various suitable places, such as 

 a shallow hole in a rotten stump or in the trunk of a forest tree ; 

 and I once found it in a felled tree well protected by a thick branch 

 of a coffee-bnsh which grew over it. It is composed of moss, 

 lichens, and grasses, lined with fine fibrous materials, and is 

 like a Blackbird's in miniature. The eggs are dull white, thickly 

 sprinkled and blotched with dark reddish." Colonel Legge adds 

 that the breeding-season in Ceylon would appear to be in April 

 and May. 



581. Stoparola albicaudata (Jerd.). Tlie ^'iljhin 

 Blue Flycatcher. 



Eumyias albicaudata (Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 464. 



Stoparola albicaudata {Jerd.], Hume, liunf/h Draft N. 8^ E. no. S02. 



So far as we yet know, the Nilghiri Blue Flycatcher breeds 

 only on the Nilghiris, at Ooty, Conoor, Neddivvattam, Kartairy, 

 Kotagherry, and other places, from about 3800 to 6200 feet above 

 the sea. It also breeds in the Pulneys. 



Nests of this species, sent me from the Nilghiris, and found in 

 holes or depressions of banks, were soft masses of beautiful moss, 

 with a slight substx'ucture of coarse moss and lichen, measuring 

 some 5 inches in external diameter, and with slight depressions 

 some 21 inches in diameter and perhaps 1 inch in depth towards 

 one side. The egg-cavity could not be said to be lined, but a 

 greater proportion of very fine black moss-roots entered into the 

 composition of the nest here than elsewhere. 



I have never taken the nests of this species myself, and I shall 

 leave my correspondents to give their own accounts of its nidifi- 

 cation. 



Miss Cockburn says : — " I have had the pleasure of finding 

 three of the Blue Flycatchers' nests. The first one Avas built 

 in a bower (not far from our house), the walls of which, being 

 of stone and having many little holes, a pair of these birds had 

 cliosen a snug one to hatch their young in. The other two nests 

 were in holes in the banks of roads. All were extremely neatly 



