202 MOTACILLID.i:. 



throughout May and June. On the 5th June I found a nest .... 

 It contained five young birds, which had been hatched a few days. 

 On returning to the nest on the 28th of the same month, the 

 young had flown, and a second laying of three eggs was in the 

 nest. In course of preserving the female, which 1 shot, I found 

 in her a fourth egg, ready for laying. Another nest was placed 

 in a recess under a lar<2;e stone near the edge ot: the water." 



Motacilla hodgsoni, G. R. Gray. Ilodjsons Pled ]Va(/tail. 

 Motacilla hizoniensis, Scop., Hume, Rou(jh Draft N. 8f E. no. 590. 



Hodgson's Pied Wagtail breeds during May and June in Cash- 

 mere, where Mr. Brooks himself took several nests. 



This Wagtail nests in holes, under large stones, in shingle beds 

 of rivers, and in accumulations of drift wood. 



Mr. Brooks says : — " Cock and I took several nests during our 

 trip to Cashmere. The birds build under large boulders in the 

 beds of rivers, where they would be destroyed if a flood took place 

 causing the river to rise. One nest found by Captain Cock was 

 inside a heap of drift wood." 



Later, writing from the vaUey of the Bhagiruttee in the hills 

 north of Mussoorie, he says : — " Motacilla hodijsoiii, Gray, breeds 

 near Dangulla and about Dcralee, where there are suitable gravel- 

 beds in the river. On the 11th May a female which I dissected 

 had an egg nearly full-sized. !Some of the birds I saw at this 

 time had grey backs, others partly grey and partly black, and some 

 had pure black backs. The male has a pretty song." 



The eggs are typically somewhat broad ovals, pointed towards 

 the small end, but somewhat more elongated, and occasionally 

 slightly . pyritbrm, varieties occur. The ground-colour is greyish 

 white, sometimes with the faintest possible brownish tinge. Some 

 are very minutely and thickly speckled all over, but most thickly 

 at the large end, with pale brown and brownish grey ; in others the 

 markings, though still minute, are brighter, bokler, and more sparse, 

 with here and there very faint, scarcely noticeable, inky-purple or 

 grey clouds underlying the primary markings. The eggs, as might 

 be expected, often very closely resemble those of both M. alha and 

 M. Itujuhris, but are, 1 think, slightly larger. 



In length they vary from O'TG to 0-8, and in breadth from 

 0-6 to 0-64. 



Motacilla maderaspatensis, Gm. Tlie Lar<je Pied Wutjtail. 



Motacilla iiiiidenispiiliina, L'riss., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 217; Hume, 

 liouyh Draft N. c^ D. no. o89. 



The Large Pied Wagtail breeds throughout India from nortli to 

 south, only avoiding the low country of liengal i'roper. In the 

 Himalayas it is never found, I believe, at elevations exceeding 



