HEMILOPHUS. 315 



The egg is a moderately elongated oval, slightly compressed 

 towards one eud, but very obtuse at both. The shell is very fine 

 and smooth and fragile, but has only a little gloss. It has doubt- 

 less been pure white, but, whether in blowing it or how I cannot 

 say, it has been much soiled, and is, except at the ends, tinged 

 with a dingy creamy tint. It measures 0-9 by 7 inch. 



Mr. J. Darling, Jun., found the nest further south, in the 

 Malay Peninsula. He writes : — 



" Near Kossoom, July 2nd, 1879. Three days ago, while after 

 birds, I passed a dead stump, and on looking up saw the head of a 

 AV"oodpecker peeping out of a hole. I set the bird flyiug and 

 missed it. I followed it up, but failed to find it again. 



" After waiting a long time, and the Woodpecker not putting 

 in an appearance, I went home, determined to have the nest next 

 morning. Two days' fever and three nights' bad sleep, however, 

 kept me from getting to the place at once ; but when I got there, 

 some three miles from home, I was lucky enough to find the 

 Woodpecker with its head out of the hole, and shot it thus, 

 pulHng it out dead. 



" Cutting out the nest, I found two eggs quite fresh laid on a 

 lot of chips of wood. 



" The nest was of the ordinary type of Woodpecker's ; the 

 entrance a circular hole, 1| inches in diameter, going inwards 

 4 inches, then going downwards 6|, and terminating in a chamber 

 some 5 inches in diameter. 



" The nest was 6 feet from the ground, in a dead stump in 

 sparse bamboo- and tree-jungle, alongside (some ten yards from) a 

 much-frequented path, and in very low-lying country not much 

 above high-flood tide." 



These two eggs measured 0-91 by 0-G7 and 0-9 by 0-67. 



Several eggs of this species are all of the same type, somewhat 

 elongated ovals, apparently always very obtuse at both ends, some- 

 times slightly pyriform. The shell very fine and glossy. Origi- 

 nally, no doubt, white, but in all the specimens I have seen much 

 soiled with creamy clouds extending almost over the entire surface 

 of the eofor. 



Hemilophus pulverulentus (Temm.). The Great Slaty 

 Woodpecker. 



Mulleripicus pulverulentus (Temm.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 284 ; Hume, 

 Cat. no. 168. 



Major C. T. Bingham found the nest of this large Woodpecker 

 in Tenasseriai. He says : — "Last year during the rains I found 

 that one of the very largest kanyin trees {Blpterocarpus alatus) had 

 been blown down and formed a very convenient bridge over the 

 AVinsaw choung below the village of Boolooway in the Lower 

 Thoungyeen. The road over this part of the Winsaw not being 

 much used, 1 found that a pair of Midlerijjicus pidverulentus had 



