22 SITTID#. 
B. Upper plumage slaty-blue; crown black ..  S. lewcopsis leucopsis, 
C. Upper plumage black, streaked with bril- [p. 150. 
lant blu YS Cet eee ee cena ce ae S. formosa, p. 131. 
D. Upper plumage uniform purplish blue; 
forehead black ....... RAIN Ga nycates see S. frontalis frontalis, 
[p. 182. 
(108) Sitta himalayensis. 
Tar WHtIre-TaIrep NuUTHATCH. 
Sitta himalayensis Jard. & Selby, Ill. Ind. Orn., iii, pl. 144 (1835) ; 
Blant. & Oates, i, p. 300. 
Vernacular names. Siddyi-phip (Lepcha). 
Description.—Adult male. The forehead, lores, a streak behind 
the eye, produced down the side of the neck to the shoulders, 
black; an indistinct eyebrow fulvous white; upper plumage, 
wing-coverts and inner secondaries dark slaty-blue, somewhat 
paler on the ends; primaries and outer secondaries dark brown 
edged with slaty- blue: ; middle pair of tail-feathers slaty-blue, the 
basal half of the inner web and a band next the shaft on the outer 
web white ; the next two pairs wholly black; the next pair black 
with an ashy tip; the next black with an oblique white band and 
an ashy tip, the outermost the same but with more white; sides 
of the face and chin pale fulvous ; lower plumage chestnut, richer 
and deeper on the flanks and under tail-coverts ; aden wing- 
coverts black, a white patch on the base of the primaries showing 
from below only. 
Adult female. Resembles the male, but is rather duller and 
paler. 
Colours of soft parts. Iris pale brown; bill black, the gape and 
base of lower mandible bluish white to pale slaty; legs and feet 
yellowish or olive-brown. 
Measurements. Length about 120 mm.; wing.71 to 76 mm. ; 
tail about 37 to 41 mm.; tarsus about 17 to 18 mm.; culmen about 
14 to 15 mm. 
Distribution. The Himalayas from Kangra to Assam North of 
the Brahmaputra River, but in over twenty years’ collecting we 
never found it South of the river, and there may be some mistake 
in Godwin-Austen’s record from Aimul in Manipur. 
Nidification. The White-tailed Nuthatch breeds in the 
Himalayas from 5,000 feet to at least 11,000, at which height 
Blanford procured it in Sikkim. It is a very early breeder, com- 
mencing to lay in the first few days of April or even in the end 
of March. ‘The eggs are laid in some natural hollow in a tree or 
stump, the entrance being filled in neatly with mud so as to leave 
only a small, quite circular entrance, little over an inch in diameter. 
The nest is a pad of moss, or moss and moss-roots with a depression 
in the centre for the eges. These number from four to six and are 
white with numerous specks and spots of reddish, sometimes more 
