SITTA. Us 
(111) Sitta castaneiventris cinnamoventris. 
THe CINNAMON-BELLIED NUTHATCH. 
Sitta cinnamoventris Blyth, J. A. 8. B., xi, p. 439 (1842) (Darjeeling). 
Sitta cinnamomeoveniris. Blant. & Oates, i, p. 501. 
Vernacular names. Siri (Hind.); Sidhyi-phip (Lepcha); Dao- 
mojo-gajao (Cachari). 
Description — Adult male. Like the last but the white parts of 
the face are delicately barred with brown; the upper plumage is 
more an ashy-blue, the under parts are a deep cinnamon-chestnut 
and the under tail-coverts are white with ashy bases and narrow 
chestnut tips. 
Female. Differs from the male in being a pale dull chestnut 
below. 
Fig. 25.—Head of 8. ¢. cinnamoventris. 
Colours of soft parts. Iris red-brown to lake ; bill slaty-blue, 
black at the tip and paler on base and lower mandible ; legs and 
feet dull blue-grey or bluish plumbeous. 
Measurements. Total length about 150 mm.; wing 78 to 81 mm.; 
tail about 45 mm.; tarsus about 18 mm.; culmen about 20 mm. 
Distribution. The Himalayas from Murree to Eastern Assan, 
both North and South of the Brahmaputra, Mamipur, Lushai and 
Chittagong hill-tracts, but not further East. Oates’s specimens 
from Bhamo are much nearer neglecta and should be assigned 
to that bird. 
Nidification. Gammie obtained the nest in Sikkim at 2,000 
feet in a decayed bamboo, and I found many nests in the Khasia 
Hills in April and May at elevations between 4,500 and 6,000 
feet. In these hills, although a nest might now and een be 
found in some old stump, the great majority are built in the 
retaining walls of roads or in ‘walls of fields and compounds. 
These walls are built of mud and stones and form favougite 
preeding places for Tits, Nuthatches, Flycatchers and many other 
birds. The Nuthatches select some hollow, generally only a few 
inches from the ground, and then fill the whole entrance in with 
mud, leaving only a circular hole about 40 mm. across. ‘he 
hollow inside, however big it may be, is filled to a depth of some 
inches with scraps of dead wood, ‘park and odds and ends of 
vegetable matter, over which is placed a bed of moss and then a 
fe thick layer of fur, or fur and wool. They are very persistent 
