1x 
If I be blamed for the innumerable errors and defects cer- 
tain to occur in these notes, I can only plead— 
1st. That they were jotted down in those rare leisure mo- 
ments, that the control of a vast public department (whose 
operations extend over nearly 2,00,000 square miles, and whose 
employés number nearly 14,000 officers and men), leaves me for 
recreation, and : 
2nd. That they contain, I believe, some little new and useful 
matter which I am unwilling should be lost, and that life 
being so uncertain, as it is in India, and I, having absolutely 
no time to work up the materials I have collected, and separate 
the wheat from the chaff, just print the whole as it is, so that, 
even if J do not live to do so, others at least may hereafter 
utilize whatever little good there is in it. 
different in each species, while Melizophilus and Pyrrhophthalmus ave 
evidently aberrant members of the same family. Next we may take the 
Curruca, as restricted by Bonaparte, with the eggs always of a whitish or 
brownish white ground, and the markings set each in a nimbus of fainter 
colour, as in our black cap and garden warblers; while Misoria Undata, a 
good genus, comes next them by its ground colour, but wants the spots. 
The Redbreast, pugnacious as he always is, stands aloof from any entang- 
ling alliances, and asserts an independent position as Mrythacus, which 
introduces us to Mr. Gray’s sub-family of Luscinine comprising all the 
remaining sylviads. Here we find a character, pervading almost the 
whole sub-family, in the coloration of the eggs, which is never found‘in the 
first sub-family Sylvine, viz. the blue or bluish white ground colour ; Cop- 
sychus, Myiomela, Saxicola, Ruticilla, Thamnobia, and all their sub- 
divisions, have this common feature. The most aberrant. are the genera 
Luscinia and Cyanecula with their uniform olive green coloration, but, as 
we well know, the nightingale’s egg is not unfrequently blue, and the iden- 
tity of the colour in the eggs of the blue throats attests their affinity to the 
nightingale. All the innumerable species of Saaicoline lay blue eges, 
either plain or spotted, and frequently, as in the Turdine, we find two 
closely affined species laying one a plain the other a spotted egg ; while, 
occasionally, the eggs of comparatively distant members of the family are 
identical, as in the case of Saaicola Cinanthe and S. [sabellina. Of the five 
species of the sub-genus Dromolea, of which I have taken the eggs, four 
are of the faintest bluish white with ruddy spots, and the fifth a rich blue 
ground with similar spots. From these we are led on to Ruticilla, the 
eggs of which are never spotted, though the ground colour varies from 
pure white in the single instance of A. Tithys, to the most delicate white 
with the faintest tinge in R. Moussieri, up to the very dark blue of R. 
Semirufa, a bird most closely allied to &. Tithys. Finally, we have the 
spotless blue of Scalia and Accentor, with which last I find much difficulty 
in grouping Mr, Grays Acanthiza, or the Siwrus of the new world.” 
