404' Mr. A. Hume on Indian Ormthology . 



pale greenish-, in another pale bluish-, and in the third faintly 

 brownish-white. AH were spotted, speckled, and minutely but 

 not very densely freckled with brown, a sort of reddish olive- 

 brown in two, rather more of umber in the third ; small clouds, 

 blotches, and streaks of the same colour, and of a pale purple, 

 were intermingled with the finer markings. In two of the eggs 

 the markings were far most numerous towards the large end, 

 where in one they are partially confluent ; in the third they are 

 pretty evenly distributed over the whole surface, being, however, 

 rather denser in a broad irregular zone round the middle of the 



porr 



These eggs remind one not a little of those oi Emhcriza elegans, 

 figured by Radde (Reisen im Siiden von Ost-Sibirien, ii. Taf. v.), 

 but are not nearly so broad. They are not very unlike the egg 

 of E. pusilla, as figured by Dr. Bree, but they are narrower and 

 more oval. 



On the 16th, near the base of Taragurh Hill, I found another 

 nest, precisely similar to that already described, containing two 

 fresh eggs. These were of the same general type as those 

 already described, but were much more strongly marked. They 

 were richly freckled and mottled with a fine umber-brown on 

 a pale greenish-white ground, the markings being in both most 

 dense at the large end (where there was a conspicuous confluent 

 zone), and almost wanting at the smaller end. The purple 

 spots, well marked on the first three eggs, were entirely wanting 

 in these. As usual, we captured the female bird without the 

 slightest difiiculty. 



These five eggs (all I have as yet obtained) varied from '73 to 

 •75 in. in length, and from '48 to 'SS in breadth. The nests 

 from which they were taken were all at an elevation of about 

 2000 feet above the sea-level ; but we found others later (empty 

 or containing young ones), from 1500 to 2500 feet. 



Early in the morning of the 19th of November I climbed up 

 the Mudar-Shah range (on the opposite side of the Ajmere 

 plain to the Taragurh hill), which is very nearly, if not quite, 

 2600 feet high. On the highest pinnacle of the long knife-like 

 ridge a tiny square temj)le is perched, at one season of the year 

 a place much resorted to by pilgrims. Inside the temple the 



