86 Major J. Biddulpli on the Birds of GiJgit. 



169. Metoponia pusilla (Pall.). 



Appear at intervals during the winter, when driven down 

 by very severe weather. I shot two out of a flock on May 21 

 at 5000 feet (Gilgit), where they had been attracted by the 

 ripe mulberries ; but I have seen them high up in the snoAv, 

 at over 9000 feet, in February. They breed at about that 

 height ; and in August the young birds collect in large flocks 

 of fifty or sixty, when not a single old bird can be seen 

 among them. They seem to acquire the red head in the first 

 year, as I have only procured one specimen without it (a 

 young male shot in Astor about November 20) later than 

 August. 



On July 28 I had a nest brought me, which my shikari 

 had been watching several days. He shot one of the pair of 

 old birds about the nest, which turned out to be the male of 

 M. pusilla. The nest contained three eggs perfectly fresh 

 (and the number was apparently not complete), in colour a 

 dull stone-white, with small red-brown spots dotted about 

 the larger end. The nest was about 20 feet from the ground, 

 in a cedar tree [Juniperus excelsa), neatly made of grass fibres, 

 and lined thickly with sheep^s wool, and matted on the out- 

 side with soft bits of decayed wood, so as to look like the bark 

 of a tree. 



170. LiNARIA BREVIROSTRIS (Gould). 



Since I left Gilgit Dr. Scully writes : — '' How on earth did 

 you miss this bird ? I have preserved over sixty specimens, 

 and have left off shooting it. It is one of tHe very commonest 

 birds about now (January) ." 



As this is a bird I know well, having procured many speci- 

 mens further eastward, it is hardly possible that I should have 

 missed it, had it been as common as Dr. Scully says in the 

 two preceding winters. I should be more inclined to regard 

 this as an instance of the changes that take place in the 

 migrations of birds owing to increase or decrease in the seve- 

 rity of the winter season. 



171. LiNARiA CANNABiNA (Linn.). 



Fifteen or sixteen specimens were procured in January and 

 February 1878, when the winter was an exceptionally severe 



