338 Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker on the 



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The first nest was found placed on a rough slab of rock 

 on the banks of the Laisung stream. It is a very compact 

 little structure, with walls almost straight externally ; in fact 

 the nest is, if anything, slightly wider at the base than at 

 the top. The whole affair is made of moss and nothing else, 

 and there is no lining. From edge to base it is fully 2"- 5, 

 which is a good half-inch more than it is in diameter. 

 The hollow for the eggs is about 1"*4 X 1". This nest con- 

 tained three eggs, which look like the eggs of Orthotomus 

 sutorim, the blotches on which have been almost washed out, 

 but the texture is much coarser and stronger, and the eggs 

 are long ovals in shape. They measure 0"'61 X0""41, 0'''61 

 X0"-41, and 0"-60x0"-40. I accused the man who brought 

 the nest and eggs of having changed the latter, but he 

 strongly denied it, and said that he would catch me one of 

 the birds, and that same day he turned up with a Yellow- 

 billed Flycatcher which he had managed to snare. I have 

 no idea what these eggs can be. 



A second nest was brought to me on the 20th May, 1892, 

 with the male bird, one whole egg, and two completely 

 smashed, having been broken by the bird in its efforts to 

 escape, as the noose in which it was caught had been placed 

 over the nest itself. The nest is exactly like the other, but 

 was placed on a horizontal branch overhanging the stream. 

 It was not placed in a fork, but built on a single small 

 branch, in the same way as the nests of Rhipidura are so 

 often built. The ground-colour of the third egg is a very pale 

 creamy j'^ellow, almost white, and the markings consist of 

 small blotches and spots of grey and yellowish brown, very 

 profuse at the larger end, where they form a blurred, ill- 

 defined ring, and rather thinly scattered elsewhere. The 

 texture is fairly close and smooth, but without gloss, and is 

 very fragile. In shape it is a broad obtuse oval, measuring 

 0"-55 X 0"-45. 



This egg, although very distinct from, has still much of 

 the character of the eggs of the genus Rhipidura, and is a 

 regular Flycatcher's egg in appearance. Moreover, the fact 

 that two out of the three eggs were broken by the bird does 



