Nidification of I/td'/an Birds. 351 



markings are very bold and are confined almost entirely to a 

 broad, irregular ring at the larger end. They consist of 

 large blotches of brownish red^ running into and overlaying 

 one another, the colour being, so to speak, doubled in in- 

 tensity Avhere they coalesce. There are also a good number 

 of secondary, smaller blotches of lavender and pinky grey. 

 Outs^ide the ring there are but few blotches and freckles of 

 either kind, but inside it they are fairly numerous. The egg 

 is a broad oval, rather inclined to the peg-top shape, but not 

 very pointed. It measures fully 0"-64xO"-50. 



I have yet a fifth egg, which I believe to belong to this 

 species, though I am not prepared to guarantee its authen- 

 ticity ; it was brought to me by a Naga who afterwards 

 Avent and trapped a P. modestum, which he said was one of 

 the owners of the nest. It is like the eggs of the clutcli 

 first described, but is much paler, with lighter and smaller 

 freckles and blotches, without any signs of either ring or cap. 

 It is an abnormally fragile egg. It measures 0""59 X 0"'43. 



59. Chrysophlegma flavinucha. {Blanford, op. cit. iii. 

 p. 28.) 



These birds breed in some numbers from the level of 

 the plains up to about 3000 feet, above which height very 

 few birds will be met with. iSIost nests are found in trees 

 standing in rather thin forest with a good deal of under- 

 growth, and such a forest, practically evergreen, which borders 

 most of the smaller rivers, is the favourite haunt of the 

 Large Yellow-naped Woodpecker during the breeding-season. 

 Although it does not often excavate its nest-hole at any very 

 great height from the ground, it does not, on the other hand, 

 ever make it very low down, being in this respect very unlike 

 Gecinus chlorolophus, which sometimes makes its holes barely 

 2 feet from the ground, at others over 40 feet from it. The 

 majority of nests of C. flavinucha will be found between 10 

 and 15 feet up, the rest between 6 and 20. Again, it shows 

 a marked preference for boring into the trunks of trees 

 rather than into the larger limbs and branches, and for every 

 three nests found in the former position not one will be 



