82 GRATEROPODID^E. 



in some cases very fine grass. The cavities average, 1 should guess, 

 3*75 inches in diameter, and To, or a little more perhaps, in depth. 



Mr. J. E. Cripps has the following note on the breeding of this 

 bird in Assam : " A nest I got was situated at the roots of a 

 clump of bushes, overhanging a small river. A bridge spanning 

 this river was within ten yards, the intervening space being open ; 

 and for such a shy bird to have chosen such an exposed situation 

 to build in astonished me." 



From Sikhim Mr. Gammie writes : " A nest of this Babbler 

 taken on the 20th May much resembled that of P. ferruginosus, 

 both in size and structure. The egg-cavity had, however, a lining 

 of at least half an inch in thickness of soft, fibrous material ex- 

 tracted from the bark of some tree, and a little fine grass for the 

 eggs to lie on. It was on the ground, among low jungle, in the 

 Byeng Valley, at 2000 feet of elevation, and contained four eggs, 

 two of them hatching off and two addled. According to my 

 experience, nests containing so large a proportion of addled eggs 

 are unusual." 



Eggs sent by Mr. Mandelli as belonging to this species closely 

 resemble those of Pomatorhinus ferruginosus, but are somewhat 

 smaller ; they are oval eggs a good deal pointed towards one end, 

 pure white, and with a high gloss. They were obtained on the 

 5th and 22nd of April in the neighbourhood of Darjeeling, and 

 measure from 0-95 to 1-04 in length, and 0*72 to 0'73 in breadth. 

 Eggs sent by Mr. Gammie are precisely similar. 



Two other eggs of this species subsequently obtained were slightly 

 shorter and broader, and measured 0-95 by 0-77, and 0-98 by 0-78. 



118. Pomatorhinus olivaceus, Blyth. The Tenasserim Scimitar 



Babbler. 

 Pomatorhinus olivaceus, Btyth, Hume, Cat. no. 403 bis. 



Mr. Davison writes : " I found a nest of this bird on the 

 morning of the 21st January, 1875, at Pakchan, Tenasserim Province, 

 Burma. It was placed on the ground at the foot of a small screw 

 pine, growing in thick bamboo-jungle ; it was a large globular 

 structure, composed externally of dry bamboo-leaves, and well 

 secreted by the mass of dry bamboo-leaves that surrounded it ; it 

 was in fact buried in these, and if I had not seen the bird leave it, it 

 would most undoubtedly have remained undiscovered. Externally 

 it was about a foot in length by 9 inches in height, but it was 

 impossible to take any accurate measurement, as the nest really 

 had no marked external definition. Internally was a lining about 

 half an inch thick, composed of thin strips of dry bark, fibres, &c. 

 The entrance was to one side, circular, and measuring 2-5 inches 

 in diameter ; the egg-cavity measured 4 inches deep by about 3 in 

 height. 



" In the nest were three pure white ovato-pyriforrn eggs, but so 

 far incubated that they would probably have hatched off before the 

 day was out. 



