128 CBATEKOPODID^E. 



ground is a pale delicate clay-brown, and the markings consist only 

 of a zone about 0-2 wide round the large end of densely set dull 

 brownish-red specks, and a few similar specks inside the zone only. 

 In the other, the ground has a light greenish tinge, the zone is less 

 marked and merges in a dull brownish-red mottled cap, and a 

 faint marbling, of a paler shade of the cap, is scattered here and 

 there over the whole surface of the egg. They measure 1 by O65 

 and 0-98 by 0-65. 



The egg taken by Mr. Davison is an elongated, slightly pyri- 

 form oval. The shell is moderately fine, but with only a very slight 

 gloss. The ground-colour is a pale slightly greyish green, and the 

 whole egg is thickly (most thickly so about the large end, where 

 the markings are almost perfectly confluent) mottled and streaked 

 with pale brownish red. It measures 0*98 by O67. 



193. Brachypteryx albiventris (Fairbank). The White-bellied 

 Short-wing. 



Callene albiventris, Fairb. } Hume, Rough Draft N. fy E. no. 339 bis. 



The Rev. S. B. Fairbank, to whom I have owed much useful 

 information and many valuable specimens, kindly sent me the sub- 

 joined account of the nidifi cation of the White-bellied Short- wing 

 in the Pulney Hills at an elevation of about 6500 feet : 



" In April, I found a nest in a hole in the side of the trunk of a 

 large tree some 2 feet from the ground. The hole was just large 

 enough for the nest, and was lined with fine roots. I surprised 

 the bird on her nest several times. There were two eggs in the 

 nest when I first found it that were ' hard-set/ A month after- 

 wards she laid two more in the same place, and I took them in 

 good condition. One egg measures 0-9 by 0*68 inch, and another 

 0-94 by 0-68 inch. The ground-colour is grey, with a tinge of 

 green, and it is thickly covered with small spots of bistre." 



Mr. Blanford, who saw the eggs, which I never did, describes 

 them (and by analogy, I should infer more correctly) as " of an 

 olive-brown colour, darker at the larger end, measuring 0'93 by 

 0-63 inch." 



An egg of this species sent me by Dr. Fairbank, measuring 

 0*93 by 0-66, is a somewhat elongated oval, slightly pointed towards 

 the small end. The shell is fine and fairly glossy ; the ground- 

 colour, so far as this is discernible, is greyish green, but it is so 

 thickly clouded and mottled all over with a warm brown, that but 

 little of the ground-colour is anywhere traceable, and the general 

 result when the egg is looked at from a short distance is that of a 

 nearly uniform olive-brown. 



Captain Horace Terry also found the nest of this bird on the Pulney 

 Hills. He says : " I met with it a few times in the big shohi at 

 Kodikanal, and got two nests, each with two fresh eggs ; the first 

 on the 7th June in a hole in a tree between 4 and 5 feet from the 

 ground, a deep cup of green moss ; the other, in a hole in the bank 

 of a path running through the shola was of green moss and a few 



