268 SYLVIIDJE. 



He added in epist. : "This is a much shier bird than P. Jmmii. 

 I watched many a one without effect. The nest is a loose structure 

 of moss lined with a little wool, and would not retain its shape after 

 coming out of the hole. It is a most amusing bird, very noisy, 

 with a short poor song, and utters a variety of notes when you are 

 near the nest." 



Certainly the nests he brought me are nothing but little pads of 

 moss, 3 to 4 inches in diameter and perhaps an inch in thickness. 

 There is no pretence for a lining, but a certain amount of wool and 

 excessively fine moss-roots are incorporated in the body of the nest. 

 In situ they would appear to be sometimes more or less domed. 



Captain Cock writes to me : " I have taken numbers of nests of 

 this bird in Cashmere and in and about the hill-station of Murree. 

 They commence breeding in May and have finished by July. The 

 nests are placed under roots of trees, in crevices of trees, between 

 large stems, and a favourite locality is, where the road has a stone 

 embankment to support it, between the stones. The nest is glo- 

 bular, made of moss, and the number of eggs is four. I have often 

 caught the old bird on the nest. The nests are easy to find, as the 

 birds are very noisy and demonstrative when any one is near their 

 nests." 



Colonel C. H. T. Marshall also very kindly gives me the following 

 most interesting note on the iiidification of this species in the 

 vicinity of Murree. He says : 



" This little Willow- Warbler, so far as my own experience goes, 

 always prefers a pretty high elevation for breeding. Out of the 

 dozen nests found by Captain Cock and myself in the neighbour- 

 hood of Murree, none were at an elevation of less than 6500 feet 

 above the sea ; and my shikaree, who was always on the look out for 

 me in the lower ranges, never came across the nest of this species. 



" The nest is generally placed in holes at the foot of the large 

 spruce firs. It is a difficult nest to find, as the bird selects holes 

 into which the hand will not go, and outside there are no signs of 

 there being any nest within. 



" The cock bird spends most of his time at the tops of trees, 

 coming down at intervals. The only chance of success in taking 

 the eggs is to watch carefully any that may be flying low in the 

 bushes, until they disappear cautiously into the holes where they 

 are breeding. I should mention that we have also found some nests 

 in the rough stone walls on the hill road-sides. 



" The nest is as neatly and carefully built as if it had to be exposed 

 on the branch of a tree. It is globular in shape, made of moss, 

 and lined with feathers. The eggs are pure white. They apparently 

 rear two broods in the year. In the first nest, which we found 

 under the root of an old spruce-fir on the 17th May, the eggs were 

 quite hard-set ; and I may remark that immediately over this nest, 

 about 8 feet up the tree in a crack in the wood, a little Muscicapula 

 superciliaris was sitting on five eggs. Later at the end of June we 

 found fresh eggs in several nests. The eggs in our collection were 

 all taken between the 17th May and the 10th July." 



