LA1QUS. 317 



Mr. G-atninie found a nest of this species on the 17th May at 

 Mo n^ too, near Darjeeling, at an elevation of 3500 feet. The 

 nest was placed in a wormwood bush, and was supported between 

 several slender upright shoots, to which the exterior of the nest 

 \\a> more or less attached. The nest was a deep compact cup, 

 externally composed of fine twigs, scraps of roots, and stems of 

 herbaceous plants, intermingled with a great deal of flowering 

 grass. Internally it was lined with very fine grass and moss-roots. 

 The cavity measured about 3 inches in diameter, and was fully 

 2 inches deep. The external diameter was about 5 inches, and 

 height 3| or thereabout. 



Subsequently he sent me the following full account of the nidi- 

 fication of this Shrike : 



" I have found this Strike breeding abundantly in the Cinchona 

 reserves in May and June, at elevations of from 3000 to 4500 feet 

 above the sea. It affects open, cultivated places, and builds, from 

 6 to 20 feet from the ground, in shrubs, bamboos, or small trees. 

 The nest is often suspended between several upright shoots, to which 

 it is firmly attached by fibres twisted round the stems and the 

 ends worked into the body of the nest; sometimes against a 

 bamboo-stem seated on, and attached to, the bunch of twigs given 

 out at a node ; or in a fork of a small tree, or end of an upright cut 

 branch where several shoots have sprung away from under the cut 

 and keep the nest in position, when it has a large pad of an ever- 

 lasting plant or of the downy beads of a large flowering grass to 

 rest on when the former material is handy it is preferred. The 

 nest is sometimes exposed to view, but generally is tolerably well 

 concealed. It is of a deep cup-shape, very compactly built of 

 flowering grass and stems of herbaceous plants intermixed with 

 fibry twigs, and liued with the small fibry- looking branchlets of 

 grass-panicles. Externally it measures 5 inches across by 3| inches 

 in depth ; internally the cavity is 3| inches in diameter by nearly 

 2 inches deep. Usually the eggs are either four or five in number. 

 On one occasion only have I seen so many as six. The coloration 

 is of two distinct types, but one type only is found in the same 

 nest. I suspect that the age of the bird has something to do with 

 the variation of colour in the eggs. In a nest containing four eggs 

 one had the majority of the spots collected on the small, instead 

 of the thick end as usual, and, strange to say, it was addled white. 

 The other three were hard-set. The parents get very much ex- 

 cited when their young are approached, and, as long as the intruder 

 is in the vicinity, keep up an incessant volley of their harsh grating 

 cries, at the same time stretching out their necks and jerking about 

 their tails violently." 



Mr. J. E.. Cripps, writing from Purreedpore in Eastern Bengal, 

 says : " Excessively common and a permanent resident. Prefers 

 open plains interspersed with bushes, also the small bushes on road- 

 sides are a favourite haunt of theirs. Breeds in the district. I 

 took ten nests this season from the llth April to 4th June, with 

 from one to five eggs in each. Four nests were placed in bamboo 



