4 MUSCJCAPILJE. 



excessively finely freckled, and in many cases uniformly tinted, 

 with reddish cafe au lait colour or pale salmon-buff ; in many eggs 

 the colour is deeper and redder afc the large end, forming an un- 

 defined cap. Some of the eggs have a slight gloss, others are 

 absolutely glossless. 



These eggs are verv similar in tint to those of Stoparola and 

 other genera of this family. 



In length they vary from O58 to 0'69 inch and in breadth from 

 0*47 to O5 inch ; but the average of ten eggs is 0*62 inch by a 

 little more than 0-48 inch. 



568. Cyornis superciliaris (Jerd.). The White-browed 

 Blue Flycatcher. 



Muscicapula superciliaris (Jerd.\ Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 470 ; Hume, 



Rough Draft N. $ E. no. 310. 

 Muscicapula acornaus, Hodys., Jerd. torn. cit. p. 483. 



The White-browed Blue Flycatcher, though extending its cold- 

 weather migration far into Southern India, breeds only, so far as 

 I have yet ascertained, in the Himalayas at elevations of from 5000 

 to nearly 10,000 feet ; from Darjeeling to Murree it breeds every- 

 where, not only in the outer ranges, but far into the interior. I 

 found a nest only a march south of Guugootree ; I have received 

 others from the Sutlej Valley above Chini, from Miualee close to 

 the foot of the Kotung, from the Sind Valley, Cashmere, just at 

 the foot of the Zojee La, and I know of one being found at Dras. 

 They lay from the middle of April to the middle of June, building 

 a small cup-shaped nest, about 3 inches in diameter, of moss and 

 moss-roots, and lined with these latter and at times a little fine hair, 

 in holes of trees or even occasionally between two stones of the 

 terraced wall of some fallow or deserted field. 



They lay from four to six eggs. The late Captain Beavan cor- 

 rectly remarked that this species was " not at all rare about Simla, 

 in gardens and forest-glades, and not at all shy. I discovered the 

 nest of this species on the 10th of May at that station, with four 

 young ones in it. It is a pretty little cup-shaped structure, com- 

 posed of moss and hair, placed at the bottom of a small hole in an 

 ilex, at no great depth inside." 



Writing from Murree, Colonel C. H. T. Marshall notes having 

 secured " sixteen or eighteen nests between the beginning of May 

 and the end of June, in small holes in rotten branches or trunks 

 of trees, sometimes close to the ground, sometimes very high up. 

 Eggs, five in number, of a yellowish-brown colour, almost round, 

 about -6 inch long and '45 broad. The general elevation averages 

 6500 feet ; they do not build in the lower hills." 



Colonel G-. F. L. Marshall remarks : " This Flycatcher is not 

 very common at Naini Tal, and I have only once found the nest; 

 it contained two eggs on the 25th of May. It was a small cup 

 built of moss, lined with horsehair, and wedged into a narrow 



