6 MUSG'ICAPID^E. 



Captain Hutton says: "Arrives in the neighbourhood of Mus- 

 soorie in April, and breeds in June, on the 13th of which month I 

 took a nest from a hole in a bank bv the roadside in a retired and 

 unfrequented situation. I afterwards found another nest in a hole 

 of a rock, also in a retired spot. The elevation was about 5000 

 feet; externally this nest is composed of green moss and lined with 

 black fibrous lichens, like hair. The eggs are four in number, of 

 a dull and pale olive-green, faintly or indistinctly clouded with 

 dull rufous or clay-colour." 



According to Mr. Hodgson's notes and drawings this species 

 begins to lay in Nepal in April, and the young are ready to fly in 

 June and July ; the nest is placed in the hollow of some decayed 

 tree, or in a ledge of rock, more or less overhung. It is composed 

 of grass, dry leaves, moss, and moss-roots, and is lined inside with 

 fine, hair-like blackish moss-roots ; it measures about 4 inches in 

 diameter externally and about 1/5 in height ; the diameter of the 

 cavity is about 2 inches. It lays three or four eggs, broad ovals, 

 slightly glossy, of a dingy reddish cafe au lait colour, measuring 

 0'72 by 0-52. It breeds only once a year ; both sexes aid in 

 hatching and rearing the young. 



A nest of this species found on the 12th of May at Takoldau, 

 in Native Sikhim, contained four fresh eggs. The nest, which is 

 only a little pad of moderately fine roots, in which a couple of 

 skeleton leaves are incorporated at the base, was placed in a hole 

 at the top of a stump of an old tree, only about 3 feet from the 

 ground. 



Sometimes they lay in a hole in a bamboo. I had a nest sent 

 me found in such a situation on the 29th April near Darjeeling. 



The nest itself was a mere lining to the bottom of the joint of 

 the bamboo, a shallow saucer about 4 inches in diameter, composed 

 of the fine stems of some pennated leaf carefully curved round 

 and one or two dead leaves. The eggs are precisely similar to 

 those sent by Captain Hutton. 



Several eggs of this species, which were sent me by Captain 

 Hutton, resemble much, as might have been expected, those of 

 Cyornis tickelli ; but they seem to average somewhat snorter and 

 broader. In shape they are ovals, some elongated, some rather 

 broad, and all of them a little compressed towards one end. The 

 ground-colour is greenish or brownish stone-colour ; some exhibit 

 no markings ; others only a little grey freckling, but typically they 

 have a very pale purplish-brown mottled zone near the large end, 

 and occasionally frecklings of the same colour over the whole of 

 the large end of the egg. They have little or no gloss. They vary 

 in length from 0-68 to 0'76 inch and in breadth from 0-56 to 0*66 

 inch, but the average of the eggs is 0-73 nearly by 0-62 inch. 



Some eggs taken by Capt. Cock in Cashmere are similar to those 

 already described, pale greenish stone-coloured ground, freckled all 

 over (but most thickly at the large end) with very pale pinkish 

 brown ; but they are very much narrower than the eggs 1 have 



