16 



finely speckled and mottled all over with very faint brownish red, 

 which speckling becomes confluent towards the larger end, forming 

 a dull, irregular, pale brownish-red cap. Other specimens, received 

 from Miss Cockburn and Mr. Davison, are similar in colour to 

 that already described, but are somewhat broader and less elongated 

 ovals in shape. In some eggs the markings are almost exclusively 

 confined to the larger end, where they form a confluent pale, 

 apparently half-washed out, brownish-pink cap. 



The eggs vary in length from 0-65 to 0*75 inch, and in breadth 

 from O46 to O58 inch, but the average is 0-7 by 0*53 inch. 



592. Culicicapa ceylonensis (Swains.). The Grey-hearted 

 Flycatcher. 



Cryptolopha cinereocapilla (Viei'l.}, Jerd. B, 2nd. i, p. 455. 

 Myialestes cinereocapilla ( Vieill.\ Hume, Rough Draft N. $ E. 

 no. 295. 



The Grey-headed Flycatcher breeds everywhere in the outer 

 ranges of the Himalayas from 4000 to 7000 feet, in the Wynaad 

 at an elevation of some 3500, and throughout the Nilghiris from an 

 elevation of from 4500 quite to the summits, wherever there is any 

 jungle or forest. It lays during the latter part of April, May, and 

 June ; four being, I think, the normal number of the eggs, but 

 three being often the full complement. 



The nests, very fully described by my different correspondents, 

 are constructed amidst the growing moss on some perpendicular 

 rock or old trunk of a tree. One now before me, found near 

 Kotagherry on the 20th May, 1871, on a rock near water, about 

 6 feet above the ground, is a deep massive little cup of moss felted 

 together, a little white and green lichen being intermingled with 

 the moss ; externally it is about 2| inches in diameter and more than 

 3 inches in height. The cavity is not lined in any way, and is a little 

 more than 1 inch in diameter, and perhaps 2 inches in depth. When 

 in situ this nest was of course covered externally with a great 

 deal of loose moss, which w ? as blended with that growing on the 

 rock. Usually they maybe briefly described as quarters of spheres 

 placed against upright surfaces, with rather deeper than hemi- 

 spherical cavities, composed entirely of moss and lichen. 



Colonel Gr. F. L. Marshall writes : " I have found many 

 nests of this species at Naini Tal. I think they must have 

 two broods in the year; I have as a rule reached the hills in 

 the middle of May and until this year I never got eggs or 

 saw any sign of building till the first week in July, though I watched 

 the birds carefully. This year I came up in the middle of April 

 and found several nests with eggs before the first week in May, 

 and again they are building in the end of June. The bird is very 

 common here, but the nest is almost impossible to see from the 

 ground unless the spot is betrayed by the movements of the birds. 

 All that I have seen without exception were against the moss- 

 covered trunks of large hill-oaks about 30 feet from the ground and 

 unsheltered by folinge." 



