22 MUSCTCAPID^E. 



moss-roots are intermingled and is also lined with these. It is 

 nearly globular in shape, from 3-5 to 4 inches in external diameter 

 and fully 2 inches in height ; the cavity is about 2 inches in diameter 

 and 1 inch in depth. The nest is placed in some hole in a decaying 

 prostrate trunk, or at the roots of some yet standing tree, or again 

 on some ledge of rock. The young are ready to fly by July. 



Eggs taken by Mr. Gammie vary a good deal in shape, but seem 

 to be typically rather elongated ovals. As a rule they seem to 

 have scarcely any gloss. The ground-colour varies from white to 

 a pale brownish-stone colour. The markings always freckly and 

 smudgy, and invariably densest in a /one or rarely a cap about the 

 large end, equally vary very much in distinctness, intensity, and 

 colour. In some they are very faint with a brownish purplish tinge, 

 barely darker than the ground of the egg ; in others they are a 

 distinct brownish or reddish pink, here and there intermingled with 

 brownish purple. In some eggs they form merely a faint cloud at 

 the large end ; in others they form a well-marked zone round this 

 end, and extend pretty well over the w 7 hole surface of the egg. 



Six eggs varied from O71 to 0-81 inch in length and from 0'5 

 to 0-56 in breadth. 



598. Terpsiphone paradisi (Linn.). Tie Indian Paradise 

 Flycatcher. 



Tchitrea paradisi (Linn.}, Jercl. B. I/id, i, p. 445 ; Hume. Rouqli 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 288. 



The Indian Eocket-bird or Paradise Flycatcher breeds through- 

 out the exterior ranges of the Himalayas in the warmer valleys up 

 to an elevation of 55UO feet ; at any rate from Nepal to Afghanistan. 

 Even at considerable distances in the interior, as about Almorah, 

 Kotegurh, and the Sutlej Valley, Sooltanpoor, and the valley of 

 the Beas, and Cashmere, it is common. Throughout the warm 

 Sub-Himalayan forest-tracts, in the Doon, the Terai, and the 

 northern portions of JRohilcund and Oudh, and in wooded portions 

 of Jhansee, Saugor, Niinar, Raipoor, and doubtless other portions 

 of the Central Provinces, it breeds, though more sparingly in 

 these latter. It breeds in Southern India, but I have scanty in- 

 formation as to its nidification there, and neither Miss Cockburn, 

 Mr. Davison, nor any other of my Mlghiri correspondents appear 

 to have taken its nest there. 



Alike in plains and hills it lays during May, June, and July. 

 The nest is commonly a delicate little cup, never very deep, often 

 rather shallow, composed, according to locality, of moss, moss-roots, 

 vegetable fibres, and fine grass, which latter generally constitutes 

 the greater portion of the f ramework, bound round exteriorly with 

 cobwebs in which little white silky cocoons are often intermixed. 

 Sometimes, owing to the situation in which it is placed between two 

 or three upright twigs, the nest is exteriorly a broad inverted cone. 

 I have one, taken in the Agrore Valley by Captain Unwin, that is 

 exteriorly 4 inches deep and 3 inches in diameter at the upper rim ; 

 but, as a rule, the exterior depth does not exceed 2 inches, and the 



