BHIPIDURA. 31 



Mr. Hodgson figures the nest of this species as a very beautiful, 

 deep, and compact cup, placed on a horizontal fork of a thin 

 branch, composed interiorly of grass-roots closely interwoven, and 

 exteriorly thickly coated with moss and lichens. The egg in the 

 drawing in my possession (which is the original) is represented as 

 nearly white without spots. In the finished copy in the British 

 Museum Mr. Blyth says that the egg is shown as "white faintly 

 speckled." 



Mr. E. Thompson, writing from the Kumaou Bhabur, says that 

 this " species breeds in May and June, and builds its cup-shaped, 

 deeply hollow nest on the horizontal branch of a tree, either in a 

 grove, coppice, or damp valley, the bird preferring thick woods to 

 live in. The nest is composed of fine hairs, moss, roots, and 

 plenty of cobwebs, all nicely felted together, forming a neat com- 

 pact little nest about 2 inches in diameter. I never took down 

 the eggs." 



604. Rhipidura albifrontata, Frankl. The White-browed 

 Fantail Flycatcher. 



Leucocerca albofrontata (Frankl.), Jerd. B. 2nd. i, p. o'2 ; Hume, 

 Rough Draft N. $ J5. no. 292. 



The White-browed Fantail Flycatcher breeds all over the plains 

 of Continental India, and in the lower ranges of the Himalayas up 

 to an elevation of at least 4000 feet. 



It certainly breeds twice in the year, and if not disturbed rears 

 a second brood in the same nest. Eggs may be found, for I have 

 myself found them, from the latter end of February to the early 

 part of August, but the two chief periods are March and July. 



The nests, fully described below, are generally seated on the 

 broad surface of some horizontal bough or else placed on some 

 horizontal slender fork. 



The following are some of the many notes I have from time to 

 time recorded about the nidification of this species : 



" Etawah, 29th of March, 1867. Took a nest of this Fantail. 

 It was placed, as they almost always here are, on a mango-tree, 

 resting on the upper surface of a nearly horizontal branch. It 

 was a deep hemispherical cup, with an internal diameter of about 

 1'75 inch and a depth of about 1-12. It had for internal frame- 

 work a sort of basket of very fine grass-stems, and was externally 

 everywhere thickly coated with cobwebs ; the total thickness of 

 the sides nowhere exceeded | inch, but at the bottom, owing to 

 the irregularity of shape of the bough on which it was built, it was 

 in places as much as 0'5 inch thick. It contained three, very 

 similar, slightly incubated eggs. In shape short, ovals. The 

 ground white, with many excessively minute yellowish-brown 

 specks, and near the middle towards the large end a pretty broad 

 nearly confluent zone of these specks and faint greyish-brown, 

 or perhaps very pale inky ones, of a rather larger size. The white 

 ground in the neighbourhood of this zone is feebly and partially 

 tinged with buffy." 



