PBA.TINCOLA, 40 



the Valley of the Beas below Bajoura, I have found numbers of 

 their nests, and even in the immediate vicinity of, though at a 

 much lower level than, Simla itself I have seen several. 



April and May seem to be the months in which they mostly lay ; 

 but they have certainly two and possibly three broods, and I have 

 had eggs sent me in from Kotegurh as early as the first week in 

 March and as late as the middle of July. 



The situation of the nest varies according to locality. I have 

 found them generally in some low thick bush (generally a thorny 

 one), or dense tuft of grass, on or near the ground. Mr. Brooks, 

 as will be seen, found them mostly in between the crevices of the 

 rough stone walls that support and bound the terraced fields which 

 adorn our hill-sides. I, too, have found a few in such places, in 

 the walls of old deserted cattle-byres, and once in amongst the 

 debris of an old broken and forgotten culvert. 



The nest is generally a more or less regular cup, composed exte- 

 riorly of rather coarse grass intermingled at times with moss, lined 

 sometimes with tine grass, at others with soft grey fur, the hairs 

 of cattle, a few feathers, and the like. The nests placed in holes 

 in walls are, according to my experience, less regularly and care- 

 fully built, and sometimes are mere shapeless pads. The eggs 

 appear to be indifferently four and five ; and though a nest was 

 sent me containing six, I have never seen so large a number in any 

 of the fifty odd nests that I have examined in situ,. 



At Murree, on the west, Colonel C. H. T. Marshall says that 

 the Stone-Chat breeds in numbers in the valleys. Eastwards they 

 seem to be comparatively rare in the breeding-season ; but I have 

 had one nest and eggs sent me from Darjeeling. 



Of its nidification at and near Almorah, Mr. Brooks has recorded 

 the following interesting note : 



" At Almorah the young of the first broods were fully fledged 

 by the middle of April. On the hills the cultivated laud on the 

 hill-sides is all terraced, and to keep up the earth low retaining walls 

 of dry rubble-stone are built. In course of time these low walls, 

 generally only 3 or 4 feet high, become rather broken and over- 

 grown with grass and plants of different sorts. Sometimes even 

 small thorny shrubs grow from the face of the wall. It is in holes 

 or hollows in these walls that the Stone-Chat delights to build, the 

 situation of the nest being generally near the top of the wall. The 

 nest is always more or less hidden by grass and other plants which 

 grow in all the crevices of these walls. It is generally composed 

 of moss, grass, fibres, and fine roots, and lined with hair and some- 

 times feathers, in fact just the nest of the English Stone-Chat ; 

 number of eggs five, which in size and colour exactly resemble 

 those of the English bird. In addition to the terraces on hill-sides 

 the bird breeds on open uncultivated hill-sides, where the ground 

 is pretty well overgrown with stunted bushes which resemble the 

 English blackthorn. In these places I never succeeded in finding 

 the nest, for the birds watched me more successfully than I watched 

 them, and found me out whenever I had hidden myself for the 



VOL. II. 4 



