OREICOr.A. 51 



and very probably always, have two broods, which (if not molested) 

 they rear in the same nest. 



The nest is placed on the ground, sometimes under some large 

 overhanging stone or stout earthen clod, inside, or more or less 

 concealed by, a tuft of grass or weeds, sometimes in a little depres- 

 sion in the hill-side under some thick bush, often half under some 

 great bulging root of a forest-tree, and occasionally, but rarely, in 

 some hole in the loose stone-walls that in the hills support and 

 protect our roads. It is a tolerably neat cup-shaped structure, 

 sometimes slight and loosely put together, sometimes comparatively 

 massive and compact, composed chiefly of moderately coarse grass, 

 fine twigs, or moss, and lined either with finer grass-stems, fine 

 roots, horsehair, or soft fur : sometimes a great deal of vegetable 

 fibre and even a little lichen is incorporated in the sides and towards 

 the bottom of the nest. Externally they vary in size from 3*5 to 

 4*5 in diameter, and from 2 to 3 inches in height. The cavity is 

 about 2'5 in diameter and rarely much more than 1 J inch in depth ; 

 very often it is barely an inch. The eggs are four or five in num- 

 ber. I have as often taken five as four, and I have never found 

 less than the latter number when the eggs were deeply set. 



Prom Murree Colonel Marshall and Captain Cock report : " We 

 took numerous nests of this species between the 1st May and the 

 end of July. They breed in banks. Their eggs resemble those of 

 P. indica pale blue, with a few russet spots at the larger end. 

 We twice found the egg of Cuculus canorus in this bird's nest. 

 Elevation 7000 feet." 



I have found many nests in Kooloo and in the Valley of the 

 Sutlej and in and about Simla. At the latter station a pair have 

 bred for some seasons close above my house. Of two nests taken, 

 the one near Sultanpoor in Kooloo, the other above Ham poor in 

 the Valley of the Sutlej, I recorded the following note : 



" Xests of this species found, the one on the 17th April under 

 a rock in a dry bank, aud another on the side of a bank overhung 

 by a little grass on the 25th May, both at an elevation of about 

 5000 feet, and both containing five eggs, were rather loosely con- 

 structed grass cups, measuring about 4| inches in diameter and 2| 

 inches in height. The egg-cavities were about 2| inches in diam- 

 eter and 1| inch in depth. The one was thinly but very neatly 

 lined, chiefly at the bottom of the cavity, with fine white hairs from 

 the fur of some animal. The other had scarcely a trace of this 

 same lining. From their size, and considering the genus to which 

 the bird belongs, the nests were rather massive and compact. I 

 have often seen nests of the same species of much the same 

 materials, but scarcely half the size and not nearly so compact." 



At Simla the late Captain Beavan tells us that on the 7th May 

 he shot a female " off the nest, w r hich was carefully concealed in a 

 hole at the root of a tree not far from the house. It is a neat cup, 

 the outside and bottom composed of dry moss, lined inside with 

 horsehair and stems of grass ; depth outside 2'5, inside 1'75 ; 

 diameter inside 2'5, outside 4-25 ; number of eggs four.'' 



4* 



