60 TURDID/E. 



such freckles as there are being entirely confined to the larger end. 

 The most common type, however, will be found to be that first 

 mentioned. 



" They breed from May to July, commencing to lay at the end 

 of the first month. I had a ForktaiPs nest with eggs, four hard- 

 set, brought to me once in August, which may have belonged 

 either to this species or to H. schistaceus, the eggs of which differ 

 but slightly from those of H. immaculatus." 



A lovely nest of this species sent me from Sikhim, taken near 

 Mongphoo on the 6th May, at an elevation of 3000 feet, and 

 which contained four fresh eggs when taken, is a massive cup of 

 green moss firmly felted together, lined with fine fern-roots, and 

 then the cavity completely coated inside with skeleton leaves. 

 Exteriorly the nest is about 5 inches in diameter and 3 in height ; 

 the cavity is 3 inches in diameter and 2 in depth. 



Eggs of this species, with which I have been favoured by 

 Mr. Gammie, belong to quite the same types as those of its 

 congeners. The eggs are somewhat elongated ovals, typically 

 pointed towards the small end, but more or less pyriform and 

 obtuse-ended varieties occur. The shell is fine and compact, but 

 it never has much gloss, and in some specimens scarcely any. 

 The ground-colour varies, sometimes nearly pure white, sometimes 

 greenish white, and sometimes a pinky or creamy stone-colour. 

 The markings consist of freckling and mottling of different shades 

 of reddish, purplish, or yellowish brown, the shade varying in every 

 egg, often densest about the large end, and often more or less sparse 

 over the rest of the egg. In some eggs small spots and specks of 

 more pronounced colour, olive or reddish brown, are dotted about 

 amongst the mottlings, and in some eggs there is a little faint purple 

 or lilac mottling intermingled at the large end. 



In length the eggs vary from 0-86 to TO inch, and in breadth 

 from 0-65 to 07 inch. 



632. Henicurus schistaceus, Hodgs. The Slaty-backed 

 Forlctail. 



Enicurus schistaceus, Hodgs., Jerd. B. 2nd. ii, p. 214 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 586. 



The Slaty-backed Forktail breeds in the valleys of the Surjoo and 

 Eamgunga in Kuinaon, near the junction of which I obtained the 

 nest with half-fledged young in July, and thence eastwards in all 

 the warmer mountain-valleys, at elevations of from 1500 to 

 3500 feet, throughout the Himalayas and the various chains and 

 hill-systems running down from Assam to Burma. 



As far as I know, Mr. Gammie was the first oologist who 

 obtained the eggs. He says : "I found one nest this year in the 

 Eyang, below our chinchona-plantation (Sikhim), at an elevation 

 of about 2000 feet, oil the 4th May. It was close to the ground, 

 on a natural ledge in the root of an uprooted tree, at the edge of a 

 shady stream. It was cup-shaped but shallow, and composed of 



