CITTOCINCLA. 87 



respectively, 0-9" x O62","0-87" x 0-62", 0-85" x 0-61", and 0-85" x 

 0-62"." 



Mr. Gates records the following from Pegu : " Builds in 

 hollows of trees from 2 to 20 feet from the ground. The nest is 

 a shapeless mass of leaves, sufficient to fill the hole, and lined with 

 fine grass. I have found nests on May 27th and June 3rd with 

 eggs. The number of eggs appears to be four. They are not 

 unlike some of the eggs of C. saularis. Tolerably glossy, ground- 

 colour greenish, and the whole shell is thickly freckled and streaked 

 with rich brown with a tinge of rufous. The eggs vary in length 

 from -89 to 79 and from -64 to -6 in breadth." 



Mr. J. Darling, Jun., says: "17th April. Took 3 nests of 

 C. macriira : one nest with 3 hard-set eggs, one with 3 hard-set 

 and 1 rotten egg, and the other with 4 fresh eggs. This last was 

 built in a hole of a tree 4 feet from ground, in open forest, and 

 was composed of a few twigs, lined with a few fern-roots : a very 

 poor nest, with scarcely any depression. 20 miles east of Tavoy." 



The eggs are moderately broad ovals, a good deal compressed 

 towards the small end and exhibiting a slight pyriforin tendency. 



The shell is fine and compact and has a slight gloss. 



The eggs remind one a good deal of some of the Larks' eggs. 

 The ground appears to be a dull greenish-stone colour (but very 

 little of it is visible), and it is everywhere very densely freckled, in 

 some rather streakily, with a rich almost raw-sienna brown, in 

 amongst which dull purplish markings are, when the egg is closely 

 looked into, found to be thickly mingled. The combined effect, 

 looked at from a little distance, is of a dense ruddy purplish-brown 

 mottling. 



In some eggs the markings are not quite so dense, and more of 

 the ground-colour is visible, then not unfrequently a pale sea- 

 green. Taking the eggs as a body they may be best described as 

 slightly larger, more densely marked, and deeper coloured editions 

 of those of C. saularis. 



But I have occasionally seen eggs of a somewhat different type 

 in which the ground-colour was only greenish white, and in which 

 the primary markings were a decidedly reddish brown, and the 

 secondary markings pale purple. 



Occasionally the eggs are very elongated, and either much com- 

 pressed towards the small end or distinctly pyriforin. Taking 

 them as a whole, I should say they have a very fine amount of 

 gloss. 



The eggs are small, it seems to me, for the size of the bird. 

 The few we have vary from 0'81 to 0'92 in length, and from 0*6 

 to 0-67 in breadth. 



