MERULA. 93 



The Kotegurk nest was placed in a bank, was 6 inches in dia- 

 meter and 4 in height, composed of moss, with a good deal of dead 

 fern in the base of the nest, and only a little earth, and lined with 

 fine grass. The cavity was about 3*5 inches in diameter, and 2'75 

 inches in depth. 



From Murree Colonel C. H. T. Marshall writes : " Two nests 

 in banks, in the beginning of June ; eggs very similar to those of 

 M. boulboul, but some what larger, being 1-25 by 0'8 inch. Captain 

 Cock got two nests in the Sindh Valley, Kashmir. It is peculiar 

 that this species always breeds in banks. All the Meruline birds 

 breed from about 5000 to 7000 feet up. 



" I believe some people say that ^ferula albocincta and M. castanea, 

 are identical. I therefore send a pair of birds of the latter, shot 

 off the nest in full breeding-plumage, which may elucidate the 

 matter. They must have two hatches in the year, as on the 20th 

 April I got a nest with four eggs just ready to hatch, which must 

 have been laid at the end of March. The nest, too, was at an 

 elevation of nearly 7000 feet." 



The eggs of this species appear to vary very much. What I 

 take to be the typical egg is a somewhat lengthened, at times more 

 or less pyriform, oval. A pale green ground, with very little gloss, 

 thickly and boldly mottled and freckled all over with brownish red 

 and pinkish purple. In another type nowhere is more than a pin's 

 point of the ground-colour visible, the whole surface being exces- 

 sively minutely freckled and speckled with brownish red, underlaid 

 by faint reddish-purple clouds and stains. 



In length they vary from 1*1 to 1'JJo inch, and in breadth from 

 0'75to0'88 inch. Only eight eggs are measured, five from Kote- 

 gurh and three from Sonamurgh taken by Captain Cock. 



676. Merola boulbonl (Lath.). The Grey-winyed Ouzel. 



Merula boulboul (Lath.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 525; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 361. 



The Grey-winged Ouzel breeds throughout the outer ranges of 

 the Himalayas, at any rate from Darjeeling to Murree, in and 

 about the skirts of forests, from an elevation of say 4000 to 7000 

 feet. It lays from the end of April to the early part of August, 

 but the great majority lay in May and June. 



The situation of the nest varies : it is sometimes placed on the 

 ground, in some hollow of a massive root, or in a fallen trunk ; 

 sometimes on a ledge of rock, and sometimes in a fork of some 

 thick tree of moderate size, at no great elevation from the 

 ground. 



The nests of this species closely resemble those of the Nilghiii 

 Blackbird. There is the same internal wattle-and-dab framework, 

 the same massive external coating of moss and delicate ferns, and 

 the same soft internal lining, in the case of this species most 

 commonly of fine dry grass. The specimens before me are fully 



