150 FRINGILLIDJE. 



Family FRINGILLIDJE. 



Subfamily COCCOTHRAUSTIN.E. 



741. Pycnorhamphus icteroides (Vigors). The Black-and-Yellow 



Grosbeak. 



Hesperiphona icterioides ( Viy.}, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 384. 

 Pycnorhamphus icterioides ( Viy.}, Hume, Rough Draft N. $E. no.725. 



Common as is the Black -and-T ell ow Grosbeak in the pine 

 woods a few miles north of Simla, I have never succeeded in 

 obtaining an egg there, though I have had barely fledged birds 

 repeatedly brought me. They breed in all the pine forests of the 

 Himalayas south of the first snowy ranges and west of the Ganges, 

 at elevations of from 6500 to 9000 feet. Many people have 

 found their nests with young, but, so far as I know. Captain Cock 

 is the only person who has taken their eggs. 



This gentleman told me that he " found this bird breeding in 

 the station of Murree and also in Cashmere. May and June is 

 the usual time. My first nest, containing three eggs, was taken 

 on the 28th May, at 8000 feet elevation, upon a sapling lime. I 

 climbed up and found three eggs in the nest, which was con- 

 structed of a few twigs and grass, and lined with stalks of 

 maiden-hair fern and fine roots. I shot the female as she left 

 her nest. 



"Nests subsequently found seemed to have more moss about 

 their external structure than this one ; but though I found nests 

 and young ones, I never again succeeded in getting the eggs." 



From. Murree, Colonel C. H. T. Marshall writes : We were 

 unlucky with this bird's nest, as the first one we found was a 

 new one, and the climber stupidly destroyed it ; the next one had 

 young ones. They breed very high up in the Himalayan spruce- 

 fir. Captain Cock got three eggs last year in Cashmere. They 

 are white, beautifully marked with broad longitudinal dashes of 

 light and deep rufous brown at larger end. They are 1-05 long 

 and 0-8 broad. These birds breed at high elevations, never under 

 7000 feet." 



He subsequently wrote : " Captain C. E. Cock sent me six 

 eggs of this species which he found high up in the spruce-firs on 

 the Murree and Abbotabad road near Doongagully. The eggs 

 were taken on the following dates : 



" 2 fresh eggs, May 31st. 



" 2 June 6th. 



" 2 June 8th. 



" The lengths vary from 0'9 to 1-07, but there is no appreciable 



