156 FRINGILLIDJE. 



large end, consist of a few blackish spots and a number of specks 

 and streaks of reddish brown. 

 The egg measures 0'65 by 0-49. 



772. Hypacanthis spinoides (Vigors). The Himalayan 

 Greenfinch. 



Chrysomitris spinoides ( F^/7.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 409. 

 Hypacanthis spinoides ( Viy.}, Hume, Rough Draft N. 8f E. no. 750. 



The so-called Indian Siskin is not a Siskin at all, neither in note 

 nor in shape of bill, and is certainly not a Chrysomitris. The note 

 is very like that of a Greenfinch, but structurally our bird is not 

 a Chloris ; and it seems to me that either one must unite the whole 

 of the true Finches under one genus, Frinyilla, or one must sepa- 

 rate the present species as a distinct genus and adopt, as I have 

 done, Cabanis's name, Hypacanihis. 



Although this bird breeds very freely in all well-wooded hills in 

 the interior of the Himalayas, at elevations of from 4000 to 7000 

 feet, I seem to be the only person who has taken the nest in 

 recent times. 



The following is a note that I recorded at a time when I had 

 recently taken several nests : 



" Lays in July and August, at least in the neighbourhood of 

 Simla, where alone I have found its nest. The latter is placed in 

 very various situations, and always so well concealed that, except 

 by watching the birds early in the morning when both parents are 

 generally feeding in the neighbourhood of the nest, it is almost 

 impossible to discover it. I have found the nest (August 18th) 

 with three young ones, some 30 feet from the ground, nearly at 

 the top of an evergreen oak, and I have found it in a deodar bush 

 not 3 feet from the ground on the lowest bough, about 6 inches 

 from the main stem. Once I found it against the trunk of an aged 

 deodar, nearly buried in a huge clump of moss, much of which the 

 birds had attached to the sides of the nest. Usually the nests are 

 seated flat on some bough or wide-spreading fork, and, as far as 

 my experience goes, this bird prefers the deodar to any other tree. 

 The nest is a most beautiful structure, cup-shaped, woven of the 

 finest grass-roots, with a good deal of hair interwoven in the inte- 

 rior and with much moss blended with the exterior. It is a very 

 solid and compact little structure. The cavity, which is generally 

 truly circular, varies from 2 to 2'5 inches in diameter and from !! 

 to 1*4 in depth. Exteriorly the diameter of the real nest does not 

 exceed 4-5, and often falls short of this : but the nest is at times 

 so blended with moss in situ that it is difficult to say where the 

 nest ends, and you may have to tear away a patch 9 inches square 

 to get it. The eggs are usually three in number, and when fresh 

 are a delicate, slightly greenish white, with an irregular ring of 

 minute blackish-brown spots round the large end, and occasionally 

 a very few similar specks on the body of the egg. The shell is 



