IYXGIPICU8. 307 



taken the eggs. It breads in March, making a tiny hole, the 

 entrance to which is about 1-25 inch at most in diameter, in some 

 large more or less decayed branch of a tree. The nest I found in 

 April, and which contained four yonng birds, was in a huge arm of 

 a mango-tree in Futtebgurh, and I have notes of nests found in u 

 seeshum and a sirris tree. 



The egg of this species is, to judge from tbe only two specimens 

 I possess, unusually spherical for a Woodpecker and large for the 

 size of the bird. It is a very broad oval, pure white, and mode- 

 rately glossy. Much the same shape as the egg of Picumnus inno- 

 iniHatug, but less glossy, and intermediate in size between it and 

 the eggs of D. macii. 



The two eggs measure 0*7 by 0-6 inch, and 0'73 by 0-62 inch. 

 The late Captain Cock sent me the following note : " I observed 

 a pair of these little birds about a mango-tree on the outskirt of a 

 small tope near Seetapore, and with the glasses made out they 

 were bringing food to their young. Though I had found the tree 

 upon which the nest was it was another thing to find the nest on 

 a tree where there were many dead boughs and many holes of 

 Barbets. After sawing off one bough fruitlessly I found the real 

 nest. It was placed in a dead bough, the hole being about 1 foot 

 from the end and facing inward toward the stem of the tree, so as 

 not to be visible from below. I sawed through the bough with a 

 small hand-saw about 6 inches below the entrance, and laid bare 

 the nest-cavity, which contained two young ones and one addled 

 egg, which I joyfully appropriated. The bough was not 4 inches 

 in diameter, and uas dead, the top having been broken off; the 

 nest-cavity was very small, the two young being a tight fit ; the 

 egg was underneath them upon some wood-chips. A native 

 brought in another egg with a female bird which he had caught 

 upon it when I was at Allahabad in May 1875 ; this egg I adopted 

 unhesitatingly, as there is no mistaking the egg, it is such a funny 

 little blunt oval. The nest at Seetapore was taken on the 25th 

 March, 1875. 



" With rare Woodpeckers the egg-collector should always lift 

 up the young when there are young in the nest, as an addled egg 

 is often found with them in the nest." 



Mr. George Reid, writing from Lucknow, says : " I found a 

 nest of this species and two fresh eggs on the 24th March. The 

 nest was placed about 8 feet from the ground, in a horizontal and 

 internally decayed (but not hollow) bough of a mango-tree in a 

 neglected garden in the native city of Lucknow. The entrance- 

 aperture, on the underside of the bough, was about | of an inch in 

 diameter, gradually widening to the egg-cavity, about 10 inches 

 away towards the trunk of the tree. Tbe eggs were white, and 

 measured respectively 0'7 by 0'53 and 0'7 by 0'52 inch." 



The egg of this species obtained at Seetapore by Captain Cock 

 on the 25th March measured 0-69 by 0'52. 



20* 



