PELLORNEUM. ] 35 



Above dark olive brown ; wing coverts like the back with pale shaft lines to 

 the lesser and median series; the greater coverts with narrow fulvescent 

 margins ; quills sepia brown, olive brown on their external margins, and rather 

 ashy on the outer webs of the primaries ; tail dark olive brown, the tips of the 

 feathers narrowly fringed with whitish ; head and nape dull rufous brown with 

 dull fulvous shaft stripes ; centre of the feathers of the forehead, hind neck and 

 mantle blaclt ; of the sides of the neck streaked with brown and whitish ; lores 

 and eyebrow ashy white, the feathers tipped with minute spots of dark brown ; 

 ear coverts rufescent brown ; under surface of the body ochraceous buff ; the 

 feathers mesially streaked with dark brown; throat and centre of abdomen 

 creamy white ; under tail coverts brown, edged with whitish. 



Length. 6'6 to 67 inches; wing 275; tail 275; tarsus 1*05; culmen 

 075- 



Hab. Nepaul and Sikkim on the lower hills, extending to the Bhootan 

 Dooars and the Khasia Hills. According to Hodgson it begins to lay in 

 April. The nest is more or less oval or globular, and is laid lengthwise on the 

 ground in some bush or clump of rush or reed. It is composed of moss, dry 

 leaves and vegetable fibres and lined with moss roots. A nest measured by 

 Mr. Hodgson was 675 inches in length and 3 inches in height. The aperture 

 was at one end, and about 2 inches in diameter ; the cavity was about 2- 5 inches 

 in diameter and nearly 4 inches deep. The eggs are three or four in number, 

 and are figured as broad ovals, pointed towards the small end, measuring about 

 O'86 x 0*65, and having a greyish white ground thickly speckled and spotted 

 with more or less bright red or brownish red, and most thickly so at the large 

 end where the markings are nearly confluent. According to Hume, a nest 

 said to be of this species was found near Darjeeling in July, at an elevation of 

 4,000 feet. The eggs in this nest were three in number, very regular, mode, 

 rately broad ovals; the shell fine and compact with a slight gloss. The 

 colour white, everywhere very finely speckled with chocolate or purplish 

 brown, the markings being more confluent and dense at the large end. They 

 measured O'86 x o'66. 



604. Pellorneum intermedium, Sharpe, Cat. B. Br. Mus. vif. 



p. 519, plate xii., fig. I ; Oates, B. Br. Burm. i. p. 67. SHARPENS STRIATED 

 GROUND-BABBLER. 



Adult female. Similar to P. nipalense, but smaller and having the eyebrow 

 light tawny or creamy buff and unspoiled ; lores streaked with blackish shaft 

 lines ; breast streaked with brownish, but not extending beyond the middle of it. 



Length. 6*1 inches ; culmen 07 ; wing 2*55 ; tail 2-5 ; tarsus i. 



Sharpe describes the young as rufescent brown, rather more olive on the 

 wings and tail ; head slightly more rufous than the body., with narrow fulvous 

 shaft streaks ; sides of face tawny ; under surface of body white, washed with 

 tawny buff on the breast, sides of body, flanks and thighs. 



