FROG-MOUTHS. 



85 



spots and bars of white ; and the abdomen pale buff. Nothing has been recorded 

 of its habits ; but of the nest of the South Indian frog-mouth Mr. Hume writes 

 that "instead of moss, a few fragments of dead leaves are incorporated, but 

 the material is chiefly a soft felt-like mass, precisely similar to that used by 

 B. hodgsoni, but greyish white instead of brown. It is a mere pad w^ith a shallow 

 depression on the outer surface, a broad groove on the base of the nest showing 

 where it had nested on the upper surface of an almost horizontal bough." The 

 egg was white. Mr. Hartert says that the part is formed by the down, taken from 

 the " powder-downs " of the bird itself, and then completed by having the outside 



GREAT EARED FROG-MOUTH (J nat. size). 



interwoven and covered with bits of bark and lichen, so that the nest entirely 

 resembles the branch to which it is attached. The nests of B. hodgsoni, which 

 Mr. Hume describes, were about three and a half inches in diameter and three- 

 quarters of an inch in thickness ; the lower surface of the pad, where they were 

 in contact with the branch, having a thin coating of moss. The whole of the nest is 

 a compact, brown, felt-like mass, very soft and downy, and composed, as it appears 

 to be, of excessively fine m.oss rootlets, but withal as soft as the fur of any little 

 mammal. This will doubtless be found to be the powder-down of the bird itself. 



Owlet Frog- These birds differ from the other frog-mouths in having the 



, Mouths. nostrils situated near the tip of the bill, and being open and prominent. 



