1920.] Birds of Nurth-East Chihli. 657 



room would cling to tin- wires iu expectation of the coming 

 food, and on my opening the cage would Hy on to my 

 lumd and take food while perched on it. It s[)ent a great 

 deal of its time i)erehed close against some of the other 

 birds, holding out its head and neck to have its feathers 

 preened by them. Some of the birds, howevei', with an eye 

 to nesting, took advantage of this to pluck its feathers, 

 so that I had to take it out, and when it found itself 

 alone, it became shy and remained so. 



I fed this l)ird on green-bean paste, chopped raw beef, 

 and bread and milk, also on hard-boiled egg. It was fond 

 of caterpillars and ate certain kinds of small green grass- 

 hoppers, but would not touch the brown grasshoppers that 

 other birds prefer to the green ones. It was sent to 

 London in June 1919, l)ut unfortunately did not reach the 

 Zoological Gardens. In the summer of 1918, while at Sliasi 

 (Hupeh, Central China), it moulted badly, being unable to 

 grow its tail, which appeared as a bunch of flexible plumes, 

 the shafts of the retrices being only furnished with vanes at 

 intervals in the shape of rounded spatules — about three of 

 these to a reetrix. I then suspected that there was some- 

 thing wrong with the sand furnished — this was very fine 

 river sand. I substituted coarser hill-stream sand, which 

 caused an almost immediate change. The bird's tail-feathers 

 began to grow strong and normal, keeping at their tip the 

 curious plumes mentioned above, which were gradually shed 

 as tiie rectrices grew. The tail eventually became normal 

 and of lull lengrh. Some nestlings brought to me died the 

 same day of their arrival from the hills. 



The bird nes^ts in May. Nests with eggs were brought 

 to me on the 11 th, IGth, .'iSrd, and 29th of May, 1917. 

 The eggs in the last nest brought were incubated, but those 

 in all the others were either quite fresh or slightly incubated. 

 Tiie full elutch consists of five eggs. These are greenish 

 white, speckled, spotted, or even blotched with umber-browu 

 and dark and pale violet, the latter tint being that of 

 markings within the shell. The markings are chiefly on the 

 large iiivii, generally forming u wreath. They are quite 



