8S Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker on the 



were very neat and compact, as are all those of the 

 Paradoxornithinse. In Lakkimpur Dr. Coltart and I have 

 obtained three nests from the foot-hills beyond Margherita. 



As a rule, the nests appear to be placed from three to 

 six feet above the ground in a clump of bamboos, but now 

 and then they are in a straggling shrub or a tall stout 

 weed. Little attempt seems to be made at concealment, 

 and those I have seen in situ were conspicuous at some 

 distance ; attention was drawn to them by the fussy behaviour 

 of the parent birds, who swear loudly when the intruder 

 approaches, before they finally go off bleating into the jungle 

 round about. 



The eggs appear to be either two or three in number, so 

 far as my experience goes, but it may be also that, like their 

 nearest relations, they sometimes lay four. I have seen 

 two- and three-egg clutches hard-set. 



The first pair of eggs obtained were of a dead, gloss! ess 

 white, sparsely speckled with tiny dots of light brown and 

 subordinate markings of a pale neutral tint. 



A pair taken on April 2nd, 1898, also hard-set, were exactly 

 similar, but had no secondary spots. 



A third and fourth clutch taken this year, 1904, in April, 

 at Guilang, North Cachar, are quite different : in both of these 

 clutches the ground-colour is pale clear green-grey. In one 

 there are very numerous, but, for the greater part, very 

 faint, blotches and smudges of sepia and brown, with 

 underlying, yet more definite, spots of lavender. There are 

 also a few scrawly lines of dark brown, very fine indeed, but 

 as long as \ inch. The second clutch is similar, but all 

 kinds of markings are much more numerous and decidedly 

 darker, some of the smaller blotches and the centres of the 

 others being of a dark umber-brown. 



The shell is extremely fragile, though the texture is neither 

 fine nor close. In shape the eggs are generally broad blunt 

 ovals, a few are somewhat lengthened, but I have seen none 

 pointed or narrow. They vary in length between 95" and 

 •81" and in breadth between "65" and '61", the average of 

 13 eggs which I have recorded being - 93" by '63". 



