Nidijication of Indian Birds. L09 



by Mr. B. B. Osmaaton and by Mr. Charles Inglis in Sikhim. 

 They agree vvitli Hodgson's figures and description, and 

 Jerdon's supposed eggs of this species must have belonged 

 to some other. 



Hume's remark ('Nests and Eggs/ i. p. 132) that the eggs 

 are "apparently something like aPriniaa" is most misleading, 

 as no eggs could well be more unlike. Whereas the texture 

 of the eggs in Prinia is hard, close-grained, and exceedingly 

 glossy, that in Oligura is soft, not very close, and not highly, 

 if at all, glossed. Prinia's red eggs incline to a decidedly 

 spherical ovoid, whereas Oligura lays an egg which is a rather 

 long oval, somewhat compressed towards the smaller end. 

 In fact, the type of egg is just what we should expect that 

 of Tesia to be. It is, however, much more richly coloured 

 than the richest egg that I have ever taken of that bird. Two 

 eggs in my collection, which I owe to the generosity of 

 Mr. Charles Inglis, are in ground-colour beautiful pink- 

 brick, and the markings consist of numerous darker brick-red 

 specks and freckles forming a dense ring about the larger end, 

 but gradually decreasing in number towards the smaller. 

 Inside the ring the markings are very numerous. 



My eggs measure "71" by -48". 



Mr. Osmaston describes his eggs as "Long ovals, with 

 little gloss, of an almost uniform dark terracotta or dull 

 chestnut colour, duller and less uniform than the eggs of a 

 Prinia, and with a faint cap of mottlings of a darker shade at 

 the larger end. " They measure "73" by "52" ." 



The nest found by Mr. Osmaston was neatly but flimsily 

 made of moss and lined with roots, having a few feathers 

 inside. It was woven into and suspended from the small 

 branch of a Viburnum rubescens bush and was about three feet 

 from the ground. Other nests have been described to me as 

 beautiful watch-pockets of moss lined with feathers and 

 fixed in the pendent moss of steep bank-ledges ; one was 

 said to have been placed on the ground, hidden in deep 

 moss. 



