OCCASIONAL NOTES FBOM SIKKIM.— NO. II. 455 



the same date Caprimulgus alhonotatus has been calling nightly 

 np to 4,000 feet. It, too, is rarely found higher in Sikkim. I 

 have frequently found its eggs in the Terai, where it is exceed- 

 ingly common, and once nearly trod on one covering two 

 newly-hatched young. It was pitiful to look on her great distress 

 and anxiety ; she grovelled in the dust with her drooping wings 

 and tail, within a yard of me, and looked up in my face in 

 the most beseechful manner. When she saw that no harm was 

 intended either to herself or young, she returned to them at 

 my feet. The eggs, as described in " Nests and Eggs of 

 Indian Birds," are laid on the bare ground without any 

 attempt at a lining for them to rest on. Captain Marshall 

 there says that he got an e^g on a little cleared spot among 

 dead leaves. This accords with my own experience, which 

 is that the surroundings of the eggs are always either dead 

 leaves or the bare brown earth, never green grass or anything 

 that would contrast strongly with the color of the bird and 

 render it liable to detection. The color of the eggs, too, is 

 beautifully adapted to concealment ; the yellowish ground- color 

 and brown blotches corresponding so truly with the bits of 

 dry straw-colored grass and patches of brown earth between. 

 A favorite place for this Night-Jar to lay is on the fresh soil 

 of the newly-made cinchona seed beds. 



Roughly speaking the eggs of those birds that lay on the 

 ground, in open nests, are of a yellowish or earthy ground- 

 color ; whilst the eggs of those that also lay on the ground 

 but in domed nests, where strong contrasts are not likely to 

 lead to detection, ai'e either white or otherwise colored regard- 

 less of the surroundings. 



Thau a course of birds'-nesting, there is no better training for 

 distinguishing birds quickly. The little, though most characteris- 

 tic differences in their mode of flight are, after a short practice,, 

 readily detected at the merest glimpse, which is usually all that 

 can be got of many of the birds as they dart through the bushes.. 

 Also their different notes are eagerly listened for as a help 

 to recognition, but these in many instances are so numerous 

 and varied from the same individual, that long and close 

 observation, and a quick ear — which, unfortunately, 1 have 

 not got — are necessary before the identity of the caller can 

 be decided on with any degree of certainty. Jerdon, as is 

 too often the case, jumped to the conclusion when he heard two 

 different calls from Pomatorhinus schisticeps, that one caller 

 was the male and the other the female. But this, according 

 to my experience, does not of necessity follow. 1 have never 

 seen P. schisticeps about the Cinchona reserves, though it is 



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