OF THE TRAVANCORE HILLS. 375 
It is formed by a large mass of rock having slipped and left 
a crevice between it and the main body, some 80 or 90 feet 
long, 20 feet high, and an average breadth of 3 feet, being 
no where more than 6 feet wide. The floor of the cave was 
thickly strewed with the guano deposited by the birds ; this 
guano consisted for the most part of the undigested and hard 
portions of beetles, and presented little of the pungent odour 
which characterises the guano of commerce. On _ visiting 
this cave in March, with the gentlemen mentioned in the 
preface, we found the birds had begun breeding. On the over- 
hanging sides of the cave, at heights varying from 6 to 16 feet 
from the ground, were some two or three hundred nests. Of 
these perhaps one-third were empty being either unfinished or 
abandoned, while the greater number of the nests contained two 
pointed-oval white eggs: some of thenests contained a single 
egg, and some a newly hatched nestling. 
“The nests themselves, though fastened and lined with a good 
deal of gelatine, contained a larger proportion of moss and 
feathers and did not look at all tempting as an article of diet. 
They varied considerably in shape, the more perfect, being a 
fairly correct circular shallow cup, with’ one side flattened for 
adhesion to the wall of rock. Others which held eggs were 
mere brackets, slightly indented to retain the contents. The 
egg, judging from 14 specimens collected on this occasion, varies 
from *81 to ‘91 of aninch in length, and from ‘52 to ‘58 in 
breadth : the average being *85 long and ‘55 broad.—F. W. B.” 
The specimens sent belong to the same species as occurs in 
the Neilgherries, and after comparing a large series from the 
Neilgherries with an equally large series from numerous 
localities in the Himalayas, I have no hesitation in uniting the 
two, although unquestionably Himalayan birds average lighter 
coloured. 
On the other hand, I must distinctly protest against uniting 
with this continental Indian species the white, or in less mature 
examples, whitey brown rumped species of which we procured 
numerous specimens at the Andamans, and which is exceedingly 
common on the Tenasserim Coast, and which I have hitherto 
designated as spodiopygia, Peale. I have nearly a hundred of 
the two species put together before me, and with all deference 
to eminent ornithologists at home, I must maintain that the 
two species are as distinct as Oriolus kundoo, and Oriolus 
chinensis. It is noteworthy that uzicolor never makes an 
edible nest any more than linchi, whereas spodiopyga always 
does. 
Fine 
