OOLOGY, WITH NOTES ON THE BI1SDS. 355 



The birds on these undulating meadows, at times stretching 

 away for miles, and covering the crest of some of the highest 

 spurs, are extremely lively and very difficult to approach. 

 You have frequently to go on all fours, taking advantage of 

 every hollow and irregularity on the ground before you can get 

 within shooting distance of them, and by the time you have bag- 

 ged three or four you are completely done up, notwithstanding 

 the thermometer registers only 50°. Once flushed, they become 

 doubly wild, and at the first approach of danger rise perpendi- 

 cularly almost out of sight, with a series of jerky flights, at 

 times poising themselves in mid-air, very much after the fashion 

 of the Sky Lark. 



In its nidifieation it resembles Anthus arboreus ; the nest, as 

 I have already mentioned, is generally constructed of dry grass 

 blades, and it is well concealed under a tussock of over- 

 hanging grass. The eggs, however, are very different from 

 those of the sister species, and resemble very dark varieties 

 of Anthus pratensis ; in short, they are very like Hewitson's 

 second figure of the Meadow Pipit's egg, a variety which that 

 author says is seldom met with. 



Although I explored many miles of good ground where these 

 birds were plentiful, I procured only three nests ; the conclu- 

 sion to be arrived at is that the majority of them are late breed- 

 ers, say from the latter end of June to all July. 



Mr. Brooks, who has been so good as to examine my series of 

 this bird, pronounces them, one and all, to belong to the 

 typical Anthus maculatus. The chief specific characters of 

 this species, as has now so frequently been pointed out, consist 

 in the narrow, ill-defined striations on the back, which is an 

 olive green color, and in having the posterior half of the super- 

 cilium pure ivhite. I never once came across Anthus arboreus, 

 which would appear to summer much further north, probably 

 from Thibet to Yarkand. * 



506.— Chaimarrornis leucocephala, Vigors. 



Whilst at Furkia (vide infra.), I was so fortunate as to fall 

 in with two nests of Chaimarrornis leucocephala and one of 

 Ruticilla fuliginosa which may just as well be included in the 

 present notice, the more so, as I can find no allusion to the 

 nidifieation of the former in any of the ornithological works to 

 which I have access. 



I do not know of any better instance of the importance of 

 Oology as an element in the classification of birds than the 

 eggs of these two species, and I might almost add, of Eni- 

 curus macula/us. Alike in their habits, the situations they fre- 



*A11 the Pipits which were procured in the Yarkand expedition (See ''Lahore to 

 Yarkand, p. 226) have been referred by Mr. Hume, to this species, viz., Anthus arbo- 

 reus. 



