368 JOURNAL, BOMBAY'.NATV HAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII - 



The color is a uniform olive brown, and round the large end there is 

 an indistinct zone of a darker shade : the shell is fine and smooth, 

 but there is very little gloss on the egg. It measures *89" by *64." 



Dr. Ooltart and I have taken and had brought to us a fine series of 

 cuckoos' eggs which agree, in many cases, in every single detail with the 

 above description and which we have no doubt ourselves are of those o 

 this Hawk-Cuckoo, a very common speoies both in Assam and in North 

 Cachar. 



Prior to 1891 I had had some of these eggs brought to me, but had 

 no idea to what bird they belonged. In that year, however, I came 

 across the egg myself and under circumstances which enabled me to 

 identify the egg as being, in all probability, that of II. nisicolor* 



I was engaged one morning in hunting in some scrub and grass jungle 

 for the nest of a pair of Phyllergates coronatus (The Golden-headed 

 Warbler) which haunted the patch, and whilst so doing disturbed a cuckoo 

 from a tuft of grass clos9 by where I was hunting. On shooting the cuckoo 

 I found it to be female Hodgson's Cuckoo, and in the tuft of grass whence 

 she flew I found a nest of Stachyrhidopsis rufifrons containing twc eggs 

 of the babbler and a third very much larger and totally different in 

 appearance. The description given by Mandelli would do equally well 

 for my egg, but that mine is larger, measuring - 96" by *63". The olive 

 brown is pale in tint and a clear, bright tone. The texture is fine and 

 smooth with a faint gloss, and the shape is practically that of an ellipse. 

 It was taken on the 14th May, 1891, at Guilang, North Cachar. 



A second egg, taken two years after, was found by a bird-skinner of 

 mine in the nest of Niltava macgrlgorice at Gunjong, North Cachar, on 

 the 20th July. A female was brought in with the nest and egg which 

 Partridge, the bird-skinner, told me he had shot as it flew off the nest. 

 This egg is a good deal darker, much more brown and less olive, the 

 color is practically uniform, but when carefully examined shews traces of 

 a ring of fine freckles of a darker color round the larger end. This egg 

 only measures *87" by *64". The texture and the shape is the same as 

 in that first described. 



In the years 1891 — 1896 several more eggs were taken, all agreeing 

 with either one or the other of these two types or intermediate between 

 them. 



In 1896 I took an egg from the nest of Cyor?iis rubeculoides, together 

 with three eggs of the fosterer, which differs in having the ground color 



