OF SOME BIRDS IN BURMAH. 85 



into the tip of her bill which was shoved out of the slit, after 

 receipt of each berry she withdrew her beak apparently to 

 swallow the food. I watched him for a good ten minutes with 

 my binoculars before he saw me and took the alarm and flew off. 



[The eggs are of the usual hornbill type; but like those of 

 Ocyceros bicornis, have the shells of a finer texture and are more 

 elongated than those of Dichoceros cavatus, Aceros nipalensis 

 and Rhyticeros obscurus, the only other Indian hombills whose 

 eggs I possess. 



The eggs measure 1-99 x 1*31, and 2-02 by 1-4, so that 

 the major is to the minor axis as 10 to 6^ to 7. In 0. bicornis 

 it seems to average about 10 to 7, in D. cavafus, 10 to 7^, in 

 A. nipalensis, 10 to 1\, and in R. obscurus, 10 to 7f. However 

 my series is not large enough to enable me to make certain that 

 these proportions hold good, but as to the fineness of the shell 

 undoubtedly that of the eggs of the two former is of a much 

 closer and more compact texture than that of the three latter. 



The eggs are dull white in colour, as usual much stained 

 and soiled. — Ed., S. F.J 



673.— Cissa speciosa, Shaw. 



Od the 18th April I found a nest of this most lovely 

 bird placed at a height of 5 feet from the ground in the fork 

 of a bamboo bush. It was a broad, massive and rather shallow 

 cup of twigs, roots and bamboo leaves outside, and lined 

 with finer roots. It contained three eggs of a pale greenish 

 stone color, thickly and very minutely speckled with brown, 

 which tend to coalesce and form a cup at the larger end. 

 I shot the female as she flew off the nest. 



[These eggs, as also others received from Sikhim, where they 

 were procured by Mr. Mandelli on the 21st and 28th of April, 

 are rather broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards the small 

 end. The shell is fine, but has only a little gloss. The ground 

 color is white or slightly greyish white and they are uniformly 

 freckled all over with very pale yellowish and greyish brown. 

 The frecklings are always somewhat densest at the large end 

 where in some eggs they form a dull brown cap, or zone. In 

 some eggs the markings are every where denser, in some sparser, 

 so that some eggs look yellower or browner, and others paler. 



The eggs are altogether of the Garndine type, not of that 

 of the Dendrocitta, or Urocissa type. I have eggs of G. 

 lanceolahis, that but for being smaller, precisely match some 

 of the Cissa eggs. Jerdon is, I think, certainly wrong in 

 placiug Cissa between Urocissa and Dendrocilta, the eggs of 

 which two last are of the same and quite a distinct type. 



The eggs vary from 1*15 to T26 in length, and from 09 to - 95 

 in breadth; but the average of eight is 1*21 by 0'92. — Ed., S.F.] 



