154 NOTES ON THE NIDIFICATION 



" The eggs are quite miniatures of those of Meg alums palustris, 

 beino- covered all over with minute spots of a purplish black color. 

 They were three in number and quite fresh. They measured 

 0'7, 0*73, 0-75, in length, and they were all 06 breadth." 



Other eggs, previously obtained by myself also in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Salt Lake, Calcutta, were very similar, rather 

 broad ovals with a tolerably fine gloss. The ground color pure 

 white. The whole of the larger end of the egg pretty thickly 

 speckled and spotted with brown, varying from an olive to a 

 burnt sienna intermingled with little spots and clouds of pale 

 inky purple, and similar spots and specks chiefly of the former 

 color, but smaller in size, scattered thinly over the rest of the 

 egg. The eggs varied from 0*69 to 0'75 in length, and from 

 0-55 to 0-6 in breadth.— A. O. H.] 



31.— Pellorneum minor, Hume. (399 septus.) 



This is the Pellorneum with the rufous head and brown back. 

 The other species which occurs, according to my experience, 

 only in the evergreen forests of the Pegu hills, which has the 

 head and back of one uniform brown, I identify with Tickellii ; 

 neither of them is ruficeps, and yet Major Godwin-Austen 

 quite recently, when reviewing these birds, although expressing" 

 his conviction that ruficeps does not occur out of Southern 

 India, wives only one species from Burmah. What then is the 

 other species I have ? It agrees exactly with Blyth 'fc descrip- 

 tion of Tickellii. That it has not been found again in Tenas- 

 serim by Mr. Davison is no argument against its existence, nor 

 is it at all wonderful that I should have refound the bird in Pegu. 

 Then ao-ain as to the bird in the Indian Museum being thought 

 to be the type of Tickellii; unless the skin bears a label stating 

 it to have been the type, all surmises on the subject are mis- 

 chievous. It seems to be quite forgotten that Mr. Blyth 

 himself received two species from Burmah. The fact is that 

 all alono- Mr. Blyth took the bird which Mr. Hume has named 

 minor to be nothing but ruficeps and under that impression 

 sent Mr. Swinhoe a duplicate. This latter gentleman saw its 

 distinctness and named the bird subochraceum. How else could 

 Mr. Blyth record ruficeps from Arrakan and Tenasserim ? 



But to return to our nests. 



On the 3rd May I found a nest on the ground near Pegu. 

 A o-ood many bamboo leaves had fallen and the nest was im- 

 bedded in these. It was formed entirely of these leaves loosely 

 put together, the interior only being sparingly lined with fine 

 grass. The structure in situ is tolerably firm, but it will not 

 stand removal. In height it was about 7 inches, and in breadth 

 about 5, the longer axis being vertical. Shape cylindrical 



