MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 815 



No. IV.— CURIOUS SITE FOR NESTING CHOSEN BY THE MALABAR 

 WHISTLING-THRUSH {MYIOPHONEUS HORSFIELDI). 



I happened to sit down on the path just above the Roman Catholic Church 

 at Khandalla on the 16th August of this year, to partake of light refresh- 

 ment, when two " whistling schoolboys " flew into a tree hard by, from 

 there they went on and disappeared under the rcof of the Church. I turned 

 to my men and said that there must oa a nest there, they replied that there 

 was and that it was inside the Church. I could hardly believe this. On 

 going down, one of the men pushed his head through a broken pane and said 

 he CO aid see the bird on the nest. [ followed his lead and was surprised to 

 see the nest on the window sill with madam at home. I got hold of the keys 

 and a long ladder to investigate. On going up I found three eggs. The 

 female sat very tight and only left by compulsion. The men told me the 

 birds built there regularly every year. This certainly appeared to be the 

 case, as the nest was about a foot high, if not more, and one could easily sie 

 the remains of the old nests, which had been used as foundations year by 

 year. 



B. M. BETHAM, Major, 



8th Bombay Infantry. 

 PooNA, 3rd October, 1902, 



No. v.— NOTES ON THE NIDIFICATION OF SOME BIRDS, THE 

 NESTS AND EGGS OF WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN 

 PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED. 



1. Troclialoptemm affine. The Black-faced Laughing Thrush. — This species 

 is fairly common at elevations of from 9 to 10,000 feet in the Rhodo- 

 dendron and fir forests of the Singalila ridge which separates the Dar- 

 jeeling district and Sikkim from Nepal, where it takes the place of Tro- 

 chalopterwn variegatum, the " Alpine" Laughing Thrush of tho N.-W. Hima- 

 laya. I found three nests of this bird on the 31st May 1902 in Rhododendron 

 and Viburnum bushes, 5 to 8 feet from the ground, at an elevation of about 

 11,500 feet. The nests wei-j rather massive, but neat cups, about 8 inches in 

 external diameter and were composed of moss, thin twigs and dry grass stems, 

 lined copiously with the black rhizomorph of a fungus (resembling thin black 

 roots) mixed with some Birch-bark '" paper". Two of the nests contained two 

 slightly set eggs each and the third two freshly hatched young. 



The eggs are oval, with a slight gloss, of a fairly dark blue with a few dark 

 purplish (nearly black) spots and specks chiefly in a zone towards the larger 

 end, not unlike those of the Eng-lish Song Thrush. 

 The average of four egg^ gave the following measurements : — 



Length 1'15" 



Breadth , 0'82" 



•2? 



