8 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NA TUBAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X, 



are more grey and the rings about the larger end are very distinctly 

 defined, and in one egg the markings are almost absent except abont 

 this ring and inside it. 



The nest is a tiny structure of cotton down, held together by 

 fine shreds of tan-coloured grass, and it only differed from those of 

 ^^dliopyga gouldice in having the supporting stem of the fern incor- 

 porated with the upper part of the nest, so that, instead of being 

 pear-shaped, it is a very fairly regular oval. 



(358) iETHOPYGA SATURATA.~The Black-breasted Sun-bird. 



Hum£, No. 231 ; Oates, No. 890. 



I have only seen this handsome little Sun-bird during the cold 

 weather, during which season it quite deserts all hills over 2,000 feet 

 and seems to keep to the foot of the hills and the lower valleys. 

 I have seen very few birds myself, but two of my taxidermists— one of 

 them an European — told me that they had seen a good many of them 

 in the Jetinga Valley, where, however, they both failed to get me more 

 than one skin each, and I do not think it was as common as they 

 wished me to believe. 



(359) ^THOPYGA NEPALENSIS.—The Nepal Yellow-backed Sun-bird. 



Hume, No. 229 ; Oates, No, 892. 



About seven years ago, when I first came to North Cachar, I found 

 a good many of these birds, and in 1890 took a nest, but I can find no 

 notes on the subject. The two eggs which are now in my collection 

 measure -57" X '42''' and -50" X '40"; the ground-colour is white, or 

 very nearly so, and the markings are the same in character as those 

 of the rest of the genus, but they are darker and richer, more of a 

 reddish-brown than a reddish- grey, the subordinate markings alone 

 being of this colour. They are also somewhat more numerous — in one 

 egg over the whole surface, in the other principally over the larger 

 end, where they form a broad well-defined ring, the blotches here 

 coalescing and running into one another. 



As far as I remember the nest was made principally of cotton seed 

 down, bound by grass, and I have no impression that moss was used in 

 its construction, at all events to the extent mentioned by Hodgson 

 (" Nest and Eggs," vol. II, p. 251). 



