NOTES ON INDIAN TIMELIIDE8 AND THEIR ALLIES. 617 



grasses usually of a very dark colour. The majority of nests are found 

 placed in bushes low down, not more than four or five feet from the ground 

 but others may be taken quite high up in tall trees. Wherever it is placed 

 the nest is well hidden, in this respect being very unlike that of the Liothrix 

 which likes its nest to be seen by all the world. For this reason in some 

 places, such as the Khasia Hills, although the birds are equally common 

 only one nest of Siva may be found to ten or twenty of the Liothrix. 



In niimber the eggs vary from 2 to 4, the latter number being most 

 exceptional, two perhaps the most common. The normal egg is a bright 

 pale green-blue in ground colour much the same as that of the Song Thrush, 

 and the markings consist of a very few specks and dots of black or, more 

 rarely, brown or red brown, aboiit the larger end. This type of egg is like 

 that of many of the finches of the Propasser group. Other eggs are much 

 paler in ground colour, some indeed practically white and some of the 

 largest eggs of this type or much like small, glossless, eggs of Minla and 

 Liothrix, but the texture is always softer and less glossy. 



In shape they are rather regular ovals, very little compressed towards the 

 smaller end. 



They average in size about •70"x ■52."— E. 0. S. B.] 



Siva cyanuroptera wingatei, O. Grant. 

 The Yunnan Blue-wing Siva. 



Siva ivingatei, O. Grant, Bull., B.O.C., x., p. 38 ( 1900 ) ; ibid, Ibis, 1900, 

 p. 593 ; Ingram, Nov. Zool., xix., p. 290. 



Description. — ^"Intermediate between S. cyanuroptera and sordida, resembles 

 the former in the colour of its upper plumage, but is a more olive-brown 

 tinged with fulvous, instead of ochraceous ; and differs from that species 

 and resembles sordida in riot having the quills of the toing, either tohite 

 tipped or white margined." In the type the winglet is not tipped with white, 

 but this does not hold good with all specimens from Yunnan and the Shan 

 States. Under plumage as in cyanuroptera, a vinous grey." 



Wing, 66 mm.; tail, 65 mm.; tarsus, 24 mm.; culmen, 13 mm. (Type). 



Distribution. — This is a very good sub-species, and has a very extended 

 area ; being found from Yunnan to the Bhamo Hills, and the Shan States ; 

 birds from the south and the neighbourhood of Fort Stedman show very 

 little signs of striping on the head. 



[ I have eggs from the Shan States presumably of this sub-species. They 

 are exactly like the blue type of cyanuroptera already described — ^E.C.S.B.] 



Siva cyanuroptera oatbsi, Harington. 



Oateii' Siva. 



Bull, B.O.C., xxxiii., p. 62 (1913). 



Description. — "In the British Museum there are three specimens of a 

 Siva collected by the late E. W. Gates, on Byingyi, an isolated hill of 6,200 

 feet, situated on the edge of the Shan Plateau ('Ibis,' 1894, p. 481). 



These three birds are quiet distinct from >S'. sordida, Hume, from Tenasse- 

 rim, of which there is only one specimen, the type, in the British Museum. 

 The other specimen, from Karennee, which has been referred to that species, 

 differs in the colour of its head. 



Adult. — Intermediate between S. c. wingatei, O. Grant, from Yunnan and 

 *S'. c. sordida, Hume, from Tenassenm. It resembles the former in the colour 

 of its back and upper plumage in general, being of an olive-brown tinged 

 with ochraceous on the rump, but differs from that species in having the head 

 almost entirely dull blue, showing only faint indications of stripes, which ■ 

 are so conspicuous in S. c, ivingatei. It resembles *S'. c. sordida in the colour 



