132 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. IX. 



into it. I have taken three nests, each containing three eggs. All three 

 were very massive deep cups made of moss, two heing thickly lined 

 with skeleton leaves and the third having some half a dozen of them 

 quite at the bottom of the cup. Outwardly the nests varied in dia- 

 meter from 6" to 7'5", and in depth from 3*75" to 4*5''. Internally the 

 agg cavities measured about 3*5" across by 2'' to 2'5'' deep. 



Of the three nests, one was placed in a hollow amongst the roots of 

 a large tree growing on the banks of the Laisung ; another was placed 

 under a large boulder, over which water was perpetually falling, though 

 not exactly over the part under which the nest rested ; and the third 

 was built in amongst the loose stones of a dry nullah in the Laisung 

 Valley. The first two nests were very well hidden, but the last men- 

 tioned could be seen from a distance of three or four paces, being only 

 half concealed by a projecting stone, and there being practically no 

 small vegetation about it. 



The eggs are of two types. Six eggs are much like the commonest 

 type of H. guttatus, the ground-colour a pale greenish-white and much 

 blotched and speckled with pale pinkish-brown and lavender, so nume- 

 rous as to run into one another at the larger end, thence gradually 

 decreasing in number as they approach the smaller ; they can be distin- 

 guished from the eggs of H. guttatus by their greater dullness, some- 

 what browner tint, and less defined markings. 



The second type is exactly matched by a clutch of eggs I possess 

 of Limonidromus. The ground-colour is a dull yellowish stone-colour 

 far deeper in shade than that of any other fork-tail's eggs I have seen, 

 and it is marked with small blotches of light brown, and others, secon- 

 dary, of lavender-gray, both, in especially the latter, smudgy and indis- 

 tinct. These eggs have the blotches evenly distributed over the whole 

 surface but nowhere very numerous. In shape the eggs are long ovals, 

 but slightly pointed, and the texture is very coarse and quite glossless ; 

 the shell is thin and fragile. 



The nine eggs measured between *95" and 1'03" in length and in 

 breadth varied between '67'' and *71", the average being "98" X '70''. 

 (270) Mickocichla scouLERl — The Little Fork-tail. 

 Oatesy No. 637 ; Hume, No. 587. 



I have only taken one nest, capturing at the same time one of the 

 parent birds. In a deep ravine running into the Laisung I saw one 



