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feathers. The egg-cavity was circular and cup-shaped, about 2*25 in. in diameter and 1*25 in. 

 in depth, and contained two tiny, yellow-gaped, dusky-bluish, fluffy chicks, apparently just 

 hatched, and one (as it proved) rotten egg. We drew back a few paces; the female bird 

 returned (we saw nothing of the male), and one of my men adroitly captured her. I took the 

 egg, and, having made sure of the species, left the mother with her young ones. We had not 

 moved five yards away before she was again sitting on her nest as unconcernedly as possible. 



" Scarcely twenty yards further, on a slightly sloping slab of stone, partly overhung by a 

 huge block, between two tufts of dry grass springing from the line of junction of the slab and 

 block, I found a second, precisely similar nest, containing two fresh eggs, round which both 

 parents flitted closely all the time I was occupied in examining and securing the eggs and nests, 

 exhibiting no apparent signs of fear. The three eggs thus obtained were regular, moderately 

 broad oval, slightly compressed towards one end, but somewhat obtuse at both. The shells were 

 very delicate, and had a slight gloss. The ground-colour differed somewhat in all three : in one 

 it was pale greenish, in another pale bluish, and in the third faintly brownish white. All were 

 spotted, speckled, and minutely but not very densely freckled with brown, a sort of reddish olive- 

 brown in two, rather more of umber in the third ; small clouds, blotches, and streaks of the same 

 colour, and of a pale purple, were intermingled with the finer markings. In two of the eggs the 

 markings were far more numerous towards the large end, where in one they are partially con- 

 fluent; in the third they are pretty evenly distributed over the whole surface, being, however, 

 rather denser in a broad irregular zone round the middle of the egg. These eggs remind one not 

 a little of those of Emberiza elegans, figured by Eadde (Eeisen im Siiden von Ost-Sibirien, ii. Taf. v.), 

 but are not nearly so broad. They are not very unlike the egg of E. pusilla, as figured by Dr. Bree, 

 but they are narrower and more oval. On the 16th, near the base of Taragurh Hill, I found 

 another nest, precisely similar to that already described, containing two fresh eggs. These were 

 of the same general type as those already described, but were much more strongly marked. 

 They were richly freckled and mottled with a fine umber-brown on a pale greenish white ground, 

 the markings being in both most dense at the large end (where there was a conspicuous confluent 

 zone), and almost wanting at the smaller end. The purple spots, well marked on the first three 

 eggs, were entirely wanting in these. As usual, we captured the female bird without the slightest 

 difficulty. These five eggs (all I have as yet obtained) varied from 'lo to '75 in. in length, and 

 from "48 to "53 in breadth. The nests from which they were taken were all at an elevation of 

 about 2000 feet above the sea-level ; but we found others later (empty or containing young ones), 

 from 1500 to 2500 feet. 



" Early in the morning of the 19th of November I climbed up the Mudar-Shah range (on 

 the opposite side of the Ajmere plain to the Taragurh hill), which is very nearly, if not quite, 

 2600 feet high. On the highest pinnacle of the long knife-like ridge a tiny square temple is 

 perched, at one season of the year a place much resorted to by pilgrims. Inside the temple the 

 whole upper portion of the domed roof is thickly incrusted with what I may term confluent 

 nests of our Common Swift (Cypselus abyssinicus), a mass of feathers, straw, wool, and the like, 

 cemented together with inspissated saliva. All over the exterior of the temple are little arched 

 recesses sunk about eight inches in the masonry ; and in one of these, about five feet above the 

 plinth, one of my people discovered a female E. striolata sitting on her nest. Going to the spot, 



