LOPHOPHANES. 41 



on which the eggs repose, and the preliminary closing in and 

 making comfortable the cavity in which the former is placed. For 

 this latter work they use almost exclusively moss. Sometimes 

 very little filling-in is required ; sometimes the mass of moss used 

 to level and close in an awkward-shaped recess is surprisingly 

 great. A pair breed every year in a terrace- wall of my garden at 

 Simla ; elevation about 7800 feet. One year they selected an 

 opening a foot high and 6 inches wide, and they closed up the 

 whole of this, leaving an entrance not 2 iuches in diameter. Some 

 years ago I disturbed them there, and found nearly half a cubic 

 foot of dry green moss. Now they build in a cavity behind one of 

 the stones, the entrance to which is barely an inch wide, and in 

 this, as far as I can see, they have no moss at all. 



The nests are nothing but larger or smaller pads of closely felted 

 wool and fur ; sometimes a little moss, and sometimes a little 

 vegetable down, is mingled in the moss, but the great body of the 

 material is always wool and fur. They vary very much in size : 

 you may meet with them fully 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches 

 thick, comparatively loosely and coarsely massed together ; and you 

 may meet with them shallow saucers 3 inches in diameter and 

 barely half an inch in thickness anywhere, as closely felted as if 

 manufactured by human agency. 



Six to eight is considered the full complement of eggs, but the 

 number is very variable, and I have taken three, four, and five 

 well-incubated eggs. 



Captain Beavan, to judge from his description, seems to have 

 found a regular cup-shaped nest such as I have never seen. He 

 says : — " At Simla, April 20th, 1866, 1 found a nest of this species 

 with young ones in it in an old wall in the garden. I secured the 

 old bird for identification, and then released her. The nest con- 

 tained seven young ones, and was large in proportion. The out- 

 side and bottom consists of the softest moss, the nest being carefully 

 built between two stones, about a foot inside the wall ; the rest 

 of it is composed of the finest grey wool or fur. Diameter inside 

 2*5 ; outside about 5 inches. Depth inside nearly 3 inches ; 

 outside 3-6." 



Captain Cock told me that he " found several nests in May and 

 June in Cashmere. The first nest I found was in a natural cavity 

 high up in a tree, containing three eggs, which I unfortunately 

 broke while taking them out of the nest. The interior of the 

 cavity was thickly lined with fur from some small animal, such as 

 a hare or rat. I found my second nest close to my tent in a cleft 

 of a pine, quite low down, only 3 feet from the ground. I cut it 

 out and it contained five eggs of the usual type — broad, blunt little 

 eggs, white, with rusty blotches." 



Colonel G-. F. L. Marshall writes : — " I have only found two 

 nests of this species in Naini Tal, both had young (two in one 

 nest, in the other I could not count) on the 25th April ; they were 

 at about 7000 feet elevation, built in holes in walls, the entrance in 

 both cases being very small, having nothing to distinguish it from 



