42 coBTma:. 



other tiny crevices, and nothing to lead any one to suppose that 

 there was a nest inside. It was only by seeing the parent birds 

 go in that the nest was discovered." 



The eggs of this species are moderately broad ovals, with a very 

 slight gloss. The ground-colour is a slightly pinkish white, and 

 they are richly blotched and spotted, and more or less speckled 

 (chiefly towards the larger end), with bright, somewhat brownish 

 red. 



The markings very commonly form a dense, almost confluent 

 zone or cap about the large end, and they are- generally more thinly 

 scattered elsewhere, but the amount of the markings varies much 

 in different eggs. In some, although they are thicker in the zone, 

 they are still pretty thickly set over the entire surface, while in 

 others they are almost confined to one end of the egg, generally the 

 broad end. 



These eggs vary much in size and in density of marking. The 

 ordinary dimensions are about 0-61 by 0-47, but in a large series 

 they vary in length from 0-57 to 0-72, and in breadth from 0-43 

 to 0-54. The very large eggs, however, indicated by these maxima 

 are rare and abnormal. 



47. Lophoph.an.es rufhmchalis (Bl.). The Simla Black Tit. 

 Lophophfines rufonuchalis (Bl.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 274. 



Mr. Brooks informs us that this Tit is common at Derail and 

 other places of similar elevation. " I found a nest under a large 

 stone in the middle of a hill foot-path, up and down which people 

 and cattle were constantly passing ; the nest contained newly- 

 hatched young. This was the middle of May." 



Dr. Scully, writing of the Gilgit district, tells us that this Tit is 

 a denizen of the pine-forests, where it breeds. 



Finally Captain Wardlaw Bamsay, writing in the 'Ibis,' states 

 that this Tit was breeding in Afghanistan in May: 



Subfamily PARADOXORNITHIN^E. 



50. Conostoma semodinm, Hodgs. The Red-billed Crow-Tit. 



Conostoma asmodium, Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 10 : Hume, Bough 

 Draft N. 8f E. no. 381. 



A nest of the Bed-billed Crow-Tit was sent me from Native 

 Sikhim, where it was found at an elevation of about 10,000 feet 

 in a cluster of the small Bingal bamboo. It contained three eggs, 

 two of which were broken in blowing them. 



The nest is a very regular and perfect hemisphere, both exter- 

 nally and internally. It is very compactly made, externally of 

 coarse grass and strips of bamboo-leaves, and internally very thickly 

 lined with stiff but very fine grass-stems, about the thickness of 



