ELAPHEOKNIS. — TESIA. 131 



which again is a coating of more skeleton leaves ; they measure 

 exteriorly 4 or 5 inches in diameter, and the cavities are a little 

 above 2 by 2-5 inches in diameter. 



Mr. Mandelli found two of these nests at Lebong (elevation 

 5500 feet), near Darjeeling, on the 8th July. One contained three 

 fresh eggs, the other three slightly incubated ones. They were 

 about 12 yards apart, in a very shady damp glen, in very dense 

 underwood, to the stems of which they were attached in a standing 

 position about 3 feet from the ground. The entrance was on one 

 side in both cases. 



The eggs of this species obtained by Mr. Gammie belong to the 

 same type as those of Brachypteryx rujiventris and B. albiventris. 

 In shape they are moderately elongated, rather regular ovals, some- 

 what obtuse at both ends. The shell is fine and compact, and very 

 smooth to the touch, but they have not much gloss. The ground 

 is a pale olive stone-colour, and they are very minutely freckled 

 and mottled, most densely at the large end, with pale, very slightly 

 reddish brown ; the freckling is excessively minute and fine. 



Two eggs measured 0-8 and 0-82 in length by 0-6 iu breadth. 



200. Elaphrornis palliseri (Blyth). The Ceylon Short-wing. 

 Brachypteryx palliseri, Bl., Hume, Cat. no. 338 bis. 



Colonel Legge, writing in his ' Birds of Ceylon,' says : — " Mr. 

 Bligh found a nest at Nuwara Eliva in April i870 ; it was placed 

 in a thick cluster of branches on the top of a somewhat denssly- 

 foliaged small bush, which stood in a rather open space near the 

 foot of a large tree ; it was in shape a deep cup, composed of 

 greenish moss, lined with fibrous roots and the hair-like appendages 

 of the green moss which festoons the trees in such abundance at 

 that elevation. It contained three young ones, plumaged exactly 

 like their parents, who kept churring in the thick bushes close by, 

 but would not show themselves much." 



201. Tesia cyaniventris, Hodgs. The Slaty-beMcd Short-why. 



Tesia cyaniventer, Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 487 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 328. 



According to Mr. Hodgson's notes, the Slaty-bellied Short-wing 

 breeds much like the next species. It constructs a huge globular 

 nest of green moss and black moss-roots, which it fixes in any 

 dense dry shrub or clump of shoots, many of which it incorporates 

 in the walls of the nest. The nest measures externally about 7 

 inches in height and 5 inches in width ; it has a circular aperture 

 on one side, a little above the middle, about 2 inches in diameter, 

 and it is placed at a height of one or two feet from the ground. 

 Three or four eggs are laid ; these are figured as rather broad 

 ovals, somewhat pointed towards one end, with a whitish ground, 

 profusely speckled and spotted, especially towards the large end, 



