HOTHEIX. 149 



This year Mr. Gammie writes to me : — " I have taken many nests 

 of the Bed-billed Liothrix here in our Chinchona reserves, at all 

 elevations from 3509 to 5000 feet. They breed in May and 

 June, amongst dense scrub, placing their nests in shrubs, at heights 

 of from 3 to 5 feet from the ground, and either suspending them 

 from horizontal branches, or hanging them between several upright 

 stems, to which they firmly attach them. The nest itself is cup- 

 shaped and composed principally of dry bamboo-leaves held together 

 by a few fibres, and a few strings of green moss wound round the 

 outside. The lining consists of a few black hairs, and the usual 

 number of eggs is three. A nest I recently measured was extern- 

 ally 4 inches in diameter and 2'7 in height, while the cavity was 

 2-6 across by 1-9 in depth." 



Mr. Gammie subsequently found a nest on the very late date of 

 17th October at Eishap, Darjeeling. It contained three eggs, two 

 of which were addled. 



Dr. Jerdon says that at Darjeeling he " got the nest and eggs 

 repeatedly ; the nest made chiefly of grass, with roots and fibres, 

 and fragments of moss, and usually containing three or four eggs, 

 bluish white, with a few purple and red blotches. It is generally 

 placed in a leafy bush at no great height from the ground. Gould, 

 quoting from Mr. Shore's notes, says that the eggs are black spotted 

 with yellow : this is of course erroneous. I have taken the nest 

 myself on several occasions, and killed the bird, and in every case 

 the eggs were coloured as above." 



I wish to add here, as I have abused him occasionally, that 

 Mr. Shore was, I understand, a most excellent man, and that I have 

 now come to the conclusion that the extraordinary fictions that he 

 recorded about the eggs of birds can only have been due to colour- 

 blindness of a peculiarly aggravated nature. It is not that he 

 mistook eggs, but that he describes impossible eggs — Kingfishers' 

 eggs variegated black and white, and here in this case black eggs 

 spotted with yellow ! Why, there are no such eggs in the whole 

 world, I believe. On the other hand, his whole life proves that he 

 could not have deliberately set to work to invent falsehoods. To 

 return. 



The eggs vary a good deal in shade and size, but are more or less 

 long ovals, slightly pointed towards the lesser end. The ground- 

 colour is a delicate very pale green or greenish blue, in one, not 

 very common type, almost pure white, and they are pretty boldly 

 blotched or spotted and speckled as the case may be, and clouded, 

 most thickly towards the large end, and very often almost ex- 

 clusively in a zone or cap round this latter, with various shades of 

 red or purple and brown. Some blotches in some eggs are almost 

 carmine-red, but the majority are brownish red or reddish brown, 

 varying much in depth and intensity of colour. There is some- 

 thing Shrike-like in the markings of many eggs ; and where the 

 markings are most numerous, namely at the large end, they are 

 commonly intermingled with streaks and clouds of pale lilac. The 

 smaller end of the egg is often entirely free from markings. I 



