184 cbateeopodidjE. 



devoted it to a fruitless search for bears. I had returned tired and 

 rather dispirited, and was moving about among the ruined houses, 

 between and among which a lot of jungle was already springing up, 

 when, just as I passed a low bush about 3 feet high, out went one 

 of the above-mentioned birds ; of course the bush contained a nest, 

 a remarkably neat cup-shaped affair, below and outside of fine twigs, 

 then a layer of roots, above which was a lining of the stems of 

 the flower of the 'theckay' grass. It contained three eggs on 

 the point of hatching, out of which I was only able to save one. 

 It is one of the loveliest eggs I have seen ; in colour I can liken it 

 only to a peculiar pink granite that is so common at home in Ireland. 

 Its ground-colour T should say was white, but it is so thickly spotted 

 with pink and claret that it is hard to describe. It measured 0-85 

 X 0-61 inch." 



Captain "Wardlaw Eamsay writes in ' The Ibis ': — " I found a 

 nest containing two eggs in April at the foot of the Karen hills 

 in Burma." 



I have seen too few eggs of this species to say much about them. 

 What I have seen were rather elongated ovals pretty markedly 

 pointed towards the small end. The shell fine, but with only a 

 slight gloss ; the ground a pinky creamy white, everywhere very 

 finely freckled over with red, varying from brownish to maroon, 

 and again still more thickly with pale purple or purplish grey, 

 this latter colour being almost confluent over a broad zone round 

 the large end. 



292. Spizixus canifrons, Blyth. The Finch-billed Bulbul. 



Spizixus canifrons, Bl., Hume, Cat. no. 453 bis. 



Colonel Godwin-Austen says : — " Spizixos canifrons breeds in the 

 neighbourhood of Shillong, in May. Toung birds are seen in 

 June." * 



* Tkachyc'omus ochkocephalds (6m.). The Yellow-crowned Bulbul. 

 Trachycomus ochrocephalus ( Gm.), Hume, Cat. no. 449 bis. 



As this bird occurs in Tenasserim, the following description of the nest and 

 eggs found a short distance outside our limits will prove interesting. 



Mr. J. Darling, Junior, writes : — " I found the nest of this bird on the 2nd 

 July at Kossoom. The nest was of the ordinary Bulbul type, but much larger, 

 and lite a very shallow saucer. The foundation was a single piece of some 

 creeping orchid, 3 feet long, coiled round ; then a lot of coils of fern, grass, and 

 moss-roots. The nest was 4 inches in diameter on the inside, the walls £ inch 

 thick, and the cavity 1 inch deep. It was built 10 feet from the ground, in a 

 bush in a very exposed position, and exactly where any ordinary Bulbul would 

 have built." 



The eggs of this species are of the ordinary Bulbul type, rather broad at the 

 large end, •compressed and slightly pyriform, or more or less pointed, towards 

 the small end. The shell fine and smooth, but with only a moderate amount of 

 gloss. The ground-colour varies from very pale pinky white to a rich warm 

 salmon-pink. The markings are two colours : first, a red varying from a dull 

 brownish to almost crimson ; the second, a paler colour varying from neutral tint 

 through purplish grey to a full though pale purple. The first may be called the 



