266 SYLVIID.33. 



I stood upon a mass of snow which had accumulated in the bed of 

 a mountain-stream." 



Captain Charles E. Cock writes to me that he " took numbers 

 of nests at Sonamerg, in the Sindh Valley in Cashmere, during a 

 nesting trip that I took in 1871 with my valued and esteemed 

 friend W. E. Brooks, .Esq. Although at the time of our finding 

 the nest of this "Warbler we were about 80 miles apart, yet we both 

 found our first nest on the same day — the 31st May. I believe he 

 was by a couple of hours or so the winner, as I do not think the egg 

 had ever been taken before. 



" Breeds in May or June on the ground in banks ; makes a 

 globular nest of moss, well lined with fine grass, musk-deer hair, 

 or horse-hair. It lays five eggs, white spotted with rusty red, in- 

 clining to a zone at the larger end." 



Typically the eggs of this species are broad ovals, slightly com- 

 pressed towards one end ; the ground pure white and almost 

 perfectly devoid of gloss, speckled and spotted with red or purplish 

 red, the markings, most dense about the large end, often forming 

 an irregular mottled cap or zone. These are the general characters, 

 but the eggs vary very much in shape, size, colour, and density of 

 markings. Some eggs are almost spherical ; others are somewhat 

 elongated ; others slightly pyriform. As a body, alike in shape 

 and coloration, they remind one of the eggs of many species of 

 Indian Tit, especially those of Lophophanes melanolophus. In some 

 eggs the markings are a slightly brownish brickdust-red, moderate 

 sized spots and specks scattered pretty thickly over the whole 

 surface, but gathered into a dense, more or less confluent, zone or 

 cap towards the large end. Intermingled with these primary mark- 

 ings a few pale purple spots are scattered towards the large end 

 of the eggs. In other eggs the markings are mostly mere specks, 

 and in this type of egg the specks are mostly brownish purple, in 

 some almost black. Occasionally an egg is almost entirely spotless, 

 having only towards the large end a clouded dingy reddish-purple 

 zone. In some eggs again the colour of the markings is pale and 

 washed out. As a rule, the eggs in which the markings are of the 

 brickdust-red type have these larger, bolder, and more numerous ; 

 while those in which the markings are purple have them of a more 

 minute character. 



The shape of the eggs, as already noticed, varies much, being 

 sometimes longer than those of P. troehilus, and at other times very 

 much of the same rounded shape. Frequently they are more 

 pointed at the smaller end than those of P. troehilus usually are. 

 The texture of the egg is similar to that of P. troehilus, with scarcely 

 any gloss. The ground-colour is always pure white, and the 

 markings, which are always more or less plentiful, are either red- 

 dish brown or purple-brown, intermingled sparingly with lighter 

 or darker purple-grey. 



Some eggs contain hardly a speck of the purple-grey, while others 

 have considerable blotches of that colour scattered amongst the red 

 spots. 



Some eggs are scantily marked, and have the spots very small ; 



