274 byltud^;. 



" About ten feet from my tent on this path, passers-by had cut 

 one of the bamboos in a clump and left it leaning up against the 

 clump ; between two knots of this a rough hack had broken an 

 irregular hole into a joint. 



" Sitting outside my tent and looking carelessly about, my at- 

 tention was attracted by what I took to be a leaf flutter down 

 close to the above-mentioned bamboo, and to my surprise disappear 

 before it reached the ground. Wondering at this, I got up and 

 approached the place, when from the aforementioned hole in the 

 bamboo out darted a little bird ; and looking in I saw a neat little 

 nest of fibres placed on the lower knot with three eggs, white 

 densely speckled, chiefly in a ring at the larger end, with pinkish 

 claret spots. 



" I went back to my tent, watched the bird return, and shot her 

 as on being frightened off she flew out a second time. It proved 

 to be the above species. 



" I took the nest and eggs. The latter, I regret to say, were 

 lost subsequently through the carelessness of a servant, but 1 had 

 luckily measured and taken a description of them. 



" Their dimensions were respectively 057 X - 42, 059 x 0-42, 

 and 0-59 x 0-44." 



Prom Sikhim Mr. Gainmie writes : — " I took a nest of this 

 Warbler on the 15th June at 1800 feet elevation. It was inside 

 a bamboo-stem near the banks of the Byeng stream. Just under 

 a node some one had cut out a notch, which the birds made their 

 entrance. The nest rested on the node below and fitted the hol- 

 low of the bamboo. It was made of dry bamboo-leaves, and lined 

 with soft, fibrous material. It measured 5 inches deep and 3 

 inches wide, with an egg cavity of 2 inches in depth, by If inch in 

 width. The eggs, which were hard-set, were but three in number." 



The eggs are rather long ovals, the shell fine but with very little 

 gloss ; the ground-colour is a dull white or pinky white, and it is 

 thickly freckled and mottled about the large end and thinly else- 

 where with red, in some cases slightly browner, in others purple. 

 The markings have a tendency to form a cap or zone about the 

 large end, and here, where the markings are densest, some little 

 lilac or purplish-grey spots and clouds are intermingled. 



An egg measures - 61 by 0-43. 



441. Abrornis scbisticeps (Hodgs.). The Black-faced Flycatcher- 

 Warbler. 



Ahrornis schisticeps, Sodas., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 201 ; Hume, Eouqh 

 Draft N. Sf JE. no. 571. 



Captain Hutton tells us that the Black-faced Flycatcher-Warbler 

 is " a common species in the neighbourhood of Mussoorie, at 5000 

 feet, and commences building in March. A pair of these birds 

 selected a thick China rose-bush trained against the side of the 

 house, and had completed the nest and laid one egg when a rat 



