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stone, now and again picking up small insects ; occasionally it perches on the top branch of a 

 bush or on a stone, jerks its tail up and utters shrill notes. On the wing it performs various 

 evolutions, rising somewhat in the air it suddenly drops on the ground and rebounds up, 

 reminding one of an india-rubber ball. In the latter half of June I observed family parties, 

 four young ones with their parents, and in July and August the young were seen singly and the 

 old birds in pairs. This bird is very tame, and one can approach within a few paces of it, and 

 if one is shot the report of the gun does not frighten away the survivors." 



In Arabia Von Heuglin says (I. c.) it occurs singly and in pairs, and not unfrequently is to 

 be seen on the ground, hopping and running amongst the stones and rocks. It is a very active 

 and lively bird, reminding one more of the Leaf- Warblers than the Malurce in its general habits. 

 Its song is somewhat Tit-like, the harsh call-note being not unlike that of Parns cristatus. 

 In the early hours of the morning the melodious song of the male echoes far throughout the 

 desert lonely places which it frequents, but during the hotter portions of the day it is more 

 silent. 



Captain Cock was the first to obtain authentic eggs of this bird, and informed Mr. A. O. 

 Hume (' Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds,' 2nd ed. i. p. 276) that he " first discovered it breeding in 

 February in the Khuttuck Hills. It is common throughout the range of stony hills between 

 Peshawur and Attock, and I have seen it on the hills between Jhelum and Pindi, but never took 

 their nest in this latter locality. At Nowshera it is very common, and towards the end of February 

 a collector could take four or five nests in a day. It builds in a low thorny shrub about 1\ feet 

 from the ground, makes a largish globular nest of thin dry grass-stems with an opening in the 

 side, thickly lined with seed-down, and containing four or five eggs. Their nesting-operations 

 are over by the end of March." Lieut. Barnes, who met with this species at Chaman, in 

 Afghanistan, says that they commenced breeding there towards the end of March, and that the 

 normal number of eggs is six, and describes them as being " oval in shape, white, with a pinkish 

 tinge when fresh, very minutely spotted and speckled with light red, most densely at the larger 

 end. The average of twelve eggs is 0'62 by - 4o inch." Mr. Barnes states that the nests he found 

 were lined with feathers and fine grass. A nest sent to me by Mr. W. E. Brooks was constructed 

 of dry grass-stems and lined with fine grasses ; in was oval in shape, domed, with an entrance on 

 the side near the top, and the eggs were white spotted with red, the spots being rather more 

 numerous round the larger end and not very minute. 



Mr. A. O. Hume writes (I. c.) : — "The eggs are moderately broad and regular ovals, usually 

 somewhat compressed towards one end, but occasionally exhibiting no trace of this. The shell 

 is very fine and delicate, but, as a rule, entirely devoid of gloss. The ground-colour varies from 

 pure to pinky white. The markings are always minute, but in some they are comparatively 

 much bolder and larger than in others, and they vary in colour from reddish pink to a com- 

 paratively bright red. In many eggs the markings are much more dense towards the large end, 

 where they form, or exhibit a strong tendency to form, an irregular, more or less confluent zone ; 

 and wherever the markings are dense there a certain number of tiny pale purple or lilac spots 

 or clouds will be found intermingled with and underlying the red markings. Some eggs show 

 none of these spots and exhibit no tendency to form a zone, being pretty uniformly speckled and 

 spotted all over. Some are not very unlike eggs of the Grasshopper and Dartford Warblers ; 



