1848.] Notes on the Nidification of Indian Birds. 11 



then abound in some of the glens. In March, at an elevation of 5000 

 feet, I saw them feeding on the wild cherries. They breed during 

 April, May and June, making a rather neat cup-shaped nest, which is 

 usually placed in the bifurcation of a horizontal branch of some tall 

 tree ; — the bottom of it is composed of thin dead leaves and dried 

 grasses, and the sides of fine woody stalks of plants, such as those 

 used by Pycnonotus leucogenys, and they are well plastered over extern- 

 ally with spiders' webs ; the lining is sometimes of very fine tendrils, at 

 other times of dry grasses, fibrous lichens and thin shavings of the 

 bark of trees, left by the wood-cutters. I have one nest, however, 

 which is externally formed of green moss with a few dry stalks, and 

 the spiders' webs instead of being plastered all over the outside, are 

 merely used to bind the nest to the small branches among which it 

 is placed. The lining is of bark shavings, dry grasses, black fibrous 

 lichens and a few fine seed stalks of grasses. The diameter of the nest 

 is 2 J inches ; and 1|- inch deep. The eggs are usually 3 in number, of 

 a rosy or purplish white sprinkled over rather numerously with deep 

 claret or rufescent-purple specks and spots. In colours and distribu- 

 tion of spots there is great variation, — sometimes the rufous and some- 

 times the purple spots prevailing ; — sometimes the spots are mere 

 specks and freckles, — sometimes large and forming blotches ; — in some 

 the spots are wide apart, — in others they are nearly and sometimes in 

 places quite confluent ; while from one nest the eggs were white, with 

 widely dispersed dark purple spots, and dull indistinct ones appearing 

 under the shell. In all, the spots are more crowded at the larger end. 

 Diameter varying from 1 x \\ inches, to 1 T V X rl inches. "Bun 

 bukri" of hill-men, from a fancied resemblance of one of its cries to 

 that of a goat. 



No. 16. — " Treron sphenurus," (Vigors.) 

 Vinago sphenura, Vigors. 

 Ptilonopus macronotus et turturoides. (Hodg., Gray.) 



Treron cantillans, Blyth, (the caged bird, moulted in confinement.) 



This species, which is the (< Kookla" of the natives, arrives in the 



neighbourhood of Mussooree in the beginning of April, and remains 



during the summer to breed ; it is usually silent during the height of 



the monsoon, but may occasionally be heard on a bright day. It is 



c 2 



