194 ORNITHOLOGY. 
of the primaries and tail-feathers of T. variegatum. Typi- 
cally these are yellow, varying from orange to golden, 
and even olive yellow ; but I have seen them reddish orange, 
orange brown, and pink, and my friend Mr. Brookes actually 
named one with pink edgings T. Humei, Where such 
great variation in tint occurred, the entire absence of any 
tint seemed less worthy of reliance as a specific character. 
My only reason now for thinking that the present bird should 
perhaps be separated, is that whereas all the different colours 
are observable wherever the bird is found, the colourless 
specimens seem entirely confined to the far North-west. 
Nothing seems to have been recorded as yet of the 
nidification of T. variegatum. They lay during the latter 
half of April, May, and June. The nest is a pretty com- 
pact rather shallow cup, composed exteriorly of coarse 
grass, in which a few dead leaves are intermingled ; it has 
no lining, but the interior of the nest is composed of rather 
finer and softer grass than the exterior, and a good number 
of dry needle-like fir-leaves are used towards the interior. 
The nest is from 5 to 8 inches in diameter exteriorly, and 
the cavity from 3 to 3*5 in diameter and about 2 deep. 
The nest is usually placed in some low, densely foliaged 
branch of a tree, at say from 3 to 8 feet from the ground ; 
but I recently obtained one placed in a thick tuft of grass, 
growing at the roots of a young deodar, not above 6 inches 
from the ground. They lay four or five eggs. The first egg 
that I obtained of this species,' sent me by Mr. G. C. Buck, 
C.S., and taken by himself, was a nearly perfect rather long 
oval, and precisely the same type of egg as those of T, 
erythrocephalum and T. cachinnans, but considerably smaller 
than the former. In fact, had Mr. Buck not taken the 
egg himself, I could scarcely have believed that it be- 
longed to this species. The ground colour is pale, rather 
dingy greenish blue, and it is blotched, spotted, and 
speckled — almost exclusively at the larger end, and even 
there not very thickly — with reddish brown. The egg 
appeared to have but little gloss. 
Other eggs subsequently obtained by myself were very 
similar, but slightly larger and rather more thickly and 
