PERICEOCOTrS ELAMMEUS. 
865 
otherwise it worild be generally overlooked by the collector while threading his way in the underwood beneath 
it. Its diet consists of small butterflies and various winged insects, some of which it will occasionally take on 
the wing as they pass through the branches. In the woods of the Horton Plains I saw it catching insects in 
the moss with which the trees are entirely covered in that cool region, and its brilliant plumage furnished a 
striking contrast to the cold grey-looking aspect of the jungle. 
Jerdon notices that in India " it keeps generally to the tops of high trees, usually in flocks of four or five ; 
the sexes often apart from one another, all frisking about, picking insects off a branch or leaf, or occasionally 
catching one in the air.” 
Nidification . — I have never been able to obtain any information concerning tbe nesting of this species in 
Ceylon ; but Mr. Hume describes the nest, in his ' Rough Draft of Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds,' from 
information received from Miss Cockburn. He says, “ The nests arc comparatively massive little (;ups placed on 
or sometimes in the fork of slender boughs. They are usually composed of excessively fine twigs, the size of 
fir-needles, and they are densely plastered over the whole exterior surface with greenish-grey lichens, so closely 
put together that the side of the nest looks exactly like a piece of lichen-covered branch ; there appears to be 
no lining, and the eggs are laid on the fine little twigs which compose the body of the nest.” The season for 
laying is confined to July, which is probably the same in the damp districts of Ceylon. The egg is described 
as pale greenish, “pretty thickly streaked and spotted, mostly so at the large end, with pale yellowish 
brown and pale rather dingy purple.” 
