•544 
. ACEOCEPHALUS STENTOEIUS. 
egg which it contained at the time of my finding it was a broad oval in shape, pale green, boldly blotched 
with blackish over spots of olive and olivaceous brown, mingled with linear markings of the same, under 
which there were small clouds and blotches of bluish grey. The black markings were longitudinal and thickest 
at the obtuse end. It measured 0-89 by 0-67 inch. 
In India it has as yet only been found breeding in Cashmere, and there only (at the time Mr. Hume’s 
" Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds ’ was published) by Captain Cock and Mr. Brooks. It breeds in May 
and June; and the nest is deseribed variously as an “inverted and truncated cone,” “a deep cup,” and 
“a largish nest of a deep cup form,” composed of coarse water-grass or dry sedge, woven round the 
reeds whieh support it about 2 feet above the water. Mr. Hume describes tw'o types of eggs— the one 
stippled minutely with small specks, over which are scattered bold and well-marked spots of greyish black, 
inky purple, olive-brown, yellowish olive, and reddish umber-brown ; in the other the stippling is almost 
wanting, and the markings are smaller and less well defined. The average size of nine egars was 0'89 bv' 
0-61 inch. 
