Birds of North-west Fohkien. 3 7 
among the thin hair-lines encircling the large end of the 
egg. It measures 0*77x0*61 inch. 
The nest is a strong compact cup, with well-rounded edges 
made of grass-stems and blades and a few fine grass-roots, 
inside of which there is an inner cup composed of fine strips 
of grass. The lining is of fine brown fibre. The inner 
diameter is 2*1 x 2*4 inches, the outer diameter 4*5 X 5 inches 
at the rim ; the inner depth is 1*5 inch, and the outer depth 
2*5 inch. It was placed on a tea-plant about 2 feet from 
the ground. 
Another nest containing young, taken at Foochow in 
July, is also a strong and compact cup, but with thinner 
walls than the former. It is made of coarse grass-blades, 
grass-stems, very fine weed-stems, and twigs, with a tendril 
or two, and a few bits of bracken on the outside. It is 
lined with fine grass-roots, some black hair, and a very little 
fibre. The inner diameter is 2J x 2f inches, the outer 
diameter 3J x 4J inches ; the inner depth is 2 inches, and 
the outer depth 2f inches. 
Mr. Rickett has a nest with five eggs taken near Kuatun 
in 1897, and another nest with three eggs, taken by the 
natives during the same year after our collectors had left, 
was sold to me on our arrival at Kuatun. These eggs bear 
a general resemblance to the one described above, but they 
have each a big light yellow-brown cloud or smudge, which 
in one egg covers the apical half, this egg being encircled 
round the middle on the edge of the smudge by a vandyke- 
brown scrawl. In the other eggs this smudge is smaller and 
irregular, and it is chiefly, though not altogether, on the 
apical half of the egg. One of these has two big scrawls of 
very dark vandyke-brown, and the third hair-lines and a few 
short and wider scrawls. The underlying hair-lines and 
streaks are of the same lilac-grey. These three eggs measure 
0*79 x 0*63, 078 x 0‘64, and 0*78 x 0*63 inch. 
122. Emberiza aureola Pall. 
Two were shot near Kuatun in April 1897, and others at 
Upper Kuatun on the 30th April, 1898. Two of the latter 
are males in almost pure breeding-plumage. 
