ent me by Messrs. Gammie,
Mandelli, and others, taken during the months of May and June in
British and Native Sikhim, at elevations of from 3000 to 5500 feet,
were all of the same type and placed in the same situations, namely
amongst low scrub and brushwood, at heights of from 18 inches to 3
feet from the ground. The interior and, in fact, the main body of
the nests appear to be in all cases chiefly composed of fine black
hair-like roots, with which, in some cases, especially about the
upper margin, a little fine grass is intermingled. The cavities are
generally much about the same size, say ~2 inches in diameter by 1.25
in depth: but the size of the nests as a whole varies very much. The
nest is always coated exteriorly with dry leaves of trees and ferns,
broad blades of grass, and the like, fixed together sometimes by mere
pressure, but generally here and there held together by fine fibrous
roots, and this coating varies so much that one nest before me
measures 5.5 in external diameter, and another barely 4, the external
covering of fern-leaves, flags, and dry and dead leaves being very
abundant in the former, while in the other the covering consists
entirely of broad dry blades of grass very neatly laid together. Two,
three, and four fresh eggs were found in these several nests, but in
no case were more than four eggs found.

Two nests taken by Mr. Gammie contained three and two fresh eggs
respectively. The eggs had a delicate pink ground, and were richly
blotched, in one egg exclusively, in the others chiefly about the
larger end, with chestnut, or almost maroon-red, here and there almost
deepening in spots to black, and elsewhere paling off into a rufous
haze. The markings are confluent about the large end, and there in
places intermingled with a purplish tinge. The other eggs had a
china-white ground, with more gloss than the specimens previously
described, with numerous small, blackish brownish-red spots and
specks, almost exclusively confined to the large end, where they are
more or less enveloped in a pinky-red nimbus.

These eggs varied from 0.75 to 0.79 in length, and from 0.56 to 0.6 in
breadth.

Other eggs, again, with the same pinky-white ground are thickly but
minutely freckled and speckled with rather pale brownish red, most
thickly towards and about the large end, where they become confluent
in patches, and where tiny purple clouds and spots are dimly
traceable.

164. Alcippe phaeocephala (Jerd