und both of them the same day (the 21st May),
in the Chinchona reserves, at an elevation of about 5000 feet. Both
nests were in the forest, built on the outer branches of trees, at
heights the one of 15, the other of 40 feet from the ground. The nests
were cup-shaped, and very neatly made of moss, leaves and fibres, and
lined with black fibres. One measured externally 4.6 in diameter by
2.75 in height, and internally 2.4 in diameter and 1.7 in depth. One
nest contained two fresh, the other two hard-set eggs; so perhaps two
is the normal number, though the natives say that they lay three. As
might be expected from the bird's habit of feeding on the insects on
moss-covered trees in moist forests, the nests were in forest by the
sides of streams."

The eggs are rather broad, slightly pyriform ovals, often a good deal
pulled out as it were at the small end. The shell is fine, but almost
entirely devoid of gloss. The ground-colour is a pale greenish white
or very pale bluish green. The markings are various and complicated:
first there are usually a few large, irregular, moderately dark
brownish-red spots and splashes; then there are a very few, very dark,
reddish-brown hair-lines, such as one finds on Buntings' eggs; then
there is a good deal of clouding and smudging here and there of pale,
dingy purplish or brownish red (all these markings are most numerous
towards the large end); and then besides these, and almost entirely
confined to the large end, are a few pale purple specks and spots.
Sometimes the markings are almost wholly confined to the thicker end
of the egg. Of course the eggs vary somewhat, and in some specimens
the characteristic Bunting-like hair-lines are almost wholly wanting.
The eggs vary in length from 0.95 to 1.0, and in breadth from 0.66 to
0.72.

205. Lioptila gracilis (McClell.). _The Grey Sibia_.

Malacias gracilis (_McClell.), Hume, cat._ no. 429 bis.

Colonel Godwin-Austen is, I believe, the only ornithologist who has
as yet secured the nest and eggs of the Grey Sibia. He says:--"In the
pine forest that covers the slopes of the hills descending into the
Umian valley in Assam, one of my men marked a nest on June 25th; I
proceeded to the spot soon after I had heard of it, and on coming up
to the tree, a pine, saw the female fly off out of the head of it.
But the nest was so well hidden by the boughs of the fir, that it was
quite invisible from below. The bird after a short time came back, and