ests in shrubs, at heights of from 3 to 5 feet
from the ground, and either suspending them from horizontal branches,
or hanging them between several upright stems, to which they firmly
attach them. The nest itself is cup-shaped and composed principally of
dry bamboo-leaves held together by a few fibres, and a few strings of
green moss wound round the outside. The lining consists of a few
black hairs, and the usual number of eggs is three. A nest I recently
measured was externally 4 inches in diameter and 2.7 in height, while
the cavity was 2.6 across by 1.9 in depth."

Mr. Gammie subsequently found a nest on the very late date of 17th
October at Rishap, Darjeeling. It contained three eggs, two of which
were addled.

Dr. Jerdon says that at Darjeeling he "got the nest and eggs
repeatedly; the nest made chiefly of grass, with roots and fibres, and
fragments of moss, and usually containing three or four eggs, bluish,
white, with a few purple and red blotches. It is generally placed in a
leafy bush at no great height from the ground. Gould, quoting from Mr.
Shore's notes, says that the eggs are black spotted with yellow:
this is of course erroneous. I have taken the nest myself on several
occasions, and killed the bird, and in every case the eggs were
coloured as above."

I wish to add here, as I have abused him occasionally, that Mr. Shore
was, I understand, a most excellent man, and that I have now come to
the conclusion that the extraordinary fictions that he recorded about
the eggs of birds can only have been due to colour-blindness of a
peculiarly aggravated nature. It is not that he mistook eggs, but that
he describes _impossible_ eggs--Kingfishers' eggs variegated black
and white, and here in this case black eggs spotted with yellow! Why,
there _are_ no such eggs in the whole world, I believe. On the other
hand, his whole life proves that he could not have deliberately set to
work to invent falsehoods. To return.

The eggs vary a good deal in shade and size, but are more or less long
ovals, slightly pointed towards the lesser end. The ground-colour is
a delicate very pale green or greenish blue, in one, not very common
type, almost pure white, and they are pretty boldly blotched or
spotted and speckled as the case may be, and clouded, most thickly
towards the large end, and very often almost exclusively in a zone or
cap round this latter, with various shades of red or purple and brown.
Some blotches in some eggs