sh olive,
and reddish-umber brown; here and there pale inky clouds underlay the
more distinct markings. In other eggs the stippling is altogether
wanting, and the markings are smaller and less well-defined. In some
eggs one or more of the colours predominate greatly, and in some
several are almost entirely wanting. In most eggs the markings are
densest towards the large end, where they sometimes form more or less
of a mottled, irregular, ill-defined cap.

In length the eggs vary from 0.8 to 0.97, and in breadth from 0.58 to
0.63; but the average of the only nine eggs that I measured was 0.89,
nearly, by rather more than 0.61.

366. Acrocephalus dumetorum, Blyth. _Blyth's Reed-Warbler_.

Acrocephalus dumetorum, _Bl., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 155.
Calamodyta dumetorum (_Bl.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._
no. 516.

Blyth's Reed-Warbler breeds, I believe, for the most part along the
course of the streams of the lower Himalayan and sub-Himalayan ranges,
and in suitable localities on and about these ranges; such at least is
my present idea. They are with us in the plains up to quite the end of
March, and are back again by the last day of August, and during May at
any rate they may be heard and seen everywhere in the valleys south of
the first snowy range.

Mr. Brooks remarks that "this species was excessively common on the
Hindoostan side of the Pir-pinjal Range, but I have never seen it in
Cashmere. I think it breeds in the low valleys by the river-sides,
for it was in very vigorous song there at the end of May." This is my
experience also, and probably while many may go north to Central Asia
to breed, a good many remain in the localities indicated.

Captain Hutton says:--"This species arrives in the hills up to 7000
feet at least, in April, when it is very common, and appears in pairs
with something of the manner of a _Phylloscopus_. The note is a sharp
_tchick, tchick_, resembling the sound emitted by a flint and steel.

"It disappears by the end of May, in which month they breed; but,
owing to the high winds and strong weather experienced in that month
in 1848, many nests were left incomplete, and the birds must have
departed without breeding.

"One nest, which I took on the 6th May, was a round ball with a
lateral entrance; it was placed in a thick barberry-bush growing at
the side of a deep and sheltered ditch; it was composed of coarse
dry grasses externally and lined with finer grass. Eggs three and
pearl-whit