derately broad ovals with a very fine compact shell, with but little
gloss, though perhaps rather more of this than in either of the
species above referred to. The ground-colour is white, with perhaps
a faint pinkish shade, and it is profusely speckled and spotted with
brownish red, almost black in some spots, more chestnut in others.
Here and there a few larger spots or small irregular blotches occur.
Besides these markings, clouds, streaks, and tiny spots of grey or
lavender-grey occur, chiefly about the large end, where, with the
markings (often more numerous there than elsewhere), they form at
times a more or less confluent but irregular and ill-defined cap.

One egg measured 0.73 by 0.6.

391. Acanthoptila nepalensis (Hodgs.). _The Spiny Warbler_.

Acanthoptila nipalensis (_Hodgs.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p 57.
Acanthoptila pellotis, _Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._
no. 431 bis.

According to Mr. Hodgson's notes and figures, this species builds, in
a fork of a tree, a very loose, shallow grass nest. One is recorded
to have measured 4.87 in diameter and 1.75 in height externally,
and internally 3.37 in diameter and an inch in depth. The eggs are
verditer-blue, and are figured as 1.1 by 0.65.

I may here note that _Acanthoptila pellotis_ and _A. leucotis_ are
totally distinct, as Mr. Hodgson's figures clearly show. Hodgson
published _A. leucotis_ apparently under the name of _A. nipalensis_,
so that the two will stand as _A. pellotis_ and _A. nipalensis_.[A]

[Footnote A: I do not agree with. Mr. Hume on this point. It seems
to me that this bird has both a summer and a winter plumage, and
Hodgson's two names refer to one and the same bird.--ED.]

392. Chaetornis locustelloides (Bl.). _The Bristled Grass-Warbler_.

Chaetornis striatus (_Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii. p. 72; _Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E._ no. 441.

Dr. Jerdon remarks that Mr. Blyth mentions that the nest of
the Grass-Babbler, as he calls it, nearly accords with that of
_Malacocercus_, and that the eggs are blue.

I cannot find the passage in which Blyth states this, and I cannot
help doubting its correctness. This bird, like the preceding, is not
a bit of a Babbler. I have often watched them in Lower Bengal amongst
comparatively low grass and rush along the margins of ponds and
jheels, not, as a rule, affecting high reed or seeking to conceal
themselves, but showing themselves freely enough, and with a song and
flight wholly unlike that of any