are so small that it is difficult to make certain of the
exact colour), and the other inky purple or grey. In most eggs the
markings are most dense at or about the large end, and occasionally a
spot may be met with larger than the rest, as big as a pin's head say,
and some of these seem to have a reddish tinge, while some are more of
a sepia.

The eggs vary from 0.75 to 0.86 in length and from 0.59 to 0.62 in
breadth, but the average of twelve eggs is almost exactly 0.8 by 0.6.

394. Hypolais rama (Sykes). _Sykes's Tree-Warbler_.

Phyllopneuste rama (_Sykes), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 189.
Iduna caligata, _Licht., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 553.

I have never myself obtained the nest and eggs of Sykes's
Tree-Warbler, _P. rama, apud Jerd._[A] On the 1st April, at Etawah, my
friend Mr. Brooks shot a male of this species off a nest; and I saw
the bird, nest, and eggs within an hour, and visited the spot later.
The nest was placed in a low thorny bush, about a foot from the
ground, on the side of a sloping bank in one of the large dry ravines
that in the Etawah District fringe the River Junina for a breadth of
from a mile to four miles. The nest was nearly egg-shaped, with a
circular entrance near the top. It was loosely woven with coarse
and fine grass, and a little of the fibre of the "sun" (_Crotalaria
juncea_), and very neatly felted on the whole interior surface of
the lower two thirds with a compact coating of the down of
flowering-grasses and little bits of spider's web. It was about 5
inches in its longest and 31/2 inches in its shortest diameter. It
contained three fresh eggs, which were white, very thickly speckled
with brownish pink, in places confluent and having a decided tendency
to form a zone near the large end. Three or four days later we shot
the female at the same spot.

[Footnote A: I reproduce the note on this bird as it appeared in the
'Rough Draft,' but I think some mistake has been made, as Mr. Hume
himself suggests. Full reliance, however, may be placed on Mr. Doig's
note, which is a most interesting contribution.--ED]

A similar nest and two eggs, taken in Jhansi on the 12th August, were
sent me with one of the parent birds by Mr. F.R. Blewitt, and, again,
another nest with four eggs was sent me from Hoshungabad.

There ought to be no doubt about these nests and eggs, the more so
that I have several specimens of the bird from various parts of the
North-Western Provinces and Central Provin