Numerous nests of this species kindly sent me by Messrs. Gammie, Mandelli, and others, taken during the months of May and June in British and Native Sikhim, at elevations of from 3000 to 5500 feet, were all of the same type and placed in the same situations, namely amongst low scrub and brushwood, at heights of from 18 inches to 3 feet from the ground.  The interior and, in fact, the main body of the nests appear to be in all cases chiefly composed of fine black hair-like roots, with which, in some cases, especially about the upper margin, a little fine grass is intermingled.  The cavities are generally much about the same size, say 2 inches in diameter by 1.25 in depth:  but the size of the nests as a whole varies very much.  The nest is always coated exteriorly with dry leaves of trees and ferns, broad blades of grass, and the like, fixed together sometimes by mere pressure, but generally here and there held together by fine fibrous roots, and this coating varies so much that one nest before me measures 5.5 in external diameter, and another barely 4, the external covering of fern-leaves, flags, and dry and dead leaves being very abundant in the former, while in the other the covering consists entirely of broad dry blades of grass very neatly laid together.  Two, three, and four fresh eggs were found in these several nests, but in no case were more than four eggs found.

Two nests taken by Mr. Gammie contained three and two fresh eggs respectively.  The eggs had a delicate pink ground, and were richly blotched, in one egg exclusively, in the others chiefly about the larger end, with chestnut, or almost maroon-red, here and there almost deepening in spots to black, and elsewhere paling off into a rufous haze.  The markings are confluent about the large end, and there in places intermingled with a purplish tinge.  The other eggs had a china-white ground, with more gloss than the specimens previously described, with numerous small, blackish brownish-red spots and specks, almost exclusively confined to the large end, where they are more or less enveloped in a pinky-red nimbus.

These eggs varied from 0.75 to 0.79 in length, and from 0.56 to 0.6 in breadth.

Other eggs, again, with the same pinky-white ground are thickly but minutely freckled and speckled with rather pale brownish red, most thickly towards and about the large end, where they become confluent in patches, and where tiny purple clouds and spots are dimly traceable.

164.  Alcippe phaeocephala (Jerd.). The Nilghiri Babbler.

Alcippe poiocephala (Jerd.), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 18; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E.. no. 389.