Mr. J. Darling, junior, informs us that on the 9th April he “took three fresh eggs of Alcippe phayrii, in heavy jungle, at a very low elevation, at the foot of Nwalabo in Tenasserim.  The nest was built in a small bush 4 feet from the ground (hanging between two forked twigs), of bamboo and other leaves, moss, and a few fine twigs, and lined with moss and fern-roots, 2 inches in diameter, 11/2 deep.  It was exactly like very many nests of A. phaeocephala, taken on the Nilghiri Hills, though some of the latter are much more compact and pretty.”

Mr. W. Davison, also writing of Tenasserim, says:—­“On the 1st March, in a little bush about 2 feet above the ground, I found the above-mentioned bird seated on a little moss-made nest, and utterly refusing to move off until I almost touched her, when she hopped on to a branch a few feet off, and disclosed three little naked fledglings struggling or just struggled out of their shells.  I retired a little way off, and she immediately reseated herself.  The eggs, to judge by the fragments, were of a vinous claret tinge, spotted and streaked with a darker shade of the same.”

These eggs closely resemble those of A. nepalensis.  They are neither broad nor elongated ovals, often with a slight pyriform tendency, always apparently very blunt at both ends.

The ground-colour, of which but little is visible, in some eggs varies from pinky white to pale reddish pink, and the egg is profusely smeared and clouded with pinky or purplish red, varying much in shade and tint.  Here and there, in most eggs, are a few spots, or occasionally short, crooked or curved lines, where the colour has been laid on so thick that it is almost black, and such spots are generally, though not always, more or less surrounded with a haze of a rather deeper tint than the rest of the smear in which they occur.  The markings are often deepest coloured, or most conspicuous, about the large end, where occasionally a recognizable cap is formed and there a decided purplish tinge may be noticed in patches.  The general character of the eggs is very uniform; but the eggs vary to such a degree inter se, that it is hopeless to attempt to describe all the variations.  They vary in length from 0.68 to 0.78 and in breadth from 0.53 to 0.59, but the average of nine eggs is 0.75 by 0.58.

166.  Rhopocichla atriceps (Jerd.) The Black-headed Babbler.

Alcippe atriceps (Jerd.), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 19; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 390.

Writing from Coonoor in the Nilghiris, Mr. Wait tells me that the Black-headed Babbler breeds in his neighbourhood in June and July:—­“It builds in weeds and grass beside the banks of old roads, at elevations of from 5000 to 5500 feet.  The nest is placed at a height of from a foot to 2 feet from the ground, is domed and loosely built, composed almost entirely of dry blades of the lemon-grass, and lined with the same or a few softer grass-blades.  In shape it is more or less ovate, the longer axis vertical, and the external diameters 4 and 8 inches.  They lay two or three rather broad oval eggs, which have a white ground, speckled and spotted, chiefly at the large end, with reddish brown.”