The eggs are rather narrow ovals, as a rule, occasionally much pointed towards one end.  The shell is very fine and has a faint gloss.  The ground-colour is white.  The markings, which are difficult to describe, consist first of spots, specks, and hair-line scratches, dark brown, almost black occasionally, and a great amount of irregular clouding, streaking, and smudging of a pale dirty-brown, slightly reddish in some eggs.  Besides this, about the large end there is an indistinct irregular zone of faint inky purple spots and small blotches, and a few spots of this same colour may be observed on other parts of the egg.

182.  Sittiparus castaneiceps (Hodgs.). The Chestnut-headed Tit-Babbler.

Minla castaneiceps, Hodgs., Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 255; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 619.

Mr. Hodgson’s notes inform us that the Chestnut-headed Tit-Babbler breeds in the neighbourhood of Darjeeling in May and June, laying four eggs, which are figured as somewhat elongated ovals, having a very pale greenish-yellow or dingy yellowish-white ground finely speckled, chiefly at the large end, where there is a tendency to form a zone, with red or brownish red, and measuring 0.75 by 0.52.  The nest is said to be placed in a thick bush, at a height of about 3 feet from the ground, in a double fork; to be very broad and shallow, composed of twigs, grass, and moss, and lined with leaves.  One, taken on the 18th May, 1846, measured 6 inches in diameter and 2.5 in height externally; the cavity was only 2.1 in diameter and 1 in depth.

From Sikhim Mr. Gammie writes:—­“A nest of this bird, with one fresh egg and female, was brought to me in May.  The man said he found the nest in the Rungbee forest, at 6000 feet, among the moss growing on the trunk of a large tree, a few feet from the ground.  It was a solid cup, made of green moss, with an inner layer of fine dark-coloured roots, and lined with grassy fibres.  Externally it measured 4 inches in width by the same in depth; internally 1.5 wide by 1.25 deep.”

Three eggs sent by Mr. Gammie measure 0.7 to 0.75 in length and 0.55 to 0.59 in breadth.

Mr. Davison says:—­“On the 20th of February, when encamped just under the summit of Muleyit, on its N.W. slope, I found a nest of this bird containing three eggs, but so hard-set that it was only with the greatest difficulty that I managed to preserve them.

“The nest, a deep cup, was placed about 5 feet from the ground, in a mass of creepers growing up a sapling.  It (the nest) was composed externally of green moss and lined with fibres and dry bamboo-leaves.

“On the 29th of the same month I took another nest, also containing three eggs, precisely similar to those in the first nest; but these were so far incubated and the shell was so fragile that they were all lost.  This nest was also composed externally of green moss, beautifully worked into the moss growing on the trunk of a large tree, and it was only with considerable difficulty, and after looking for some time, that I found it.  The egg-cavity of this nest was also lined with fibres and dried bamboo-leaves.