From Sikhim Mr. Gammie writes:—­“I have only myself taken two nests of this common species.  I found both of them the same day (the 21st May), in the Chinchona reserves, at an elevation of about 5000 feet.  Both nests were in the forest, built on the outer branches of trees, at heights the one of 15, the other of 40 feet from the ground.  The nests were cup-shaped, and very neatly made of moss, leaves and fibres, and lined with black fibres.  One measured externally 4.6 in diameter by 2.75 in height, and internally 2.4 in diameter and 1.7 in depth.  One nest contained two fresh, the other two hard-set eggs; so perhaps two is the normal number, though the natives say that they lay three.  As might be expected from the bird’s habit of feeding on the insects on moss-covered trees in moist forests, the nests were in forest by the sides of streams.”

The eggs are rather broad, slightly pyriform ovals, often a good deal pulled out as it were at the small end.  The shell is fine, but almost entirely devoid of gloss.  The ground-colour is a pale greenish white or very pale bluish green.  The markings are various and complicated:  first there are usually a few large, irregular, moderately dark brownish-red spots and splashes; then there are a very few, very dark, reddish-brown hair-lines, such as one finds on Buntings’ eggs; then there is a good deal of clouding and smudging here and there of pale, dingy purplish or brownish red (all these markings are most numerous towards the large end); and then besides these, and almost entirely confined to the large end, are a few pale purple specks and spots.  Sometimes the markings are almost wholly confined to the thicker end of the egg.  Of course the eggs vary somewhat, and in some specimens the characteristic Bunting-like hair-lines are almost wholly wanting.  The eggs vary in length from 0.95 to 1.0, and in breadth from 0.66 to 0.72.

205.  Lioptila gracilis (McClell.). The Grey Sibia.

Malacias gracilis (McClell.), Hume, cat. no. 429 bis.

Colonel Godwin-Austen is, I believe, the only ornithologist who has as yet secured the nest and eggs of the Grey Sibia.  He says:—­“In the pine forest that covers the slopes of the hills descending into the Umian valley in Assam, one of my men marked a nest on June 25th; I proceeded to the spot soon after I had heard of it, and on coming up to the tree, a pine, saw the female fly off out of the head of it.  But the nest was so well hidden by the boughs of the fir, that it was quite invisible from below.  The bird after a short time came back, and then I saw it was Sibia gracilis; but it was very shy and seeing us went off again, and hung about the trees at a distance of some 50 yards; while thus waiting, some four or five others were also seen.  The female, however, would not venture back, and I sent one of my Goorkhas up, to cut off the head of the fir, nest and all, first taking out the eggs.  It contained three, of a pale sea-green, with ash-brown streakings and blotchings all over.