Mr. Gammie subsequently found a nest on the very late date of 17th October at Rishap, Darjeeling.  It contained three eggs, two of which were addled.

Dr. Jerdon says that at Darjeeling he “got the nest and eggs repeatedly; the nest made chiefly of grass, with roots and fibres, and fragments of moss, and usually containing three or four eggs, bluish, white, with a few purple and red blotches.  It is generally placed in a leafy bush at no great height from the ground.  Gould, quoting from Mr. Shore’s notes, says that the eggs are black spotted with yellow:  this is of course erroneous.  I have taken the nest myself on several occasions, and killed the bird, and in every case the eggs were coloured as above.”

I wish to add here, as I have abused him occasionally, that Mr. Shore was, I understand, a most excellent man, and that I have now come to the conclusion that the extraordinary fictions that he recorded about the eggs of birds can only have been due to colour-blindness of a peculiarly aggravated nature.  It is not that he mistook eggs, but that he describes impossible eggs—­Kingfishers’ eggs variegated black and white, and here in this case black eggs spotted with yellow!  Why, there are no such eggs in the whole world, I believe.  On the other hand, his whole life proves that he could not have deliberately set to work to invent falsehoods.  To return.

The eggs vary a good deal in shade and size, but are more or less long ovals, slightly pointed towards the lesser end.  The ground-colour is a delicate very pale green or greenish blue, in one, not very common type, almost pure white, and they are pretty boldly blotched or spotted and speckled as the case may be, and clouded, most thickly towards the large end, and very often almost exclusively in a zone or cap round this latter, with various shades of red or purple and brown.  Some blotches in some eggs are almost carmine-red, but the majority are brownish red or reddish brown, varying much in depth and intensity of colour.  There is something Shrike-like in the markings of many eggs; and where the markings are most numerous, namely at the large end, they are commonly intermingled with streaks and clouds of pale lilac.  The smaller end of the egg is often entirely free from markings.  I should mention that all the eggs have a faint gloss, and that some are decidedly glossy.

They vary in length from 0.76 to 0.95, and in breadth from 0.59 to 0.66; but the average of thirty-four eggs is 0.85 by 0.62.

237.  Pteruthius erythropterus (Vig.). The Red-winged Shrike-Tit.

Pteruthius erythropterus (Vig.) Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 245; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 609.