316.  Sitta cinnamomeiventris, Blyth. The Cinnamon-bellied Nuthatch.

Sitta cinnamomeoventris, Bl., Jerd.  B. Ind. i, p. 387.

Writing from Sikhim, Mr. Gammie says:—­“I lately took the nest of Sitta cinnamomeiventris at 2000 feet.  It was 20 feet from the ground in a soft decaying bamboo on the edge of large jungle.  The birds had made a small hole just below an internode, and from the next internode below had filled up the hollow of the bamboo with alternate layers of green moss and pieces of tree-bark of about an inch or more square to within a few inches of the entrance-hole.  Each layer of moss was about an inch thick, but the bark layer not more than a quarter of an inch, the thickness of the bark itself.  On the top of this pile, which was a foot high, was a pad three inches wide by two in depth, of fine moss, fur, a feather or two, and a few insects’ wings intermixed, for the eggs to rest on.  The fur looks like that of a rat.  There were four hard-set eggs, which, unfortunately, got broken in the taking.  One of them only was measurable, and it was 0.65 inch by 0.5.  I send the shell-fragments to show the coloration.”

317.  Sitta neglecta, Walden. The Burmese Nuthatch.

Sitta neglecta, Wald., Hume, cat. no. 250 bis.

The Burmese Nuthatch probably breeds throughout Pegu and Tenasserim.  Of its nidification in the latter division Major C.T.  Bingham writes:—­“On the 21st March, wandering about in a deserted clearing, I saw a couple of Nuthatches (Sitta neglecta) flying to and from a tree, carrying food apparently.  Watching them closely with a pair of binoculars, I saw them disappear near a knot in a branch.  The tree was a dead dry one and rather difficult to climb, but a peon of mine went up and reported five young ones unfledged, the nest-hole being 6 inches deep, and the opening, which was originally a large one, and probably caused by water wearing into the site of a broken branch, narrowed by an edging of clay.  The young lay on a layer of broken leaves.  As they were featherless, blind little things I left them alone, and was delighted to see the parents continuing to feed them.”

321.  Sitta castaneiventris, Frankl. The Chestnut-bellied Nuthatch.

Sitta castaneoventris, Frankl., Jerd.  B. Ind. i, p. 386.

The late Captain Cock furnished me with the following note a long time ago regarding the breeding of this Nuthatch:—­“A very common bird at Sitapur in Oudh, every mango-tope containing one or more pairs.  They pair early and commence making their nests in February, laying their eggs in March.  The nests are in cavities of trees, at no great height from the ground, and unless observed in course of construction are difficult to find—­the bird filling the whole cavity up with mud consolidated with some viscid seed of a parasitical plant, and merely leaving a small round hole for entrance.  This composition