The eggs of this species are typically moderately broad ovals, slightly pointed towards the small end, but elongated and more or less blunt-ended pyriform examples occur.  The shell is extremely fine and smooth, but has only moderate amount of gloss in any specimen that I have seen and in some specimens has only a trace of this.  The ground colour is pure white, and the eggs are generally thinly speckled, spotted, or blotched, about the broad end only, with a pale red; occasionally a few greyish-purple spots and blotches are intermingled with the other markings, and specks and tiny spots of both red and grey sometimes extend to the smaller end of the egg also.  I have seen no such examples myself, but very probably in some eggs the principal markings may be at the small end.  Eighteen eggs vary from 0.81 to 0.91 in length by 0.61 to 0.69 in breadth.]

323.  Sitta leucopsis, Gould. The White-cheeked Nuthatch.

Sitta leucopsis, Gould, Jerd.  B. Ind. i, p. 385; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 249.

Captain Cock took the eggs of the White-cheeked Nuthatch late in May and early in June (1871) in Kashmir at Sonamurg.

Captain Wardlaw Ramsay says, writing of Afghanistan:—­“I observed it hanging about a nest-hole on the 21st May, but on returning to take the eggs some days later was unable to find the tree:”  and he adds, “On the 21st of June I shot a young bird just fledged near the Peiwar Kotul.”

The eggs of this species vary somewhat in size.  In shape some are moderately elongated, some are somewhat broad ovals, and all are, more or less, compressed towards the smaller end, which, however, is obtuse and not at all pointed.  The ground is white and has a slight gloss.  The markings consist of small spots and minute specks, some eggs exhibiting only the latter.  In all cases the markings are most dense towards the large end, where they generally form an irregular and ill-defined mottled cap or zone.  In colour the markings are red and pale purple, the red varying from bright brickdust-red to brownish and even purplish red, and the purple being sometimes lilac and sometimes grey, and here and there in a single speck, almost black.  In length the eggs vary from 0.67 to 0.75 inch, and in breadth from 0.5 to 0.55 inch.

323.  Sitta frontalis,, Horsf. The Velvet-fronted Blue Nuthatch.

Dendrophila frontalis (Horsf.), Jerd.  B. Ind. p. 388; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 253.

The Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, lays from the middle of February to the end of May.  It breeds in the forest-tracts of the Sub-Himalayan ranges, in the Central Indian forests, the Ghats of Southern India, and the well-wooded slopes of the Nilghiris, Palnis, &c.

It builds a compact little nest of moss and feathers in a tiny hole in a tree, selecting, I believe, generally a natural cavity, but certainly trimming the entrance and interior itself.