342.  Certhia hodgsoni, Brooks. Hodgson’s Tree-Creeper.

Certhia hodgsoni, Brooks, Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 243 bis.

Hodgson’s Tree-Creeper is the supposed C. familiaris obtained by Dr. Jerdon in Cashmir, of which he gave me two specimens.

Mr. Brooks says:—­“It was seen at Gulmurg and also at Sonamurg, where Captain Cock took a few nests.  The egg is much more densely spotted than that of the English Creeper, so as almost to hide the reddish-white ground-colour.  Size 0.59 to 0.65 inch long by 0.48 inch broad; time of laying, the first week in June.”

The egg is of smooth texture, without gloss, of a purplish-white ground-colour, and fully spotted all over with light brownish red, especially at the larger end.  Numerous spots of reddish grey or pale inky purple are intermingled with red ones.

In shape the egg varies from a somewhat elongated oval, more or less compressed towards the smaller end, to a comparatively broad oval, also slightly compressed towards the latter end.  In all the eggs that I have seen, the markings were more or less confluent towards the large end.  Their dimensions are correctly recorded by Mr. Brooks.

347.  Salpornis spilonota (Frankl.). The Spotted-Grey Creeper.

Salpornis spilonota (Frankl.), Jerd.  B.I. i, p. 382.

Mr. Cleveland found a nest of this species at Hattin, in the Gurgaon district, on the 16th April.  The nest was placed on a large ber-tree in a patch of preserved jungle, at a height of about 10 feet from the ground.  It was cup-shaped, placed on the upper surface of a horizontal bough at the angle formed between this and a vertical shoot, to which it was attached on one side, the other three sides being free.  The nest itself is unlike any other that I have seen.  It is composed entirely of bits of leaf-stalks, tiny bits of leaves, chips of bark, the dung of caterpillars, all cemented together everywhere with cobwebs, so that the whole nest is a firm but yet soft and elastic mass.  The nest is cup-shaped, but oval and not circular; its exterior diameters are 4 and 3 inches respectively; its greatest height 2 inches; the cavity measures 2.6 by 2.2, and 1.1 in depth.

The texture of the nest, as I have already said, is extremely peculiar; it is extremely strong, and though pulled off the bough on which it rested and the off-shoot to which it was attached, is as perfect apparently as the day it was found, bearing on the lower surface an exact cast of the inequalities of the bark on which it rested; but it is soft, yielding, and flabby in the hand, almost as much so as if it was jelly.  The nest contained two almost full-grown nestlings and one addled egg.

This egg is a very regular oval, slightly broader at one end, the shell fine and fairly glossy; the ground-colour is pale greenish white; round the large end there is an irregular imperfect zone of blackish-brown specks and tiny spots, and round about these is more or less of a brown nimbus, and over the rest of the egg a very few specks and spots of blackish, dusky, and pale brown are scattered.  It measures 0.68 by 0.53.