Captain Cock writes to me:—­“I have taken numbers of nests of this bird in Cashmere and in and about the hill-station of Murree.  They commence breeding in May and have finished by July.  The nests are placed under roots of trees, in crevices of trees, between large stems, and a favourite locality is, where the road has a stone embankment to support it, between the stones.  The nest is globular, made of moss, and the number of eggs is four.  I have often caught the old bird on the nest.  The nests are easy to find, as the birds are very noisy and demonstrative when any one is near their nests.”

Colonel C.H.T.  Marshall also very kindly gives me the following most interesting note on the nidification of this species in the vicinity of Murree.  He says:—­

“This little Willow-Warbler, so far as my own experience goes, always prefers a pretty high elevation for breeding.  Out of the dozen nests found by Captain Cock and myself in the neighbourhood of Murree, none were at an elevation of less than 6500 feet above the sea; and my shikaree, who was always on the look out for me in the lower ranges, never came across the nest of this species.

“The nest is generally placed in holes at the foot of the large spruce firs.  It is a difficult nest to find, as the bird selects holes into which the hand will not go, and outside there are no signs of there being any nest within.

“The cock bird spends most of his time at the tops of trees, coming down at intervals.  The only chance of success in taking the eggs is to watch carefully any that may be flying low in the bushes, until they disappear cautiously into the holes where they are breeding.  I should mention that we have also found some nests in the rough stone walls on the hill road-sides.

“The nest is as neatly and carefully built as if it had to be exposed on the branch of a tree.  It is globular in shape, made of moss, and lined with feathers.  The eggs are pure white.  They apparently rear two broods in the year.  In the first nest, which we found under the root of an old spruce-fir on the 17th May, the eggs were quite hard-set; and I may remark that immediately over this nest, about 8 feet up the tree in a crack in the wood, a little Muscicapula superciliaris was sitting on five eggs.  Later at the end of June we found fresh eggs in several nests.  The eggs in our collection were all taken between the 17th May and the 10th July.”

They do not always, however, select such situations as those referred to in the above accounts.  Sir E.C.  Buck, C.S., says:—­“I found a nest on 11th June in the roof of Major Batchelor’s bungalow at Nachar, in the Sutlej Valley; it contained young birds.  I was not allowed to disturb the nest, which was composed externally of moss.  I noticed a second half-made nest near the other.”

The eggs of this species are, as might be expected, somewhat larger than those of P. humii, and they are of a different character, being spotless, white, and slightly glossy.  In shape the eggs vary from a nearly perfect, moderately elongated oval to a slightly pyriform shape, broad at the large end, and a good deal compressed and somewhat pointed towards the small end (vide the representation of the eggs of Ruticilla tithys in Hewitson’s work).