From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes:—­“At page 178 of ’Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds’ (Rough Draft), Captain T. Hutton’s description of the nest and eggs of Hemipus picatus is given, and at page 179 that of Mr. W. Davison.  The two descriptions differ so radically that, as there remarked, one of the two must be in error.  Permit me to record my limited experience of the nesting of this bird.

“Common as it is in Sikhim I have but once taken its nest, and that in the first week of May, at 4000 feet elevation.  The nest, which is well described by Mr. Davison, is made of black, fibry roots, sparingly lined with fine grass-stalks, and covered outwardly with small pieces of lichens bound to the sides with cobwebs.  It is a very neat diminutive cup, measuring externally 1.9 inch across by an inch deep; internally 1.5 by half an inch.

“The whole nest, although quite a substantially built structure, is barely the eighth part of an ounce in weight.  It was placed on the upper side of a horizontal branch close to its broken end, about fifteen feet from the ground, and contained two fresh eggs.  I send you the nest and an egg, both of which will, I think, be found on comparison to agree exactly with those taken by Mr. Davison.”

Mr. Mandelli has sent me two nests of this species, found on the 15th August above Namtchu in Native Sikhim.  They were placed about two feet from each other, each in a small fork of the branches of a small tree which was situated in heavy forest.  Each contained two fresh eggs.  The nests are very similar, but one is rather larger and less tidily finished-off than the other.  Both are shallow cups, miniatures of some of the nests of Dicrurus, composed of excessively fine grass-stems, coated exteriorly all round the sides with cobwebs, and, in the case of one of them, plastered exteriorly with tiny films of bark and dry leaves like some of the nests of the Pericrocoti.  Both have a little soft silky vegetable down at the bottom of the cavity.  The one nest is about two inches, the other about two and a half inches in diameter exteriorly, and both are a little less than three quarters of an inch high outside.  The cavity in the one is about an inch and a half, in the other about an inch and three quarters in diameter, and both are about half an inch deep.

Eggs received from Sikhim are broad ovals, glossless, with greenish-white grounds, profusely speckled and mottled with slightly varying shades of brown, here and there intermingled with dull, pale inky purple.  The markings are densest generally round the broadest part of the egg.  They measured from 0.61 to 0.7 in length, and from 0.51 to 0.55 in breadth.

486.  Tephrodornis pelvicus (Hodgs.). The Nepal Wood-Shrike.

Tephrodornis pelvica (Hodgs.), Jerd.  B. Ind. i, p. 409; Hume. cat. no. 263.