Another egg of the same clutch was less richly coloured, the markings being merely brown, with scarcely a perceptible reddish tinge, and dull mostly inky, but here and there somewhat reddish, purple.  The markings, too, were fewer in number, but there was a more marked tendency for these to form a zone about the larger end.

In another clutch the markings were almost entirely confined to a dense zone round the larger end about a third of the way up from the middle of the egg.  In this zone they were so densely set as to be quite confluent, and they consisted of yellowish brown and inky purple.

Mr. J.R.  Cripps found the nest of this Minivet in the Bhaman tea-garden, in the Dibrugarh District of Assam, on the 31st May, 1879.  The nest contained three eggs, and was placed on the upper side of a large lateral branch of a tree that grew on the main garden road, about 15 feet from the ground.

Seven eggs of this bird vary in length from 0.75 to 0.86, and in breadth from 0.58 to 0.6.

500.  Pericrocotus peregrinus (Linn.). The Small Minivet.

Pericrocotus peregrinus (Linn), Jerd.  B. Ind. i, p. 423; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 276.

Our Small Minivet lays during the latter half of June (as soon, in fact, as the rains set in), and throughout July and August.  I believe it breeds pretty well all over India and Burma.

The nest is small and neat, and done up generally like a Chaffinch’s, to resemble the bark of the tree on which it is placed.

The nests that I have seen have been invariably placed at a considerable height from the ground in the fork of a branch, most commonly, I think, a mango-tree, though I have occasionally noticed them in other trees.

The nest is a small moderately deep cup, with an internal cavity about 1.7 inch to 1.9 in diameter, and nearly an inch in depth.  The sides of the nest are about 3/8 inch thick, and the thickness of the bottom of the nest varies according to the shape of the fork chosen, whether obtuse or acute-angled.  In the former case the bottom of the nest is sometimes not above 1/4 inch in depth.  In the latter case, it is sometimes as much as an inch in thickness.  It is composed of very fine, needle-like twigs (with at times here and there a few feathers) carefully bound together externally with cobwebs, and coated with small pieces of bark or dead leaves, or both, so that looked at from below with the naked eye it is impossible to distinguish it from one of the many little excrescences so common, especially on mango-trees.  There appears to be rarely any regular lining, a very little down and cobwebs forming the only bed for the eggs, and even this is often wanting.  Sometimes a few tiny dead leaves or a little lichen will be found incorporated in the nest, and occasionally, but rarely, fine grass-stems take the place of very slender twigs.