The tree where I found the nest is, or rather was (for the whole hill-slope has been denuded for potatoe cultivation), situated on a steeply sloping hill facing the south, at an elevation of about 6500 feet.  The nest was about 50 feet from the ground, and placed on two side branches just where, about 6 inches apart, they shot out of the trunk.  The nest was just like a Crow’s—­a broad platform of sticks, but rather more neatly built, and with a number of green juniper twigs with a little moss and a good deal of grey lichen intermingled.  The nest was about 11 inches across and nearly 4 inches in external height.  There was a broad, shallow, central depression 5 or 6 inches in diameter and perhaps 2 inches in depth, of which an inch was filled in with a profuse lining of grass and fir-needles (the long ones of Pinus longifolia) and a little moss.  This was found on the 11th May, and the young, four in number, were sufficiently advanced to hop out to the ends of the bough and half-fly half-tumble into the neighbouring trees, when my man with much difficulty got up to the nest.

29.  Graculus eremita (Linn.). The Red-billed Chough.

Fregilus himalayanus, Gould, Jerd.  B.I. ii, p. 319.

Mr. Mandelli obtained three eggs of this species from Chumbi in Thibet; they were taken on the 8th of May from a nest under the eaves of a high wooden house.

Though larger than those of the European Chough, they resemble them so closely that there can be no doubt as to their authenticity.

In shape the eggs are moderately elongated ovals, very slightly compressed towards the small end.  The shell is tolerably fine and has a slight gloss.  The ground-colour is white with a faint creamy tinge, and the whole egg is profusely spotted and striated with a pale, somewhat yellowish brown and a very pale purplish grey.  The markings are most dense at the large end, and there, too, the largest streaks of the grey occur.

One egg measures 1.74 by 1.2.

Subfamily PARINAE.

31.  Parus atriceps, Horsf. The Indian Grey Tit.

Parus cinereus, Vieill, Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 278. 
Parus caesius, Tick., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 645.

The Indian Grey Tit breeds throughout the more wooded mountains of the Indian Empire, wherever these attain an altitude of 5000 feet, at elevations of from 4000 or 5000 to even (where the hills exceed this height) 9000 feet.

In the Himalayas the breeding-season extends from the end of March to the end of June, or even a little later, according to the season.  They have two broods—­the first clutch of eggs is generally laid in the last week of March or early in April; the second towards the end of May or during the first half of June.

In the Nilghiris they lay from February to May, and probably a second time in September or October.

The nests are placed in holes in banks, in walls of buildings or of terraced fields, in outhouses of dwellings or deserted huts and houses, and in holes in trees, and very frequently in those cut in some previous year for their own nests by Barbets and Woodpeckers.