Captain Cock says:—"I found a nest in the stump of an old chestnut-tree at Murree. The nest was about 13 feet from the ground near the top of the stump, placed in a natural cavity: it was constructed of fine grass and roots carefully woven and was of a deep cup shape. It contained five fully fledged young ones. The end of May was the time when I found this, and I have never yet succeeded in finding another."
261. Psaroglossa spiloptera (Vigors). The Spotted-wing.
Saroglossa spiloptera (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 336; Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E. no. 691.
Personally I know nothing of the nidification of the Spotted-wing.
Captain Hutton tells us that "this species arrives in the hills about the middle of April in small parties of five or six, but it does not appear to ascend above 5500 to 6000 feet, and is therefore more properly an inhabitant of the warm valleys. I do not remember seeing it at Mussoorie, which is 6500 to 7000 feet, although at 5200 feet on the same range it is abundant during summer. Its notes and flight are very much those of the Starling (Sturnus vulgaris), and it delights to take a short and rapid flight and return twittering to perch on the very summit of the forest trees. I have never seen it on the ground, and its food appears to consist of berries.
"Like the two species of Acridotheres, it nidificates by itself in the holes of trees, lining the cavity with bits of leaves. The eggs are usually three, or sometimes four or five, of a delicate pale sea-green speckled with blood-like stains, which sometimes tend to form a ring near the larger end; shape oval, slightly tapering."
The eggs are so different in character from those of all the Starlings that doubts might reasonably arise as to whether this species is placed exactly where it ought to be by Jerdon and others. I possess at present only three eggs of this bird, which I owe to Captain Hutton. They are decidedly long ovals, much pointed towards the small end, and in shape and coloration not a little recall those of Myiophoneus temmincki. The eggs are glossless, of a greenish or greyish-white ground, more or less profusely speckled and spotted with red, reddish brown, and dingy purple. In two of the eggs the majority of the markings are gathered into a broad irregular speckled zone round the large end. In the third egg there is just a trace of such a zone and no markings at all elsewhere. In length they vary from 1·03 to 1·08, and in breadth from 0·68 to 0·74.[A]
[Footnote A: HYPOCOLIUS AMPELINUS, Bonap. The Grey Hypocolius.
Hypocolius ampelinus, Bp., Hume, cat. no. 269 quat.
Although this bird has not yet been found breeding within Indian limits, the following account of its nidification at Fao, in the Persian Gulf, by Mr. W.D. Cumming (Ibis, 1886. p. 478) will prove interesting:—
"It is not till the middle of June that they breed.