[Footnote A: SITTA TEPHRONOTA, Sharpe. The Eastern Rock-Nuthatch
Sitta neumayeri, Mich., Hume, cat. no. 248 quint.
The Eastern Rock-Nuthatch is abundant in Baluchistan, and without doubt breeds there. The following note by Lieut. H.E. Barnes will therefore be interesting. He writes from Afghanistan:—"This Nuthatch is very common on the hills. It appears to choose very different localities to build in. In some instances a hole in the face of a rock is selected, and this it lines with agglutinated mud and resin, continuing the lining-case until it, projects in the shape of a cone to fully 8 inches. It seems fond of decorating its little palace with feathers to a distance of 2 or even 3 feet, and it is thus a conspicuous object; but most nests are found in holes in trees, and even here feathers are stuck into crevices all around. They are usually well lined with camel-hair.
"They breed in March and April. The eggs are usually four in number (I have sometimes found five), oval in shape, more or less glossy white, and more or less densely or sparsely (generally most densely towards the large end) spotted and blotched with varying shades of chestnut to reddish brown, more or less intermingled with pale purple and occasionally purplish grey. Some eggs are very richly marked. Some are almost pure white. They average 0·87 by 0·57."
The eggs of this species are typically moderately broad ovals, slightly pointed towards the small end, but elongated and more or less blunt-ended pyriform examples occur. The shell is extremely fine and smooth, but has only moderate amount of gloss in any specimen that I have seen and in some specimens has only a trace of this. The ground colour is pure white, and the eggs are generally thinly speckled, spotted, or blotched, about the broad end only, with a pale red; occasionally a few greyish-purple spots and blotches are intermingled with the other markings, and specks and tiny spots of both red and grey sometimes extend to the smaller end of the egg also. I have seen no such examples myself, but very probably in some eggs the principal markings may be at the small end. Eighteen eggs vary from 0·81 to 0·91 in length by 0·61 to 0·69 in breadth.]
323. Sitta leucopsis, Gould. The White-cheeked Nuthatch.
Sitta leucopsis, Gould, Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 385; Hume, Rough Draft
N. & E. no. 249.
Captain Cock took the eggs of the White-cheeked Nuthatch late in May and early in June (1871) in Kashmir at Sonamurg.
Captain Wardlaw Ramsay says, writing of Afghanistan:—"I observed it hanging about a nest-hole on the 21st May, but on returning to take the eggs some days later was unable to find the tree:" and he adds, "On the 21st of June I shot a young bird just fledged near the Peiwar Kotul."
The eggs of this species vary somewhat in size. In shape some are moderately elongated, some are somewhat broad ovals, and all are, more or less, compressed towards the smaller end, which, however, is obtuse and not at all pointed. The ground is white and has a slight gloss. The markings consist of small spots and minute specks, some eggs exhibiting only the latter. In all cases the markings are most dense towards the large end, where they generally form an irregular and ill-defined mottled cap or zone. In colour the markings are red and pale purple, the red varying from bright brickdust-red to brownish and even purplish red, and the purple being sometimes lilac and sometimes grey, and here and there in a single speck, almost black. In length the eggs vary from 0·67 to 0·75 inch, and in breadth from 0·5 to 0·55 inch.