Conostoma aemodium. _Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 10; _Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E._ no. 381.
A nest of the Red-billed Crow-Tit was sent me from Native Sikhim,
where it was found at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, in a cluster
of the small Ringal bamboo. It contained three eggs, two of which were
broken in blowing them.
The nest is a very regular and perfect hemisphere, both externally and
internally. It is very compactly made, externally of coarse grass and
strips of bamboo-leaves, and internally very thickly lined with stiff
but very fine grass-stems, about the thickness of an ordinary pin,
very carefully curved to the shape of the nest. The coarser exterior
grass appears to have been used when dry; but the fine grass, with
which the interior is so densely lined, is still green. It is the most
perfectly hemispherical nest I ever saw. Exteriorly it is exactly 6
inches in diameter and 3 in height; internally the cavity measures 4.5
in diameter and 2·25 in depth.
The egg is a regular moderately elongated oval, slightly compressed
towards the smaller end. The shell is fine and thin, and has only a
faint gloss. The ground-colour is a dull white, and it is sparsely
blotched, streaked, and smudged with pale yellowish brown, besides
which, about the large end, there are a number of small pale inky
purple spots and clouds, looking as if they were beneath the surface
of the shell.
The single egg preserved measures 1·11 by 0·8.
A nest sent me by Mr. Mandelli was found, he says, in May, in Native
Sikhim, in a cluster of Ringal (hill-bamboo) at an elevation of nearly
10,000 feet. It is a large, rather broad and shallow cup, the great
bulk of the nest composed of extremely fine hair-like grass-stems,
obviously used when green, and coated thinly exteriorly with coarse
blades of grass, giving the outside a ragged and untidy appearance.
The greatest external diameter is 5.5, the height 3·2, but the cavity
is 4·5 in diameter and 2.2 in depth, so that, though owing to the
fine material used throughout except in the outer coating the nest is
extremely firm and compact, it is not at all a massive-looking one.