Paradoxornis ruficeps, _Bl., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 5.
Mr. Gammie writes from Sikhim:--"In May, at 2000 feet elevation, I
took a nest of this bird, which appears to have been rarely, if ever,
taken by any European, and is not described in your Rough Draft of
'Nests and Eggs.' It was seated among, and fastened to, the spray of
a bamboo near its top, and is a deep, compactly built cap, measuring
externally 3·5 inches wide and the same in depth; internally 2·7 wide
by 1·9 deep. The material used is particularly clean and new-looking,
and has none of the secondhand appearance of much of the
building-stuffs of many birds. The outer layer is of strips torn off
large grass-stalks and a very few cobwebs; the lining, of fine fibrous
strips, or rather threads, of bamboo-stems. There were three eggs,
which were ready for hatching-off. They averaged 0·83 in. by 0·63 in.
I send you the nest and two of the eggs.
"Both Jerdon and Tickell say they found this bird feeding on grain
and other seeds, but those I examined had all confined their diet to
different sorts of insects, such as would be found about the
flowers of bamboo, buckwheat, &c. Probably they do eat a few seeds
occasionally, but their principal food is certainly insects.
Very usually, in winter especially, they feed in company with
_Gampsorhynchus rufulus_. Rather curious that the two Red-heads should
affect each other's society."
The eggs are broad ovals, rather cylindrical, very blunt at both ends.
The shell fine, with a slight gloss. The ground is white, and it
is rather thinly and irregularly spotted, blotched, and smeared in
patches with a dingy yellowish brown, chiefly about the larger end, to
which also are nearly confined the secondary markings, which are pale
greyish lilac or purplish grey.