Spizixus canifrons, _Bl., Hume, cat._ no. 453 bis.
Colonel Godwin-Austen says:--"_Spizixus canifrons_ breeds in the
neighbourhood of Shillong, in May. Young birds are seen in June."[A]
[Footnote A: TRACHYCOMUS OCHROCEPHALUS (Gm.). _The Yellow-crowned
Bulbul_.
Trachycomus ochrocephalus (_Gm.), Hume, cat._ no. 449 bis.
As this bird occurs in Tenasserim, the following description of the
nest and eggs found a short distance outside our limits will prove
interesting.
Mr. J. Darling, Junior, writes:--"I found the nest of this bird on the
2nd July at Kossoom. The nest was of the ordinary Bulbul type, but
much larger, and like a very shallow saucer. The foundation was a
single piece of some creeping orchid, 3 feet long, coiled round; then
a lot of coils of fern, grass, and moss-roots. The nest was 4 inches
in diameter on the inside, the walls 1/4 inch thick, and the cavity 1
inch deep. It was built 10 feet from the ground, in a bush in a very
exposed position, and exactly where any ordinary Bulbul would have
built."
The eggs of this species are of the ordinary Bulbul type, rather broad
at the large end, compressed and slightly pyriform, or more or less
pointed, towards the small end. The shell fine and smooth, but with
only a moderate amount of gloss. The ground-colour varies from very
pale pinky white to a rich warm salmon-pink. The markings are two
colours: first, a red varying from a dull brownish to almost crimson;
the second, a paler colour varying from neutral tint through purplish
grey to a full though pale purple. The first may be called the primary
markings; the others, which seem to be somewhat beneath the surface of
the shell, the secondary ones. Varying as both do in _different_ eggs,
all the primary markings of any one egg are almost precisely the same
shade; and the same is the case with the secondary ones, and there is
always a distinct harmony between both these and the ground tint. As
for the markings, they are generally much the most dense, in a more or
less confluent mottled cap, round one end, generally the largest, and
are usually more or less thinly set elsewhere. In some eggs all the
markings are rather coarse and sparse, in others fine and more thickly
set. Two eggs measured 1·06 by 0·76 and 1·03 by 0·73.]