Egutpoora in March. They certainly breed at these places, as in
September, at the latter place, W. observed two parent birds with four
young ones capable of flying out very short distances."

And Mr. Davidson further states that it is "common throughout the
district of Western Kandeish. I saw a pair building in the hole of a
large mango tree at Malpur in Pimpalnir in the end of May."

44. Lophophanes melanolophus (Vig.). _The Crested Black Tit_.

Lophophanes melanolophus (_Vig._) _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 273: _Hume,
Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 638.

The Crested Black Tit breeds throughout the Lower Himalayas west of
Nepal, at elevations of from 6000 to 8000 feet.

The breeding-season lasts from March to June, but the majority have
laid, I think, for the first hatch by the end of the first week in
April, unless the season has been a very backward one. They usually
rear two broods.

They build, so far as I know, always in holes, in trees, rocks, and
walls, preferentially in the latter. Their nests involve generally two
different kinds of work--the working up of the true nests on which the
eggs repose, and the preliminary closing in and making comfortable the
cavity in which the former is placed. For this latter work they use
almost exclusively moss. Sometimes very little filling-in is
required; sometimes the mass of moss used to level and close in an
awkward-shaped recess is surprisingly great. A pair breed every year
in a terrace-wall of my garden at Simla; elevation about 7800 feet.
One year they selected an opening a foot high and 6 inches wide, and
they closed up the whole of this, leaving an entrance not 2 inches in
diameter. Some years ago I disturbed them there, and found nearly half
a cubic foot of dry green moss. Now they build in a cavity behind one
of the stones, the entrance to which is barely an inch wide, and in
this, as far as I can see, they have no moss at all.

The nests are nothing but larger or smaller pads of closely felted
wool and fur; sometimes a little moss, and sometimes a little
vegetable down, is mingled in the moss, but the great body of the
material is always wool and fur. They vary very much in size: you
may meet with them fully 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches thick,
comparatively loosely and coarsely massed together; and you may meet
with them shallow saucers 3 inches in diameter and barely half an inch
in thickness anywhere, as closely felted as if manufactured by human
agency.