The magpies were not at home that afternoon, and while waiting for them I caught sight of a bird among the foliage lower down the hill. At first I took this for a Himalayan whistling-thrush. I followed its movements through my field-glasses, and saw it alight on part of the gnarled and twisted trunk of a rhododendron tree. Closer inspection showed that the bird was a grey-winged ouzel. He had apparently caught sight of me, for his whole attitude was that of a suspicious bird with a nest in the vicinity. He remained motionless for several minutes. As I watched him a ray of sunlight penetrated the thick foliage and fell upon the part of the tree where he was standing, and revealed to me that he was on the edge of a cunningly-placed nest. The trunk of the rhododendron tree bifurcated about 20 feet above the ground; one limb grew nearly upright, the other almost horizontally for a few feet, and then broke up into five branches, or, rather, gave off four upwardly-directed branches, each as thick as a man's wrist, and then continued its horizontal direction, greatly diminished in size. The four upwardly-directed branches took various directions, each being considerably twisted, and one actually curling round its neighbour. At the junction of the various branches lay the nest, resting on the flat surface, much as a large, shallow pill-box might rest in the half-closed palm of the hand of a man whose fingers were rugged and twisted with years of hard toil. The upper part of the trunk was covered by a thick growth of green moss, and from it two or three ferns sprang. As the exterior of the nest consisted entirely of green moss, it blended perfectly with its surroundings. From below it could not possibly have been seen. When I caught sight of it I was standing above it at the top of the ravine, and even then I should probably have missed seeing it, had not that ray of sunlight fallen on the nest and imparted a golden tint to the fawn-coloured plumage of the nestlings which almost completely filled the nest cup. The situation of this nest may be said to be typical, although cases are on record of the nursery being placed on the ground at the root of a tree, or on the ledge of a rock. Many ouzels' nests are placed on the stumps of pollard trees, and in such cases the shoots which grow out of the stump often serve to hide the nest from view. The nests built by grey-winged ouzels vary considerably in structure. The commonest form is that of a massive cup, composed exteriorly of moss and lined with dry grass, a layer of mud being inserted between the moss and the grass lining. This mud layer does not invariably occur. The cock ouzel remained for fully five minutes with one eye on me, and then flew off. I seized the opportunity to approach nearer the nest, and took up a position on the hillside level with it, at a distance of about 14 feet.