02 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



The nest is a compact neat little cup, composed of fine twigs and 

 fibres, highly ornamented with bluish-grey lichens and small flakes 

 of bark, bound together with spider webs ; it is usually placed in 

 a slender fork, sometimes on a horizontal bough. The eggs, three 

 in number, are broadish oval in shape, measuring G'67 inches in 

 length by about 0'52 in breadth. In colour they are greenish or 

 pinkish-white, profusely marked with bright brownish-red spots 

 and blotches, with an occasional underlying spot of faint inky- 

 purple. 



277.— THE WHITE-BELLIED MINIVBT. 



Pericrocotus erythropygius, Jerd. 



The White^bellied Minivet is altogether absent from Sind, and 

 does not appear to have been recorded from Ratnagiri ; in most 

 other parts of the Presidency it occurs as a more or less rare 

 straggler. It is much more common in Khandesh, as the following 

 note by Mr. Davidson will show : — 



" This is the minivet of the barren scrub-jungle that grows on 

 the rocky hills in Khandesh and Nassick, and there this bird is very 

 common. I have noticed it also in the Satpooras. It breeds in 

 low bushes all through the scrub-jungle in July, August, and 

 September, laying invariably three eggs, long shaped, often olive 

 green, with longitudinal spots on them." 



The eggs in my collection, received from this gentleman, are 

 broadish oval in shape, and are very pale greenish-white in colour, 

 profusely streaked longitudinally with clayey-brown. 



278.— THE KING CROW. 



Buchauga alra, Herm. 



The King Crow, or Common Drongo Shrike, occurs throughout 

 the district; it is a permanent resident, breeding from May to August, 

 but nests are occasionally found both earlier and later. The nest is 

 usually placed in a fork of a tree at some height from the ground, 

 and is composed of grass stems and roots neatly and compactly 

 woven together, but so thin at the bottom that the contents are 

 easily seen from below. The eggs, four in number, are of three dis- 

 tinct types, the most common being pure white, with spots and specks 

 of reddish and blackish-brown ; another, almost as common, has 

 the ground colour a pale salmon, richly spotted and blotched with rich 

 brownish and purplish-red. The third type (which I have only mot 



