NESTING IN WESTERN INDIA. 



According to Mr. Hume's Nestscmd Eggs &f Indian Birds, page 306> 

 they breed during April and May in boles in trees, making- a large 

 nest of leaves and twigs, lined with fine twigs, and laying three eggs 

 moderately broad oval in shape, a good deal pointed at one end, and 

 exhibiting a slight pyriform tendency. The shell, which has a slight 

 gloss, is fine and compact. The ground colour is dull greenish-stone 

 (but very little of it is visible), and it is everywhere very densely 

 freckled, in some rather streakily, with a rich, almost raw, sienna- 

 brown, in amongst which dull purplish markings are, when the egg is- 

 closely looked into, found to be thickly mingled. The combined effect, 

 when looked into at a little distance, is of a dense ruddy purplish- 

 brown mottling. 



The eggs vary from 0*87 to 0*9' inches in length, and from 0*6 to 0*62 

 in breadth. They are small for the size of the bird. As Mr. Hume 

 remarks, they remind one of some of the Lark's eggs. 



479.— THE INDIAN BLACK ROBIN. 



Thamnobia fuMccda, Lin. 



It is considered doubtful by many whether the Indian Black 

 Robin is distinct from the- Northern Indian Robin {Thamnobia cam- 

 laiensis, Lath.) It is hard at times to distinguish between them : typi- 

 cal specimens are of course widely different, but many intermediate 

 forms occur linking them together, but so long as the Black and 

 Painted Partridges, the Dark Ashy, and Stewards' Wren Warblers, 

 and many others are considered entitled to specific distinction, these 

 also must be retained. I cannot attempt to define the limits of each, 

 but generally speaking, typical fulicatw occurs in the south and cam- 

 baiensis in the north, but it is difficult, in fact impossible, to draw 

 any hard and fast line between them. 



They breed from April to the middle of July. The nest is a mere 

 pad composed of grass stems and roots,, vegetable fibres, cotton, moss, 

 &c, lined with hair and feathers^ and is placed in a hole in a wall or 

 bank, on ledges of rock, and occasionally between the roots of trees ; 

 very rarely is the nest placed in a bush ; in this latter case it is much 

 more neatly and compactly made, and is cup-shaped. 



The eggs, usually three in number, sometimes four, more rarely 

 only two, are moderately elongated ovals in shape, pinched in a little 



