NESTING IN WESTERN INDIA. 17 



purse-like shape, ccasionally almost globular, with the aperture near 

 the top, rarely cup-shaped. It is composed of fine grass, and is lined 

 with soft vegetable down. It is generally placed in a low thorny- 

 bush, not more than a foot or so from the ground. 



The effos, four or five in number, as often one as the other, are of 

 a slightly elongated oval shape, and are white in colour, thickly 

 spotted and speckled with dingy or purplish-red. In most eggs the 

 markings are densest at the larger end, where they not infrequently 

 form an irregular zone or cap. 



In length they measure about 062 inches by nearly 048 in breadth. 

 Deem, June and July. H. E. Barnes. 



Hydrabad, July and August. „ 



Neemuch, July to September. „ 



Dhulia, Khandeish, June to October. J. Davidson, C.S. 



553.— SYKES' TREE WARBLER. 



Hypolais rama, Sykes. 



Sykes' Tree Warbler occurs more or less commonly throughout 

 Western India, in most places only as a cold-weather visitor, but in 

 Sind it is a permanent resident. 



Mr. Doig found them breeding most abundantly from March to 

 July. He says (Stray Feathers, Vol. IX., p. 280) :— 



" Locally they are very numerous, as I collected upwards of 90 or 

 100 eggs in one field, about 8 acres in size. They build in stunted 

 tamarisk bushes, or rather in bushes of this kind, which were origin- 

 ally cut down to admit of cultivation being carried on and which 

 afterwards had again sprouted. These bushes are very dense, and in 

 their centre is situated the nest, composed of sedge, with a little soft 

 grass reed. The eggs are as a rule four in number, and are of a 

 dull white ground, with brown spots, the large end having as a rule 

 a ring round it of most delicate, fine, hair-like brown lines, some- 

 thing similar to the tracing to be seen on eggs of the Common Wren 

 Warbler (Drymceca inornata)." 



I found a nest containing young ones just hatched, and a few 

 fragments of shells, which I carefully preserved, in a small bush at 

 the foot of the Khojak, near Chaman, South Afghanistan. I did not 

 see the bird, and it was not until I received a clutch of eggs from 

 Mr. Doig, that I was able to fix the identity. 



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