L70 CEATEBOPOBID.^. 



uorthwards throughout the Central Proviuces, Chota-Nagpoor, 

 Eajpootaua (the eastern portious), the plains of the North- Western 

 Provinces, Oadh, Behar, and Western Bengal, breeds in the 

 plains country chiefly in June and July, although a few eggs may 

 also be found in April, May, and August. In the Nilghiris the 

 breeding-season is from Pebruai-y to April, both months included. 

 Elsewhere I have recorded the following notes on the nidification 

 of this species in the neighbourhood of Bareilly : — 



" Close to the tank is a thick clump of sal-trees {Uliorea robusta), 

 the great building-timber of Northern India, whose natural home 

 is in that vast sub-Himalayan belt of forest which passes only 'SO 

 miles to the north of Bareilly. 



" In one of these a Common Madras Bulbul had made its home. 

 The nest was compact and rather massive, built in a fork, on and 

 round a small t\\ig. Externally it was composed of the stems 

 (\\ith the leaves and flowers still on them) of a tiny groundsel- 

 like {tSenecio) asteraceous plant, amongst which were mingled a 

 number of quite dead and skeleton leaves and a few blades of dry 

 grass : inside, rather coarse grass was tightly woven into a lining 

 for the cavity, which was deep, being about 2 inches in depth by 

 3 inches in diameter. 



" This is the common type of nest ; but half an hour later, and 

 scarcely 100 yards further on, we took another nest of this same 

 species. This one was built in a mango-tree, towards the extre- 

 mity of one of the branches, where it divided into four upright 

 twigs, between which the Bulbul had firmly planted his dwelling. 

 Externally it was as usual chiefly composed of the withered stems 

 of the little asteraceous plant, interwoven with a iew jhow-shoots 

 (Tamariv dioica) and a little tow-like fibre of the putsan (llibiscus 

 cannabiniis), while a good deal of cob\\ eb was applied externally 

 here and there. The interior was lined with excessively flne stems 

 of some herbaceous exogenous plant, and there did not appear to 

 be a single dead leaf or a siugle particle of grass in the whole 

 nest. 



" The eggs, however, in both nests, three in each, closely resem- 

 bled each other, being of a delicate pink ground, with reddish-brown 

 and purplish-grey spots and blotches nearly equally distributed 

 over the w hole surface of the egg, the reddish brown in places be- 

 coming aluiost a maroon-red. Two eggs, however, that we took 

 out of a nest, similar to the first in structure but situated like the 

 second in a mango-tree, were of a somewhat different character 

 and very different in tint. The ground was dingy reddish piuk, 

 and the whole of the egg was thickly mottled all o\er with very 

 deep blood-red, the mottlings beiug so thick at the large end as to 

 form an almost perfectly confluent cap. Altogether the colouring 

 of these two eggs remiuded one of richly coloured types of 

 Neophro)iS eggs. Some of the Bulbuls' eggs that we have taken 

 earlier in the season were much feebler coloured than any of 

 those obtained to-day, and presented a very different appearance, 

 with a pinkish-whito ground, and only moderately thickly but very 



