172 CRATEROPODIDtE. 



Mr. E. M. Adam informs us that this bird breeds at 8ambhur 

 during June aud July. 



Lieut, H. E. Barnes, speaking of Rajputana in general, states that 

 this Bulbul breeds from April to September. JVests are occasion- 

 ally found even earlier than this, but they ai"e exceptions to the 

 general rule. 



Major G. T. Bingham writes : — " The first nest I have a note 

 of taking was at Allahabad on the 2nd April. At Delhi it breeds 

 from the end of April to the end of July ; 1 have, however, found 

 most nests in May. All have been tirmly made little cups of slender 

 twigs, sometimes dry stems of some herbaceous plant, and lined 

 with fine grass-roots. Five is the usual number of eggs laid," 



Mr. Gr. W. Vidal, writing of the South Koukan, says : — "Abun- 

 dant everywhere. Breeds in April, and again in September." 



Dr. Jerdon, whose experience of this species bad been gained 

 mainly in Madras, states that " it breeds from June to September, 

 according to the locality. The nest is rather neat, cup-shaped, 

 made of roots and grass, lined with hair, fibres, and spiders' webs *, 

 placed at no great height in a shrub or hedge. The eggs are pale 

 pinkish, with spots of darker lake-red, most crowded at the thick 

 end. Burgess describes them as a rich madder colour, spotted and 

 blotched with grey and madder-brown : Layard as pale cream, 

 with darker markings." 



Mr. Benjamin Aitken writes : — " The Common Bulbul lays at 

 Khandalla in May, but I never found a nest in the plains till after 

 the rains had set in. I have fouud one nest in Bombay, one in 

 Poona, and two in Berar, as late as October ; and my brother 

 found a nest in Berar in September, with three eggs which were 

 duly hatched." 



Writing from the Nilghiris, MissCockburn says that " the nests, 

 which in shape closely resemble those of the Southern Eed-whiskered 

 Bulbul, are composed chiefly of grass. The eggs are three in 

 number, and may occasionally be found in any month of the year, 

 though most plentiful during February, March, and April." 



In shape the eggs are typically rather long ovals, slightly com- 

 pressed or pointed towards the small end. Some are a good deal 

 pointed and elongated ; a few are tolerably perfect broad o\ als, and 

 abnormal shapes are not very uncommon. The ground is univer- 

 sally pinkish or reddish white (in old eggs which have been kept a 

 long time a sort of dull French white), of which more or less is 

 seen according to the extent of the markings. These markings 

 take almost every conceivable form, defined and undefined — specks, 

 spots, blotches, streaks, smudges, and clouds ; their combinations 

 are as varied as their colours, which embrace every shade of red, 

 brownish, and purplish red. As a rule, besides the primary 

 markings, feeble secondary markings of pale inky purple are 

 exhibited, often only perceptible when the egg is closely examined, 

 sometimes so numerous as to give the ground-colour of the egg a 



* This is some lapsus pcmia: SjDiders' webs are sometimes used exteriorly, 

 never as a lining. 



