332 LANIID^. 



note on the nidification of the Malabar Wood-Shrike : — " I took 

 the nest of this bird on April 13th, 1875. It was composed of 

 fine roots and fibres, neatly woven into a shallow cup-like nest, 

 secured to the fork of a horizontal bough and fixed in its place 

 with cobweb, and covered externally with lichen corresponding to 

 that on the bough. It measured 4-2 inches in diameter externally, 

 and 2-4 internally and '7 deep. Both parent birds were shot. 

 The eggs two in number, rather round, coloured white with faint 

 inky and brown spots." 



One of these eggs is a very regular oval, the shell fine but gloss- 

 less, the ground-colour white, with a faint greenish tinge ; round 

 the large end is a pretty conspicuous zone of black or blackish-brown 

 and pale inky purple spots and small blotches, and similar spots and 

 blotches of the same colour are somewhat sparsely scattered 

 over the rest of the surface of the egg. The egg measured 0-98 

 by 0-73. 



488. Tephrodornis pondicerianus (Gm.). TJie Common 

 Wood-Shrilce. 



Tephrodornis poncliceriana (Gm.), Jercl. B. Ind. i, p. 410; HumCy 

 Rough Draft N. 8f E. no. 265. 



The Common Wood-Shrike lays during the latter half of March 

 and April. This at least is, I think, the normal season, but Mr. 

 W. Blewitt found a nest at Hansee on the 2nd of June containing 

 two fresh eggs. 



I have only taken one nest myself (though I have had many 

 others sent me), and that was on the 2nd of April at Chundowah 

 in Jodpoor, Rajpootana. The nest was in the fork of a her tree 

 {ZizypTms jnjtiha), on a small horizontal bough, ab-)ut 5 feet from 

 the ground. It was a broad shallow cup, somewhat oval interiorly, 

 with the materials very compactly and closely put together. The 

 basal portion and framework of the sides consisted of very fine 

 sten}s of some herbaceous plant about the thickness of an ordinary 

 pin. It \^as lined with a little wool and a quantity of silky fibre ; 

 exteriorly it was bound round with a good deal of the same fibre 

 and pretty thickly felted with cobwebs. The egg-cavity measured 

 2-5 inches in diameter one way and only 2 the other way, while iu 

 depth it was barely •86. The exterior diameter of the nest was 

 about 4 inches and the height nearly 2 inches. It contained three 

 fresh eggs, of a slightly greyish-white ground, very thickly spotted 

 and speckled with yellowish brown, dark umber-brown, and a pale 

 washed-out inky-purple. In all, the spots were thickest in a zojie 

 round the large end, where they became more or less confluent. 

 I have, ho\A'ever, a large series of these nests, and taking them as 

 a whole, although much more massive, they remind one no little of 

 those of lildpidura alhlfroatatd and Terpsi2')lioiie imradisi and even 

 yI<J(/it7iina i'tphia. Th(>y are broad shallow cups, measuring internally 

 2^ inches across and about |- inch in depth. They are placed in a 



