8 Mr. A. Hume on Indian Ornithology. 



materials that it is difficult to doubt that all derive their archi- 

 tecture from a common ancestor. 



The nest that we had just found was precisely like twenty 

 others that we had found during the past two months, — rather 

 deep^ with a nearly hemispherical cavity, very compactly and 

 firmly woven of fine grass, rags, feathers, soft twine, wool, and a 

 few fine twigs, the whole entwined exteriorly with plenty of 

 cobwebs, and the interior cavity, about 1"75 in. deep by 2'25 

 in diameter, neatly lined with very fine grass, one or two 

 horse-hairs, shreds of string, and one or two soft feathers. 

 The walls were a good inch in thickness. It was placed in 

 a fork of a thorny jujube, or ber-ti'ee {Zizyphus jujuha), near 

 the middle of the tree, and some fifteen feet from the ground. 

 It contained four fresh eggs, feebly coloured miniatures of the 

 eggs of Lanius lahtora, which latter so closely resemble those of 

 L. excuhitor that, if the eggs were mixed, they could never, I think, 

 be certainly separated again. The eggs exhibit the zone so cha- 

 racteristic of all Shrikes, and have a dull pale ground, not white ; 

 and yet it is difficult to say what colour it is that tinges it. In 

 these four eggs it is a yellowish stone-colour, but in others 

 greenish, and in some grey. Near the middle towards the large 

 end there is a broad and conspicuous, but broken and irregular 

 zone of feeble, more or less confluent, spots and small blotches of 

 pale yellowish-brown, and very pale, washed-out purple. There 

 are a few faint specks and spots of the same colour here and 

 there about the rest of the egg. In some eggs previously ob- 

 tained the zone is quite in the middle, and in others close round 

 the large end. In some the markings are clear and bright ; in 

 others they are as faint and feeble as one of our modern Man- 

 chester warranted-fast-colour muslins after its third visit to a 

 native washerman. In size, too, the eggs vary a good deal, 

 measuring from '75 in. to '906 in length, by from '562 to 'Q^7 

 in breadth. 



The little Shrike had a great mind to fight for \\h penates, and 

 twice made a vehement demonstration of attack ; but his heart 

 failed him, and he retreated to a neighbouring mango-branch, 

 whence a few minute^ after we saw him making short dashes 

 after his insect-prey, apparently oblivious of the domestic cala- 

 mity that had so recently befallen him. 



