Nidification of Indian Birds. 43 



Both tlie above-mentioned nests are slightly larger than 

 mostj but the proportions are all equally above the average. 

 Gammie's description of the nest of Scceorhynchus ruficeps, 

 in which he says, " The material used is particularly clean 

 and new-looking, and has not the second-hand appearance of 

 so much of the building-stuffs of many birds,'' is also very 

 applicable to this bird's nest, and, indeed, all the nests of 

 this bird, Scaorhynchus ruficeps, and S. gularis seem to be 

 of the same style and character. I must now have taken 

 over a dozen nests of each kind. 



Fully three nests out of four are built in bamboo-clumps 

 at heights varying from four to eight feet, and generally in 

 some thick cluster of twigs well on the outside of the clumps. 

 Less often it may be found on a small sapling, or even on a 

 dead branch of some small tree, but wherever it is there 

 appears to be not the slightest attempt by the bird at con- 

 cealment, and the nest is often very conspicuous from some 

 distance. It is never, I believe, built in thick jungle, but 

 generally in thin scrub or bamboo-jungle, more seldom in 

 thin tree-forest. 



One clutch of three eggs are in colour a very pale greenish 

 white, so faintly tinged with green that they appear white 

 unless placed against some egg or other article which is 

 really so. The markings consist of spots, varying in size 

 from small specks or freckles to large irregular blotches, of a 

 pale olive or umber-brown, with a few secondary small dots 

 of pale lavender. These last are principally confined to a 

 ring about the larger end, but the others are irregularly 

 scattered over the whole egg. In the centre of some of the 

 larger pale patches, and also elsewhere, are a few very fine 

 twisted and tangled lines of dark amber. 



Other eggs vary only in having the ground-colour a 

 brownish or yellowish white. One rather abnormal clutch 

 of two eggs are white, w4th a very few faint specks of pinkish 

 brown disposed in an indistinct ring round the extremity of 

 the larger half. 



In shape they are regular ovals, though not quite so regular 

 as those of the genus Scoiorhynchus. The texture is fairly 



