Nidification of Indian Birds. 219 



— have been found in holes in roadside cuttings. Nearly 

 every road in North Cachar has a straight bank o£ earth on 

 one side from which the soil has been cut away^ either to 

 form the road or to lower the level, and in these banks the 

 chestnut-headed Staphidia makes its nest. I have taken 

 them from natural hollows, such as are caused by the falling 

 out of a stone or decay of a large root, or from near the 

 entrance of deserted rat-. Kingfisher-, or Bee-eater-burrows, 

 Sometimes they will be found just inside rather large holes, 

 part of the material hanging out and proclaiming the presence 

 of the nest to any one who approaches within a few yards ; 

 at other times in some hole the entrance to which is com- 

 pletely screened from view by overhanging ferns, moss, or 

 weeds. Once I have found the nest amongst the roots of a 

 laurel- like shrub, and further protected by a large clod of 

 earth which lay above it ; another nest was taken from a hole 

 in a mud-wall, and two fi'om the steep banks of ravines. 



The nest is almost invariably made entirely of the very 

 softest shreds of grass and of a material which looks like 

 very silky jute, and is probably the inner bark of some tree ; 

 the lining is of the same material only. In a few nests I 

 have seen some dead leaves, a few dead brown plant-stems, 

 fern-roots, &c,, used generally only for the purpose of filling 

 up the gap between the nest itself and the entrance to the 

 hole, but occasionally for the groundwork of the nest itself, 

 and they were particularly numerous in the nest found in the 

 roots of the laurel. 



The nest is a very compact, well-built little structure, 

 with thick closely-woven walls. Outwardly there is prac- 

 tically no shape, this conforming to the hole in which it lies, 

 but the receptacle for the eggs may be said to average some 

 2" in diameter by rather less than 1" in depth. I have 

 taken nests as much as 9'''3 across the external diameter 

 and others well under 2"-b, and some are not more than 0"-o 

 in the centre of the depression. 



The ground-colour of the eggs is white, of a pearly or 

 china tinge, rarely tinted faintly with green, and yet even 

 more seldom with grey. The markings vary a good deal 



