THE OOLOGISTS' RECORD. 



Edited by KENNETH L. SKINNER. 



ALL REGHTS RESERVED. 



Vol. I-No. 2.] [June 1, 1921. 



OOLOGICAL NOTES ON SOME OF THE BREEDING 

 BIRDS OF PALESTINE. 



Hv (APT. C. R. S. Pitman, I.A., M.B.O.U. 



[Continued from p. 24.) 

 Ilippolais pallida claica. 



This is another Palestine species which prefers to lay a com- 

 paratively small clutch of Qgg?', and its breeding season lasts from 

 the first week in May until the about the middle of June. My first 

 eggs were found on the 8th May, and the last on the 25th June. 

 The former was a clutch of four eggs from a compact and strongly 

 built nest of fine grass and vegetable down, placed 4 feet above the 

 ground in the fork of a small eucalyptus sapling in a large grove. 

 I had watched this nest for some time, and after a certain stage it 

 appeared completed, and when day after day elapsed and no egg 

 appeared, I really thought the nest had been deserted. However, 

 this seems to be a regular characteristic of this species, and I have 

 frequently noted nests in all stages of construction left for a week 

 or more before any further addition was made to them, the longest 

 case I have on record being that of a nest which took more than 

 three weeks to complete, and both my Indian egg collectors and 

 myself had really given up the nest as abandoned. Laying is also 

 erratic, as sometimes a da}' or even two elapses between the laying 

 of eggs and this happened in the case of the first nest I found, the 

 clutch of four being laid over a period of six days. This Warbler 

 seems rather careful in its efforts to conceal the whereabouts of 

 its nest, and, in spite of being constantly in their breeding haunts 

 at all times of the day, I never saw them actually nest building, 

 and if birds are sitting on their nests, they quietly slip oi^" and 

 disappear when the human intruder is still quite a long way off. 

 As this was a trick practised by several of the Palestine grove 

 building birds I soon found out that this hurried departure, which 

 nearly always caught one's eye, was a sure indication of the where- 

 abouts of. a nest. WTien the ? was sitting, the J would usually 

 be concealed fairly high above the ground in a neighbouring tree 



A 



