TRATINCOLA. 45 



but have no recollection of seeing? birds before of the present 

 ftunily perform such antics. Tlie pair of birds whose nest I robbed 

 on the 1st A])ril in tlie bank of the jail compound commenced 

 buildiiip; a new nest a few days afterwards in the same hole, and 

 on the 15th inst. it contained a single egg. On revisiting it ou 

 the 17th inst. as usual I found it empty and deserted. On the 

 18th April I found another nest in a bank surrounding an open 

 field, containing four fresh eggs, and on the 19th anolher in a 

 hole in the bank of a quarry, containing three slightly incubatcul 

 eggs. I was surprised in many instances to notice tliat these birds 

 excavated the holes the nests were built in themselves, instead of 

 using holes already made, of which the banks were usually full. 

 Two more nests ou the 4th May containing five fresh and four 

 incubated eggs respectively, and a nest on the 2nd May containing 

 two fresh eggs." 



Mr. G. W. Vidal, in his ' List of the Birds of the South Konkan,' 

 remarks of this species : — " Very common inland and under the 

 Ghats in scrub-clad hill-sides. Less common on the coast. Breeds 

 in April." 



Prom the Deccan Messrs. Davidson and Wenden note : — 

 " Common, and breeds from April to July." 



Finally Mr, Oates, writing from Pegu, tells me : — " I have fre- 

 quently found the nest of this species in Pegu in April and May. 

 It is usually placed in a hole in the ground, the deep footprint of 

 a bullock serving the purpose very frequently; sometimes it is 

 placed on the ground under the shelter of a tuft of grass." 



I should note that in some parts of the country, thougli common 

 enough in the cold weather, it breeds very sparingly. This is the 

 case, for instance, in South Behar and Mirzapore, and even n)ore 

 so, I think, in Lower Bengal. Further detailing information, as to 

 where it does and does not breed freely, is much needed. 



The eggs are rather broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards one 

 end and fairly glossy. Somewhat spherical varieties, however, occur. 

 The ground-colour is a delicate pale bluish green, and they are 

 pretty finely speckled, mottled, and streaked with brownish' red. 

 The markings are always densest at the large end, where they 

 connnonly form a mottled irregular cap, or rarely a zone, while 

 towards the small end they are thin and sometimes altogether 

 wanting. There are two types of marking— the one comparatively 

 streaky and mottly, the other, which is the least common, speckly 

 and spotty. They are not unlike, whether in shape or colouring, 

 the eggs of the English Stonechat, but they are usually considerably 

 smaller, being scarcely, if at all, larger as a rule than those of the 

 Chiffchaff or the AVillow-AVren. 



They vary, howe\er, enormously in size — in length from 0-6 to 

 0-77, and in breadth from 0-44 to 0-64 ; but these extremes repre- 

 sent exceptional eggs, and the majority run near to what I found 

 the average of the iifty eggs measured to be, viz. 0-67 by 0-55. 



