UROLONCIIA. 137 



tracts, the latter the well-wooded and watered ones. I know of 

 no month in which in one place or another its eggs may not be 

 found. I have taken them myself in January, February, March, 

 and April, and again in July, August, and September. Mr. Theobald 

 obtained them also in May, October, and December ; Mr. K. M. 

 Adam in Xovember. They have certainly two broods, probably 

 more ; the great majority of nests will everywhere, I think, be 

 found from January to March and from July to September. 



formally, in fact nine times out of ten, they place their nests 

 in low, thick, thorny bushes, at heights of from 1 foot to 5 feet 

 from the ground ; but I have found them in the most out-of-the- 

 way situations — once in a hole in a wall, once in an old thatch, 

 several times in a haycock in my own ground, and once in amongst 

 some dry bushes stuck up as supports for, and almost covered with, 

 sweat j^eas. 



Typically the nest is large and globular, loosely put together of 

 fine and coarse grass, the latter predominating on the outside, the 

 former on the inside, and \a ith more or less of fine vegetable down 

 as a lining. But they are sometimes only partially covered over, 

 sometimes quite open above, and all kinds of odds and ends are 

 not unfrequently pressed into the service. I quote a few old notes 

 of nests made on the spot at the time of finding them : — 



" Took a nest near Etawah on the 22ik1 January, 1867. It w as 

 composed entirely of the flower-stems of the chireyan-l-i-chunne 

 (A(/rostis sp.), mixed here and there with a few tiny pieces of 

 cotton, a small flock or two of wool, one little piece of red cloth, 

 and a few very small pieces of coarse cotton fabric. It was 

 placed in a small bush of the jherberi {Zizi/2yhus nummularia) about 

 6 inches from the ground. It was open, broadly saucer-like, some 

 few of the elastic grass-stems of the sides overhanging the cavity 

 of the nest. It contained four pure white eggs." 



"A nest containing eight eggs, taken on the 26th January, 1867, 

 was a complete sphere ot soft grass with only a hole in the side. 

 It was pretty thickly lined with cotton wool, and contained one or 

 two small coloured rags. It was in a heens bush {Capparis 

 aphylla), with other nests, about 6 feet from the ground." 



'•'•January 2Sth. — In a her tree, about 10 feet from the ground, 

 the nest loosely made of the flowering-stalks of delicate grasses, 

 with a good deal of cotton and one greenish rag incorporated ; only 

 one egg." 



I have never taken more than eight eggs in any nest, and I have 

 never myself had any reason to believe that more than one pair 

 were concerned in the construction or equipment of any nest I 

 ever met with ; but it will be seen that two pairs do sometimes 

 combine to build and till a single nest. 



Mr. W. Theobald makes the following note of this bird's 

 breeding in the neighbourhood of Find Dadan Khan and Katas in 

 the Salt Range : — " Lay in the months of May, August, September, 

 October, and December. Eggs twelve and thirteen ( = twenty- 

 five) in number, ovato-pyriform, measuring from 0*59 to 0-61 in 



