PITTA. 



285 



wanting in some eggss, and inky inirple-bkick, or very nearly so in 

 nianv spots. 



Tiie eggs vary from 1 to 1-04 in length, and from U-bo to U-9 in 



breadth*. 



Pitta brachyura (Linn.). The LuUan I'itta. 



ieiigaleusis (Om.), Jerd. B. Ind. \, p. 503. 

 ;oronata {3IulL), Hume, Hough Draft N. S^- E. no. ; 



My friend Mr. F. E. Blewitt has taken a vast number of the 



eggs "of the Indian Pitta in the neighbourhood of Kaipur, Central 

 Provinces. The nests, three of which he sent me with the eggs, 

 were huge globular structures, fully inches in horizontal diaineter 

 and 6 inches high, with a circular aperture on one side. They 

 were composed internally of fine twigs, notably those of the 

 tamarisk, and grass-roots ; externally, of dry leaves, many of them 

 skeleton leaves, held in their places by a few roots or twigs. The 

 internal cavity may have been about 4 inches in diameter. The 

 nests were placed in brushwood and scrub jungle, either on the 

 ground or on low branches close to the ground. The nests were 

 taken in July and August. They also breed, I know (though I 

 could never find the nests), in the Doon and the northern parts of 

 llohilcund. Mr. E. Thompson remarks :— " As this_ bird comes lu 

 regularly about the first week in May, and remains in the Bhabur 

 till Julv or August, uttering its sweet call of two simple notes, I 

 am led'to think it breeds with us. What becomes of the bird at 

 other seasons I do not know.'' 



Few Indian eggs are more beautiful than those of this species. 

 In shape thev are excessively broad and regular ovals; some, 

 indeed, are almost spherical. They are excessively glossy, more so 

 than almost any other egg 1 know. The ground-colour is china- 

 white, sometimes faintly tinged with pink, sometimes creamy ; and 

 the eggs are speckled "and spotted with, and in some eggs also 

 painted with fine hair-like lines of deep maroon, dark purple, and 

 sometimes brownish purple, as primary markings, and pale inky 

 purple as secondary ones. The primary markings are scattered, 

 in some instances pretty thickly, in others very sparingly, over the 



* Pitta mec;aiuivxciia, Scbleg. Tlic Lanjer Bhte-win(jal Pitta. 

 Pitta megarhyncha, Schleg., Hume, Cat. no. 1545 ter. 



Mr J Darling found the nest of this Pitta at Tapraw iu the island of Tung- 

 kail not far south of Tenasserim. This was on the 17th April. The nest was 

 of tiie usual type, and contained no eggs. The female to which the nest belonged, 

 however, proved on examination to have a fully-formed egg within her. 



This egg is too broken to permit of its being measured or its shape correctly 

 described,''but it appears to have been a very broad short oval. The shell is 

 very fine, and though the egg was taken from the oviduct it is fairly glossy, so 

 that, laid in the natural wav, it would have probably been higlily glossy. The 

 ground is white, with a faint lilac tinge, and it is richly but not very thickly 

 streaked and marbled everywhere with dull maroon and pale mky purple. 



