CEXTROCOCCYX. 



405 



of rivers and jheels ; breeds from June to September ; remains all 

 the year." 



Mr. Gates records the following note on the nidifieation of the 

 Burmese Coucal : — " August 24th. Nest 4 feet from the ground 

 in thick elephant-grass, to several stalks of which the nest was 

 attached. A domed structm-e 18 inches in height and 14 outside 

 diameter. The bottom, 4 inches thick, and the walls and roof very 

 strong but thin, and allowing everywhere of the fingers being 

 inserted. Composed entirely of the leaves of elephant-grass, the 

 living heads of the supporting stalks being bent down and incor- 

 porated with the structure to form the roof. Entrance oval, 

 about 6 by 4, with its lower edge about 2 inches above the egg- 

 chamber. Two eggs quite fresh, but the female incubating. 

 Colour pure white, the sliell very chalky and with very little gloss. 

 Eggs measured 1*4 by 1'18 and 1'36 by I'lo. 



" Juhj loth. — Xest in small bush-jungle in the centre of a dense 

 shrub, 10 feet from the ground. Contained tvvo young birds about 

 a week old, covered with porcupine-like quills and smelling most 

 atrociously. Nest made of dead leaves and grass, massive and 

 cyliudricai, about a foot long and 9 inches outside diameter. 



''August 2Gth. — Nest with three eggs, fresh, built near the top 

 of a tree about 20 feet from the ground. One of the eggs had 

 blood-vessels in the inner lining, showing that it had been slightly 

 incubated, whereas the other two were quite fresh. Dimensions : 

 1-4, 1-42, 1-4 in length, by 1-15, 1-12, 1-13 respectively in 

 breadth. 



" The above three nests were found near Pegu." 



The eggs of this species are typically broad ovals, sometimes, 

 however, rather more cylindrical, and occasionally slightly pyriform; 

 the shell is fine and compact, not chalky ; they are pure white, 

 entirely devoid of gloss when first laid, but, as in other species of 

 this family, as incubation proceeds the eggs get more or less 

 covered with yellow or brownish-yellow gummy stains, which have 

 more or less gloss. 



Centrococcyx maximus, Hume. Hume's Coucal. 

 Centrococcjx maximus, Hume ; Hume, Cat. no. 217 quint. 



Mr. Scrope Doig, writing from the E. Narra river, in Sind, 

 says: — "Got several nests of this species in July and August, 

 greatest number of eggs in one nest being three. All the nests, 

 except one, were built in tussocks of grass growing up in the 

 middle of either a kundy or tamarisk tree or bush. They were 

 domed at top with an aperture at the side, and were formed 

 entirely of the grass belonging to the tussock itself. The one in- 

 stance in which the nest was different was where the bird had 

 taken possession of an old nest of the White-breasted AVater-hen, 

 and out of which very nest I had, some twelve days previously, 



