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various thorny accacias appearing to be the favourite material, 
lined or intermingled with, rags, leaves, tow, &c. The birds 
are perfectly fearless, breeding as freely on single stunted trees, 
situated in the densest populated bazars, or most crowded grain 
markets, as on the noblest tree in the open fields. The great 
majority breed in the suburbs of the towns and villages, the 
offal of which supplies their daily food, but single nests may be 
found far away from human habitations, in almost virgin 
jungle. 
Two, appears to be the normal number of the eggs, but they 
often lay three. Twice I have obtained four, and on several 
occasions, I have met with a single hard-set egg, or young one, 
in a nest. 
When robbed of their eggs, the old birds as a rule mope 
about the place without laying more eggs, or attempting to 
build a fresh nest, but I have known several instances, in which 
more eggs were laid in the same nest, and one in which an 
entirely new nest was constructed by the old birds in an adjoin- 
ing tree, in which a single egg was laid and hatched. 
As regards the eggs themselves, the countless varieties of 
types of coloration which they exhibit, defy description. I 
have before me now specimens absolutely devoid of any trace of 
colour which might well stand for gigantic specimens of Po/ior- 
nis Teesa, but these of course are very exceptional; I have only 
two such in a series of several hundred. The ground colour is 
almost invariably a pale greenish or greyish white, more or less 
blotched, clouded, mottled, streaked, pen-lined, spotted or speck- 
led with various shades of brown and red from a pale butly 
brown to purple, and from blood-red to earth brown. Many of 
the eggs are excessively handsome, having the boldest hierogly- 
phics, blotched in blood-red, on a clear white or pale green 
ground, Others again are covered with delicate markings, as 
if etched on them with a crow quill, but no doubt, the markings 
in the majority, are more or less smudgy, and but dingily 
coloured. In some few, the ground colour is a dull mottled 
purple, clouded over with deeper shades of purplish brown. 
Compared with many other species, the eggs do not vary so 
very much, in size or shape; they are normally, a very perfect 
oval, scarcely more compressed at one end than at the other, but 
elongated, pointed, spherical and pyriform varieties occur. The 
color of the shells, when held up to the light, varies a good deal, 
in some it is as ight a green as Circactus Gallicus, in others, as 
deep as in Haliactus Leucoryphus. I may here note, that Dr. 
Bree’s figure of the egg of the Arabian Hite, correctly enough 
represents one common variety of the eggs of Iileus Govinda. 
