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foot of a tuft of grass; on every other occasion, I have found 
them on a ledge, in the perpendicular bank of a ravine, 
generally by the canal and, without exception, on the left bank 
facing the west. It lays four, very round, pure white eggs, 
slightly hollowing the ground to receive them, but making no 
attempt at a nest or even a lining to the hole. I have always 
found the nest close to water. 
“I found two fresh eggs, on 16th December. 
55 four set eggs, », ord April. 
5 two fresh eggs, » 21st March. 
$5 two young birds, », ord April. 
a four fresh eggs, », 16th April. 
By two fresh eggs », 28th March. 
a four half-fledged young ,, 26th March. 
“The birds keep close to water as a rule, and the male bird 
seldom wanders far when the female is sitting; they seldom 
perch on trees, and, during the breeding season, the male bird 
may be seen sitting on the top of the bank, somewhere near 
the nest, at all hours of the day. They are rather shy birds, 
and leave the nest at once, if approached.” 
Capt. Hutton remarks, that this species is “ common along 
the foot of the hills in the Doon; I have had the young ones 
in March from a hole in a steep bank of a ravine, at Rajpur ; in 
April also a man brought word, that he had found a nest, with 
nothing in it, but it was only just completed; waited fora 
fortnight, and sent a man to bring the eggs, but it again proved 
blank. The bird ascends sometimes in the summer to 5,500 
feet.” 
Capt. Cock says, ‘‘ Coming home on the 17th March, at Dhur- 
umsalla, I took a nest of <Ascalaphia Bengalensis with eggs. I 
shot the old bird. The nest was in a little cave in the face of 
a steep precipice full of little bones of rats and mice, one or two 
feathers, and only a slight depression in the sandy floor. Eggs 
hard set.” - 
Mr. Blyth remarked in the Ibis for 1866, that the Indian 
species is “ distinct from A. Ascalaphus, though closely approx- 
imating to that species. Dr. Jerdon omits to give the colouring 
of the irides, which are of a redder and deeper flame-yellow than 
those of a specimen of A. Ascalaphus at present in the Zoolo- 
gical Gardens.” 
Of the nidification of A. Ascalaphus (Savigni Tem.,) I quote 
the following from a paper of Baron Warthausen, which 
appeared in the Ibis for 1860. “ This species has been observed 
by Heuglin in Upper Egypt and Nubia in pairs and im small 
