Bh'ds'-nestintj in and around Lucknoio. 185 



XVI. — Birds' -nesting in and around Lucknoio. 

 By William Jesse, La Martiniere College, Lucknow, Oude, 



For the ornithologist British India is a country in which 

 there is still a vast amount of work to be done. The great 

 Empire of the East is of such enormous extent, and com- 

 prises such wide differences of climate — from the snow-clad 

 peaks of the Himalayas to the tropical districts of the Penin- 

 sula, from the arid plains of Sind to the moist jungles of 

 Assam — that it would be an utter impossibility for the fauna 

 to be similar throughout the area. Much has been accom- 

 ])lished during the last 50 years towards acquiring a know- 

 ledge of the bird-life in this portion of the globe, and the 

 work of Hodgson, Jerdon, and Blyth, and later of Mr. A. 

 O. Hume, not to mention many others, has been such that 

 we liave a wide knowledge of Indian ornithology in general ; 

 what is now wanted is a more detailed w^orking-up of the 

 various Provinces and Districts. This has been done ad- 

 mirably in many cases ; notably by Messrs. E. W. Oates 

 (Burma), W. V. Legge (Ceylon), H. E. Barnes (Bombay), 

 and Murray (Sind), all of whom have published in book-form 

 the results of their labours ; but there are still many districts 

 whicii, up to the present, have not been as thoroughly and 

 systematically searched as those above mentioned. The 

 birds of the North-west Provinces and of Oude liave been 

 so well studied by Messrs. Hume, R. M. Adam, and W. E. 

 Brooks that I do not intend to attempt any description of 

 the avifauna of the Provinces in general, but simply to 

 record the results of my first eight months^ birds^'-nesting in 

 the neighbourhood of La Martiniere College, Lucknow. The 

 area in which I have taken all my eggs is contained in a 

 semicircle, with the College for a centre and a distance of 

 three miles as a radius. 



The climate of this part of India is, as is well known, 

 divided into three distinct seasons : the cold weather, the hot 

 weather, and the " rains." The cold weather begins about 

 the middle of October and continues until about the middle 

 or end of March, when the hot weather begins and lasts 



