COBTUS. 9 



platform, with a central depression lined with grass-roots ; but 

 they are not particular as to material ; I have found wool, rags, 

 grass, and all kinds of vegetable fibre, and Mr. Blyth mentions 

 that he has " seen several nests composed more or less, and two 

 almost exclusively, of the wires taken from soda-water bottles, 

 which had been purloined from the heaps of these wires commonly 

 set aside by the native servants until they amount to a saleable 

 quantity." Four is the normal number of eggs laid, but I often 

 have found five, and on two occasions six. It is in this bird's nest 

 that the Koel chiefly lays. 



Writing of Nepal, Dr. Scully remarks : " In the valley it lays 

 in May and June ; some twenty nests were once examined on the 

 23rd June, and half the number then contained young birds." 



Major Bingham says : " Very common, of course, both at 

 Allahabad and at Delhi, and breeds in June, July, and beginning 

 of August. At Allahabad it is much persecuted by the Koel 

 (Eudynamys orientalis), every fourth or fifth nest that I found 

 in some topes of mango-trees having one or two of the Koel's 

 eggs." 



Colonel Butler informs me that in Karachi it " begins to lay in 

 the mangrove bushes in the harbour as early as the end of May ; " 

 and that it " breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa in June, July, 

 and August, commencing to build in the last week of May." 



Later, he writes : " Belgaum, 15th May, 1879. Found nume- 

 rous nests in the native infantry lines in low trees, containing 

 fresh and incubated eggs and young birds of all sizes. In the same 

 locality, on the 30th March, 1880, I found a nest containing four 

 young birds able to fly ; the eggs must therefore have been laid 

 quite as early as the middle of February, if not earlier." 



Mr. GK \V. Vidal writes : " The Common Crow appears to 

 have two broods in the year in our district (Eatnagiri), the first in 

 April and May, and the second in November and December. In 

 these four months I have found nests, eggs, and young birds in 

 several different places in the district, and as yet at no other 

 times. It is extremely improbable that there should be one 

 breeding-season lasting from April to December, and I think I may 

 state with certainty that the Crows do not breed at Eatnagiri 

 during the months of heaviest rainfall, viz. July, August, and 

 September. As their breeding in November and December appears 

 to be exceptional, I subjoin a record of the few nests I examined. 



" Nov. 22, 1878. Eatnagiri : 



" One nest with 3 young birds. 

 1 fresh egg. 



"Nov. 23, 1878. Eatnagiri: 



" One nest with 1 fresh egg. 

 1 fresh egg. 



" Dec. 4, 1878. Saugmeshwar. One nest with 3 eggs hard-set ; 

 another nest probably containing young birds, but the Crows 

 pecked so viciously at the man who was climbing the tree, that he 

 got frightened and came down again without reaching the nest. 



