92 CRATEROPODID^E. 



ever, once seen it in a field of jute, which was alongside a village. 

 Its well-known note can be heard a long way off. I have several 

 times found nests in course of construction, but only once secured 

 a clutch of eggs. When the nests are being built, if the bush is at 

 all disturbed the nest is deserted. The earliest date on which I 

 found a nest was the 1st April, 1878 ; it was half finished, and as 

 I pulled the cane-leaves asunder to see if there were eggs, the birds 

 deserted it. After this I found four nests in cane-clumps on the 

 sides of roads, but they were empty, and as the birds abandoned 

 them in due course I despaired of getting any eggs : but on the 

 15th June, while going along a road, the edges of which were 

 bounded by the small embankments natives throw up round their 

 holdings, and which are always overgrown with * sone ' grass, I 

 saw one of these birds with a straw in its bill disappear at the 

 root of a small date-tree. The nest could be discerned from the 

 road. On the 20th June I returned and found two fresh eggs ; 

 the nest was placed at the junction of the frond and the stem of 

 the date-tree about five inches from the ground, and was an oval 

 deep cup and measured externally 5 inches deep by 3| broad. Egg- 

 cavity 2 broad and If deep, composed exclusively of ' sone ' grass 

 with no lining." 



The eggs of this species are broad ovals with a tolerably fine 

 gloss. The ground-colour is pure white. The whole of the larger 

 end of the egg is pretty thickly speckled and spotted with brown, 

 varying from an olive to a burnt sienna intermingled with little 

 spots and clouds of pale inky purple, and similar spots and specks 

 chiefly of the former colour, but smaller in size, scattered thinly 

 over the rest of the egg. In size they vary from 0*69 to O75 in 

 length, and from 0*55 to O f 6 in breadth. 



135. Dumetia hyperythra (Erankl.). The Bufous-bellied 

 Babbler. 



Dumetia hyperythra (Frankl.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 26 ; Htime, Rough 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 397. 



The Rufous-bellied Babbler breeds throughout the Central 

 Provinces, Chota Nagpoor, Upper Bengal, the eastern portions of 

 the North-West Provinces, parts of Oudh, and even in the low 

 valleys of Kumaon. 



It lays from the middle of June to the middle of August, 

 building a globular nest of broad grass-blades or bamboo-leaves 

 some 4 or 5 inches in diameter, sparingly lined with fine grass- 

 roots or a little hair, or sometimes entirely unlined. The nest is 

 placed sometimes on the ground amongst dead leaves, some of 

 which are not unfrequently incorporated in the structure ; some- 

 times in coarse grass or some little shrub a foot or two from the 

 ground, but by preference, according to my experience, in amongst 

 the roots of a bamboo-clump. 



Four is the usual number of eggs laid. 



