334 



procured the nest and eggs early in April, and the young were 

 nearly fledged by the 20th of that month ; they appear to come 

 year after year to particular localities to breed. 



" Several nests were brought me from the neighbourhood of Kas- 

 hurghur both in 1864 and 1865, whereas none were seen elsewhere. 

 Thenest is very small for the size of the bird, and the material of 

 which it is composed closely resembles the bird's plumage in colour. 

 The nest is round and very shallow, something like a Chaffinch's, 

 being very neatly made ; diameter inside 2 inches, depth 1 inch : 

 composed 'of grey fibres, bits of bark, grass, and the like, cemented 

 with spider's web. The eggs are two in number, greenish white, 

 spotted with brown and slate-coloured dots, which in most specimens 

 form a well-defined zone round the thickest part of the egg, leaving 

 both ends without marks. Length of the egg '75 inch ; breadth 

 59 inch. This bird was not observed in Maunbhoom except during 

 the breeding-season." 



Mr. G-. W. Vidal, writing from the South Konkan, remarks : 

 " Common, as also at Savant Vadi. Nest found with three hard- 

 set eggs on the 18th February, low down in a mango-tree. Nest 

 a very neat compact cup of grasses and fibres, woven throughout 

 with spiders' webs. Eggs greyish white, with bro\vn and inky- 

 purple spots." 



Dr. Jerdon remarks : " The nest has been brought to me in 

 August at Nellore, chiefly made of roots and lined with hair ; and 

 the eggs, three in number, were greenish white with large brown 

 blotches." 



Major M. F. Coussmaker sends me the following note from 

 Mysore : " I took the nest of this bird on April 16th. It was com- 

 posed of fine roots and fibres closely woven into a compact nest, 

 secured to a horizontal bough with cobweb and covered externally 

 with lichen to match the tree. It measured in diameter 4-1 inches 

 externally and 2*2 internally and *8 deep. The parent bird was 

 shot from the nest. 



" The nest contained two eggs, white with brown spots and 

 markings. They were so broken when I got them that no reliable 

 measurements could be taken." 



Lastly, Mr. Gates writes from Pegu : " Nest with three fresh 

 eggs on the 3rd March near Pegu." 



The eggs are very Shrike-like in appearance, and many of them 

 are perfect miniatures of the eggs of Lanius lahtora, but some of 

 them have a more uniformly brown tint than any of this latter 

 species that I have yet met with. The ground-colour is generally 

 either a very pale greenish white or a creamy-stone colour, and 

 more or less thickly spotted and blotched with different shades of 

 yellowish and reddish brown ; many of the markings are almost 

 invariably gathered into a conspicuous, but irregular and ill-defined, 

 zone near the large end, in which zone clouds of subsurface-looking, 

 pale, and dingy purple, not usually observable on any other portion 

 of the egg, are thickly intermingled. The texture of the shell is fine 

 and close, but scarcely any gloss is ever perceptible. Occasionally 



