366 EULABETID^E. 



large end (where all the larger markings are) and very thinly at 

 the smaller end with purple and two shades (a darker and lighter 

 one) of chocolate-brown, the latter colour much predominating. 

 The shell is very fine and close, but has but little gloss. 



And later on Major Bingham again wrote : " One of the 

 commonest and most widely spread birds in the province. The 

 following is an account of its nidification : 



" This bird lays two distinct sizes of eggs, all, however, of the 

 same type and coloration. Out of holes in neighbouring trees, 

 on the bank of the Meplay, on the 13th March, 1880, I took two 

 nests, one containing three, and the other two eggs. The first lot 

 of eggs measured respectively 1-15 X 0-77, 1-15 X 0-80, and 1*16 X 

 0'79 inch ; while those in the second nest 1'30 x 0-95, and 1-27 X 

 0-93 inch respectively. All the eggs, however, are a pale blue, 

 spotted chiefly at the larger end with light chocolate. The nests 

 were in natural hollows in the trees, and lined with grass and 

 leaves loosely put together." 



The eggs apparently vary extraordinarily in size ; they are 

 generally more or less elongated ovals, some slightly pyriform and 

 slightly obtuse at both ends, some rather pointed towards the 

 small end. The shell in all is very fine and compact and smooth, 

 but some have scarcely any appreciable gloss, while others have a 

 really fine gloss. The ground-colour is pretty uniform in all, a 

 delicate pale greenish blue. The markings are always chiefly con- 

 fined to one end, usually the broad end ; even about the large end 

 they are never very dense, and elsewhere they are commonly very 

 sparse or almost or altogether wanting. In some eggs the mark- 

 ings are pretty large irregular blotches mingled with small spots 

 and specks, but in many eggs again the largest spot does not 

 exceed one twelfth of an inch in diameter. In colour these 

 markings are normally a chocolate, often with more or less of a 

 brown tinge, in some of the small spots so thickly laid on as to be 

 almost black, in many of the larger blotches becoming only a pale 

 reddish purple, or here and there a pale purplish grey. In some 

 eggs all the markings are pale and washed out, in others all are 

 sharply defined and intense in colour. Occasionally some of the 

 smaller spots become almost a yellowish brown. 



526. Eulafoes ptilogenys (Blyth). The Ceylon Grackle. 

 Eulabes ptilogenys (Bl.\ Hume, Cat. no. 693 bis. 



Colonel Legge writes in his ' Birds of Ceylon ' : " This species 

 breeds in June, July, and August, laying its eggs in a hole of a 

 tree, or in one which has been previously excavated by the Yellow- 

 fronted Barbet or Eed Woodpecker. It often nests 'in the sugar- 

 or kitool-palm, and in one of these trees in the Peak forest I took 

 its eggs in the month of August. There was an absence of all nest 

 or lining at the bottom of the hole, the eggs, which were two in 

 number, being deposited on the bare wood. The female was sitting 



