ACEIDOTHEEES. 379 



suspect that instinct teaches the birds that, when the natural 

 temperature of the nest reaches a certain point, any addition of 

 their body-heat is unnecessary, and this may explain why during 

 the hot days (when we alone noticed them), in this very hot hole, 

 the parent Mynas spent so little of their time in the nest whilst 

 the process of hatching was going on." 



They lay indifferently four or five eggs. I have just as often 

 found the former as the latter number, but I have never yet met 

 with more. 



From Lucknow Mr. Gr. Eeid tells us : " Generally speaking 

 the Common Myna, like the Crow (Corvus splendens}, commences to 

 breed with the first fall of rain in June early or late as the case 

 may be and has done breeding by the middle of September. It 

 nests indiscriminately in old ruins, verandahs, walls of houses, &c., 

 but preferentially, I think, in holes of trees, laying generally four, 

 but sometimes five eggs." 



Colonel E. A. Butler writes : " In Karachi Mynas begin to lay 

 at the end of April. The Common Myna breeds in the neighbour- 

 hood of Deesa during the monsoon, principally in the months of 

 July and August, at which season every pair seems to be engaged 

 in nidification. I have taken nests containing fresh eggs during 

 the first week of September ; and birds that have had their first 

 nests robbed or young destroyed probably lay even later still." 



Lieut. H. E. Barnes informs us that this Myna breeds in 

 Eajputana during June and July. 



Mr. Benjamin Aitken has furnished me with the following 

 interesting note : " A pair of Mynas clung tenaciously for two 

 years, from June 1863 to August 1865, to a hole in some matting 

 in the upper verandah of a house in Bombay. During this period 

 they hatched six broods, one of which I took and another was de- 

 stroyed, by rats perhaps. 1 had a strong suspicion that more than 

 one set of eggs were destroyed besides. 



"The remarkable thing I wish to note is that every alternate brood 

 of young contained an albino, pure white and with pink eyes ; 

 being three in all. Every time a new set of eggs was to be laid, 

 a new nest was built on the top of the old one. I once tore down 

 the whole pile, as it was infested with vermin, and found that 

 seven nests had been made, one upon another, showing that the 

 Mynas must have occupied the hole long before I noticed them. 

 Each nest was complete in itself and well lined, and as Mynas are 

 not sparing of their materials, the accumulated heap was nearly 

 two feet deep. Every separate nest contained a piece of a snake's 

 skin, and with reference to your remark on this point I may say 

 that every Myna's nest that I have ever examined has had a piece 

 of snake-skin in it. This may, I think, be simply accounted for 

 by the fact of snake-skin lying about plentifully in those places 

 where Mynas mostly pick up their building-materials. The 

 breeding-season extends into September in Bombay ; and though 

 it usually begins in June, I found a nest of half -fledged young at 

 Khandalla on the 31st May, 1871. 



