CTANOPS. 323 



as the sins. In Bareilly we found no nest-hole at a less height 

 than 20 feet, and one was at least 50 feet from the ground. 



There is of course no real nest, the eggs being laid on the 

 bottom of the hole amongst a few chips. The hole is comparatively 

 small, not above 5 inches in diameter at bottom, from 6 inches to 

 2 feet deep, and the passage, which is very neatly cut and rounded, 

 and nicely bevelled off at the entrance, is only about 2| inches in 

 diameter. 



The late Captain Beavan mentions that in Maunbhoom this 

 species breeds towards the end of March, and that at the beginning 

 of April two young birds and an addled egg were brought him. 

 In Upper India it does not, I think, begin laying until April. 



Mr. George E^id writes from Lucknovv: " On the 23rd April 

 and again on the 5th May I found nests of this species, each 

 containing two fresh eggs. One nest was in a hole made by the 

 birds in an old mango-tree, only about six feet from the ground, 

 while the other was in a similar hole just about the same distance 

 from the top of a tall jamun-tree." 



The late Captain Cock wrote : " This Barbet is very common 

 at Sitapur in Oudh, its noisy continuous cries serving to remind one 

 that the hot weather is again coming on. It makes its nest just 

 like any other Barbet, but generally at no great height from the 

 ground, and placed on the underside of a large bough. All that 

 I have found had excavated fresh holes for their nests, selecting 

 situations where the hard outer wood being penetrated, the interior 

 wood \vas soft and easily worked ; like X. hcemacephala, a chamber 

 is made in which, upon a few chips, three white, rather pyriform 

 eggs are laid. It lays usually in April and the end of March. I 

 have frequently caught the bird upon its eggs ; they bite one's 

 fingers rather hard unless a handkerchief be placed over them first. 

 The holes are excavated in a wonderfully short space of time, con- 

 sidering the instrument the bird works with. I have watched the 

 bird working continuously for some hours without stopping its 

 work. 



" Riding home through a thick mango tope opposite the Post- 

 Office at Sitapur one morning early in June, I observed a Barbet 

 looking out of a hole in a mango-tree. As the hole was only ten 

 feet from the ground I sent for an axe and, stuffing my handker- 

 chief into it to save the eggs should there be any, I soon had the 

 pleasure of cutting down to three white fresh eggs. The interior 

 of the hole had been hollowed out into quite a smooth round 

 chamber. I may mention that I found another nest in the same 

 tope of trees about a month previous, containing a fully-fledged 

 young one." 



Colonel Butler records the following note : " I took a nest of 

 Franklin's Green Barbet at Mount Aboo on the 8th April, 1875, 

 containing four fresh eggs of a dull white colour. The nest-hole, 

 which was a fresh hole and made by the birds themselves, was 

 drilled upon the underside of a broken-off branch of a mango-tree, 

 about 20 feet from the ground, and the eggs were deposited upon 



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