400 CUCULIDJE. 



niation regarding them is ' pucca,' so, although I must regret that 

 the following account of the nidification of this species is not from 

 my personal observation, i feel that 1 may offer it to you as being 

 reliable. 



" The nest was situated about feet above the ground in the 

 tri-pronged fork of a very dense prickly bush of from 8 to 10 feet 

 in height, and growing in a thicket of similar and other bushes on 

 the bank of a nullah, running between two steep jungle-clad hills. 

 Is ^as simply a roughly constructed mass of dry sticks and twigs, 

 with a small shallow cavity lined scantily with dry neem -leaves, 

 which had the appearance of having been green when first placed 

 in the nest and not of having been picked dry and withered from the 

 ground. Barring the leaves, he said the nest was more like that of 

 a Dove's both in size and shape than any other nest he knew. It 

 was built in the very thickest part of the bush, entirely concealed 

 from view by the foliage, until carefully searched for. 



" It contained two eggs. Dull glossless white, of a finer texture 

 than those of Centrococcyx nifiperinis, though they possess the same 

 chalky covering'. In shape they are long oval, slightly compressed 

 at one end, and both ends very blunt or round. Size 1-12 x 0*87. 



" I think this species is tolerably abundant at Nuhvar, as I have 

 more than once seen it with the Southern Sirkeer and other birds 

 settle in trees close to my position when I have been waiting for a 

 line of beaters to come up." 



Subfamily CENTROPODIN^. 



Centrococcyx rnfipennis (111.). Tin. Im'lia 



Centropus rafipennis (I/I.), Jerd, B. Ind. i, p. -348 ; Hume, l\om/h 

 Draft y. E. no. 217. 



The Indian Coucal or Crow-Pheasant breeds throughout the 

 plains of Upper India during the rainy season. I have found eggs 

 as early as the 1st of June and as late as the 5th oF September. 



They build, most commonly, a huge, globular domed nest, at 

 varying heights from the ground, in the centre of thick thorny 

 bushes or trees. The nests are usually of dry twigs, lined with a 

 few green leaves, but all kinds of odds and ends are at times in- 

 corporated into the fabric. 



Occasionally quite different materials are made use of, the nest 

 consisting almost wholly of leaves, rushes, or coarse grass. 



The nests are hollow oblate-spheroids, some 18 inches in ex- 

 ternal diameter, and 6 to 8 inches in height, with a large hole on 

 one side, from the entrance of which to the back of the nest 

 inside may be 12 inches. This of course is not long enough to 

 admit the whole bird, so that when sitting the tail is commonly 



