4 ALCEDINID^E. 



small minnow-bones. I once found what may have been intended 

 for a nest in Madras towards the latter end of January, in a well ; 

 what I supposed to be the nest was placed in a hole in the masonry 

 lining of the well, and round the entrance of the hole was accu- 

 mulated a rather large quantity of small partially decayed fish and 

 fish-bones ; but these had been placed there apparently not as a 

 lining, but with the object of keeping the eggs in the hole, as it 

 was one left when the scaffolding was removed, and consequently 

 had a perfectly flat floor. I should, however, add that though the 

 bird was in the hole, it contained no eggs, and may therefore have 

 been only a resting-place." 



Mr. J. Darling, Junior, says : " I found a nest of this bird at 

 Neddiwuttum on the Mlghiris, at about 6000 feet above the sea, on 

 the 19th April, 1870. The nest was in the bank of a large stream, 

 about 2 feet from the water, a circular passage 4 inches in dia- 

 meter and 2 feet deep, terminating in a chamber about 8 inches by 

 4. There were a few fish-bones scattered about, and plenty of 

 decaying insects and small fish,' making a fearful stench. There 

 were six quite fresh eggs. In Wynaad they breed plentifully from 

 March to May. I have unfortunately always got young ones down 

 here." 



Writing from Burma, Major Wardlaw Ramsay remarks : " I 

 found a nest in the side of an old well in some thick jungle near 

 Eangoon, at about 5 feet from the surface ; it contained seven 

 eggs." 



Colonel Legge writes, in his ' Birds of Ceylon ' : " In South, 

 West, and Central Ceylon the breeding-season of this species is 

 from February until June, but in the north I have known it to 

 nest in November." 



The eggs are exquisitely glossy, and, when blown, china-white, 

 little ovals, or, some few of them, almost spherical. They are very 

 like those of Merops viridit, but more glossy, and, as a rule, some- 

 what less round. When unblown, they are pinky white. 



In length they vary from 0-75 to 0-87 inch, and in breadth from 

 0-65 to 0-72 inch ; but the average, yielded by a large series of 

 measurements, is 0*8 by 0'68 inch. 



Alcedo grandis, Blyth. The Great Indian 



Alcedo euryzona, Tcmm,, Jerd. B. 2nd. i, p. 231. 

 Alcedo grandis, Blyth, Hume, Cat. no. 185. 



A correspondent of the ' Asian,' apparently writing from the 

 north-east part of the Empire under the name of " Rekab," says : 



" I have taken only two nests of this bird, and one other I have 

 had shown me after the eggs and hen bird had been taken and 

 brought to me. All three nests were placed, as is usual, at the 

 end of a tunnel dug in the earth by the bird itself. In one the 

 nest was placed in a chamber at the end of a burrow scarce a foot 

 deep, and in another case the burrow was hardly two feet ; but 



