CAPRIMTJLGUS. 41 



of Southern India. Its monotonous note may be heard the livelong 

 night in the breeding-season, which is in March. The eggs are 

 generally two in number, and are placed in a slight depression in 

 the ground under some low bush. The egg is rather a pretty one, 

 being thickly blotched with faint lilac and reddish brown on a 

 salmon-coloured ground. Length O98 inch, breadth O58." 



Mr. C. J. AV. Taylor writes from Manzeerabad in Mysore: 

 Very common. Procured eggs on the 10th April, 1882. Eggs 

 deposited on the bare ground after the grass has been burnt." 



I have as yet only authentic eggs of it taken in April in the 

 Central Provinces by Mr. F. E. Blewitt, and below Mussoorie in 

 May by Captain Hutton. These birds lay only two eggs and 

 make no nest, but lay in a slight depression of the ground, under 

 some low bush. 



The eggs sent me by the above-named gentlemen are undis- 

 tinguishable from some of those of C. kelaarti sent me from the 

 Xilghiris and from Eaepore. I have never taken any eggs of this 

 species myself and indeed I am, for the most part, dependent, so 

 far as the eggs of the Caprimalfjida? go, on correspondents. I 

 have never accepted eggs unless sent me along with skins of the 

 birds to which they were said to belong; yet, notwithstanding 

 this, I confess that I am far from certain that no mistake has in 

 any case occurred. In regard to the present species I may men- 

 tion I have as yet only four eggs, all very much of the same type 

 and size. The}' are long ovals, somewhat cylindrical, and one of 

 them slightly pyriform. The shell is fine and has a fair amount of 

 gloss. The ground-colour is a pale salmon-pink, in one egg 

 slightly paler and more creamy. They are pretty thickly but 

 irregularly blotched and streaked with pale brown :' in one'egg a 

 purplish, in the others more of an olive-brown, and also with 

 faint underlying spots and clouds of more or less pale inky purple. 



They vary from 1-15 to 1*25 inch in length, and from 0-86 to 

 0-9 inch in breadth, the longest egg being the narrowest, and the 

 shortest the broadest. 



Caprimulgiis kelaarti, Blyth. The Kilcjhiri Niyhtjar. 



Capriinul<rus kelaarti. Bh/tli. Jerd. S. Ind. i, p. 193 : Hume, Roiuili 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 108. 



This supposed species, the so-called Xilghiri Xightjar, breeds 

 throughout Southern India and the more wooded portions of the 

 Central Provinces from the latter end of February to August. In 

 the Xilghiris March seems the favourite month, in the Ghats of 

 the Central Provinces April, but Mr. Blewitt took them in 

 Kaepore as late as August. Mr. Davison tells me that this species 

 ' ; breeds on the Xilghiris in the latter end of February and the 

 earlier part of March. There is no pretence whatever of a nest, 

 the eggs being merely placed on some slight natural depression 

 under a bush or tuft of grass. Occasionally a rather strange 

 situation is chosen for the eggs ; and they are laid in the centre of 



