54 



the eggs was a little set. Breeds in Oudh during April. On the 

 19th April I had five eggs brought from one nest." 



Major Bingham says : " At Allahabad the Boiler breeds in April, 

 May, and July ; and at Delhi in May, June, and July. I have only 

 twice had the luck to find eggs. Once in a hole in a wall, scantily 

 lined with a few grass-roots and a feather or two, I took three fresh 

 eggs on the 10th April. Secondly, from a hole that had evidently 

 been once occupied by a Bank Mynah I took four hard-set eggs lying 

 on the bare ground without a semblance of lining, on the llth July/' 



At Lucknow Mr. Gr. Beid informs us this Boiler is a permanent 

 re ^ident. " Apair of them made a nest in a hole in a neem-tree about 

 15 yards from the verandah of the house I live in, from which I 

 obtained four white eggs on the 20th April." 



Mr. Benjamin Aitken writes : " You and your correspondents 

 seem to have been very successful in getting the eggs of this bird, 

 but I have little more than a series of disappointments to record 

 in all my efforts to the same end. It beats the Lapwing hollow in 

 concealing the whereabouts of its nest, and is far more aggravating 

 from the assumed innocence of its intentions. I only once saw a 

 Boiler in Bombay, and it is not particularly common in Poona or 

 in Madras ; I did not see it on the occasions of my two visits 

 to the hill-stations of Poorundhur and Sirgurb, and I do not 

 think it is found at the stations on the top of the Bhore 

 Ghat ; it is, however, common enough at Enteshwur, a small 

 hill-station four miles from Sattara, though I do not remember 

 noticing the bird in Sattara itself. But in Berar the Boiler 

 is legion, and I am sure I could have found a mare's nest with 

 half the time and trouble I spent in searching for a nest of this 

 bird. There was one Roller which used to fly over our bungalow 

 many times a day, with a great lump of food for its young. I felt 

 certain at first of marking down this, but it was a vain confidence. 

 I had only to show a corner of an ear oat at a window or from under 

 the verandah, and the bird would quietly turn to one side and take 

 its perch on a tree, where it would have sat till nightfall, holding 

 the insect in its mouth, if I had not withdrawn. But I did succeed 

 at last. There was a tope of some seventy mango-trees standing 

 in the middle of the plain about two miles out from the station, and 

 in this tope, in May 1870, there could be no doubt a pair of Boilers 

 had a nest. But the birds gave no intimation of such a thing. 

 Every time I visited the tope, a moment or two after I got under 

 the shade, I was met with the usual muffled cry with which these 

 birds encourage themselves in patience, and, looking up, I could 

 see Mrs. Boiler sitting calmly on a bough as if she had never left her 

 perch since the Flood. In vain I removed to the furthest point 

 from which I could see her, and lay down as unconcerned as possible. 

 The usual call every quarter of an hour was the only sign of life 

 the Boiler showed. Though I call her Mrs. Boiler, I was of 

 opinion at the time that the bird was the male ; the female, I made 

 sure, was safely ensconced in some hole, too wise to show herself 

 by coming out. One morning, creeping into the tope even more 



