110 



I caught could have easily escaped on both occasions, but I suppose 

 the attachment for her eggs induced her to remain by them. A 

 friend of mine this year found a nest in the hole of a tree occupied 

 by a pair of these birds, containing two eggs of the Owlet and one 

 of a Paroquet, P. torquatus, and as a portion of the remains of a 

 paroquet were also found in the hole, it is assumed that the 

 Owlets attacked the paroquet and killed her on the nest, and 

 after the dark deed took possession of the nest for themselves. 

 All three eggs were fresh, as also the remains of the Paroquet." 



Writing from the Deccan, Messrs. Davidson and Wenden 

 remark : " Very common. Breeds January to middle of March. 

 Generally lays four to five eggs, but D. noticed three birds sitting 

 on two eggs in one hole !" 



Mr. Gr. Vidal says : " Bare to the north of the tract, but com- 

 paratively common to the south about Vengorla. 



" Two nests found in January and February, one in an ain tree 

 (Terminalia ylabra), and one in a cocoanut tree ; in one four hard- 

 set eggs, and in the other two fresh eggs. Two other nests in 

 February, with in each three fresh eggs." 



Mr. Benjamin Aitken writes : " In the first week of March 

 1869, four eggs were taken from a nest in a mango- tree ; a month 

 after there were three more eggs in the hole. This was in Akola, 

 Berar. In November 1871, at Poona, a pair of Canine bra ma 

 held tenacious possession of a hole under the roof of an old house, 

 but it was impossible, from the position of the hole, to ascertain if 

 there was a nest." 



Writing of Manzeerabad in Mysore, Mr. 0. J. W. Taylor 

 remarks that this Owlet is " very common. Breeding in April. 

 Eggs taken on the 1st and 27th April, 1883." 



Typically the eggs of Carine brama are oval. In some cases, 

 broad and approaching the normal Owl shape, but more commonly 

 only a moderately broal oval, differing little in colour, size, and 

 texture from those of some of our Green Pigeons, and some of the 

 smaller specimens positively undistinguishable from large eggs of 

 Turtur risoria. 



The eggs are when blown a beautifully pure white ; but until 

 blown have, when quite fresh, a beautiful pink tinge ; and when a 

 good deal incubated, are an opaque marble-white. Most of them 

 are of a close, uniform, satiny texture, but a good many are thickly 

 covered in part or whole with minute pimples, if I may use the 

 word, white, but, owing to the shell there being thicker, of a rather 

 deader white than the ground. 



The eggs vary from T15 to 1'45 inch in length, and from 0-93 

 to 1-1 inch in breadth ; but the average of fifty-four eggs measured 

 was 1*25 by 1-04 inch. 



