TANTALUS. 223 



disgorged a large quantity of small eels. This Ibis breeds during 

 the month of February. The nest is composed of small sticks, and 

 is placed at the top of the trees ; if there are many on the same 

 tree, they are placed pretty close together. They lay three or four 

 eggs of a dull opaque white, nearly 2'6 inches in length by rather 

 more than 1*8 inch in width. The young birds are able to fly by 

 the month of May." 



Dr. Jerdon states that " it breeds on high trees, making a large 

 nest of sticks, and laying four white eggs, sometimes faintly 

 blotched with pale brown. Burgess found fifty nests together in 

 some large banian trees in a village in the Dekhan in February. 

 Further north it is later, breeding in May and June." 



This latter requires verification. I have not been able to ascertain 

 that they breed anywhere in India in May or June. 



Mr. J. R. Cripps, writing from Furreedpore in Eastern Bengal, 

 remarks : " By no means common. A rainy-season visitant. The 

 south-eastern corner of the Mymensingh district is one huge 

 8 wamp covered with scrub and long grass, and on the large trees 

 about these birds lay in the cold weather ; the half -fledged birds 

 have been brought to me in the second week of December." 



Colonel Legge writes in his ' Birds of Ceylon ' : " The only 

 breeding-place of this Ibis which I visited in Ceylon was the 

 colony at Uduwila tank. There, among the numerous species 

 nesting at the time of my visit, were about a dozen pairs of the 

 Pelican-Ibis." 



The eggs, which vary much in size and somewhat in shape, are 

 typically elongated ovals, a good deal compressed towards one end. 

 At times they are somewhat pyriform, at others very perfect ovals. 

 The shell is rather tine and compact, of a dull white colour, much 

 stained and soiled as incubation proceeds, and occasionally with a 

 few dingy brown spots and streaks. They are entirely devoid of 

 gloss. In some cases they have a very faint greenish tinge, which 

 fades soon after the egg has been blown. In size they average, 1 

 think, somewhat larger than those of the Spoonbill, but in general 

 appearance and texture of shell they most nearly resemble the eggs 

 of Ibis melanocepJiala, which latter, however, average very much 

 smaller. Held up to the light and looking into the egg through 

 the aperture, the shells of the present species are a pale bluish 

 green or pale dingy green, while those of Ibis melanocephdla are a 

 very dark dusky green ; on the other hand, the shells of the Spoon- 

 bill are a dusky yellowish brown, in this respect assimilating to 

 those of Anastomus oscitans ; while those of Xenorhynchus asiaticus 

 are a green so dark as to be almost black, and those of Disvura 

 episcopus a green of nearly the same shade as those of Jbis mdano- 

 cepliala, or at times a trifle darker. 



In length the eggs vary from 2*58 to 2'95 (though I have one 

 abnormally large egg that measures 3*2), and in breadth from 1'75 

 to 1-98 ; but the average of twenty-seven eggs is 2'77 by T88. 



