INOCOTIS. 229 



i 



similar loose platforms from 18 inches to 2 feet in diameter, com- 

 posed of stout twigs of the keekur and plum, and lined with straw 

 and rags." 



Next year he wrote : " On the 3rd and 4th April I found two 

 nests of this bird near Hansie, the one on a peepul, the other on 

 u burgot tree. The nests vAere high up, from twenty-five to thirty 

 feet from the ground, some 14 inches in diameter and 4 or 5 inches 

 in thickness, constructed of keekur and her twigs and sticks, and 

 with u few rags and feathers, by way of lining, immediately under 

 the eggs, of which there were two fresh ones in the one nest and a 

 single one in the other." 



Writing from Jhansi, Mr. F. E. Blewitt remarks : " The first 

 nest I got of this bird was at Delhi in the latter end of March 

 with, I think, three eggs. Here the nest and four eggs were 

 secured on the 27th August. The peepul-tree is by preference 

 selected by the Black Ibis for its nest, which is placed between 

 two or three forks of a topmost branch. 



" The nest is composed of thick twigs of the peepul and some 

 thorny acacia-like tree on the outside, with an intermediate layer, 

 nearly two inches thick at the sides and base, of finer twigs, all 

 compactly put together. The lining was of grass slightly laid on 

 in the cavity. The outer diameter may fairly be stated at about 

 1 b inches ; inner, less by some 4 inches. Egg-cavity, about 3 

 inches deep." 



Writing from Etawah, under date August 1868, Mr. Brooks 

 said : " 1 have just had a nest taken of Inocotis papillosus, which 

 I saw the birds building some little time ago. 1 had previously 

 no well-authenticated egg of this species." 



Colonel G. F. L. Marshall states that in the Alligurh District 

 this species lavs in July, August, and September. He says : " 1 

 noticed a bird 011 its nest on the 23rd August ; on the llth Sep- 

 tember I visited it again and found that the young had flown. It 

 was built of sticks and situated in a very large fork of a peepul- 

 tree about halfway up, and hardly visible from below. Another 

 nest, with four partly incubated eggs, was found on the 17th 

 September : it was rather loosely made of sticks and grass in a 

 small fork at the very top of a large peepul-tree and was reached 

 with great difficulty. The tree was close to a village in the Alli- 

 gurh District ; both parent birds kept circling round over the 

 nest." 



Major Bingham says : " I have found only one nest of this, and 

 that was placed in a large peepul-tree in the village of Okla, a few 

 miles from Delhi. On the 7th May the nest, which was a large 

 firm platform of sticks having a shallow depression lined very thinly 

 with grass, contained two fresh eggs.''* 



Colonel Butler serds the following notes : " One or two nests 

 were reported to me at the Tanda, 20 miles from Hydrabad, Sind, 

 at the end of July 1878. 



" 1 found a nest of the Black Ibis near Deesa on the 6th August, 

 1876, containing two fresh eggs. It was made of dead sticks, very 



