238 AKDEIDJE. 



They build loose flat ragged structures of sticks and coarse twigs 

 (with no lining and with a very slight central depression) on large 

 trees, mostly (in Upper India) on tamarinds, neem, and mangoes. 



They always breed in company with others of the tribe. 



Three is the ordinary number of eggs I think, though I have 

 once or twice found four. 



The following account by an anonymous writer, sent me I do not 

 know by whom, in regard to the nidification of this and many 

 other of the following species, at one of their large breeding haunts 

 in Southern India, gives a good idea of how these birds con- 

 gregate : 



" About fifty miles from Madras and twelve miles from Chin- 

 gleput in a south-easterly direction is a small village, called Vaden 

 Thaugul, which means literally * Hunter's Kest,' from vaden 

 ' hunter ' and tliaugul ' rest.' To the south of the village lies 

 one of those small tanks called ' Thaugul '" by the Tamil ryots, 

 implying a water-rest or temporary reservoir, from which the village 

 derives its name. 



" The Vadeu Thaugul tank is situated north north-west of the 

 Carangooly Fort, and is three and a half miles distant in a direct 

 line from the Great Southern Trunk Boad. 



" The bund, whose greatest height is twelve feet, commences 

 from a piece of high ground near the village, runs for a distance of 

 about six hundred yards in a south-easterly direction, then takes a 

 sharp turn almost at a right angle, and terminates in high ground 

 about two hundred yards further on. The waterspread is limited 

 on the north-east by slightly rising ground overgrown with low 

 jungle, and on the east south-east by high gravelly and rocky 

 ground. The area comprised in the tank is about thirty-five 

 acres. 



" From the north-east to the centre of the bed of the tank there 

 are some five or six hundred trees of the Barrinytonia racemos, 

 from about ten to fifteen feet in height, with circular, regular, 

 moderate-sized crowns, and when the tank fills, which it does 

 during the monsoons, the tops only of the trees are just visible 

 above the level of the water. 



" This place forms the breeding resort of an immense number of 

 Water-fowl, Herons, Shell-Ibises, Ibises, AVater-Crows or Cor- 

 morants, Darters and Paddy-birds, &c., make it their rendezvous 

 on these occasions. 



"From about the middle of October to the nr'ddle of November 

 small flocks of twenty or thirty of some of these birds are to be 

 seen coming from the north to settle here during the breeding- 

 season. By the beginning of December they have all settled down ; 

 each tribe knows its appointed time, and arrives year after year 

 with the utmost regularity within a fortnight later or earlier, 

 depending partly on the seasons. They commence immediately by 

 building their nests or repairing the old ones preparatory to de- 

 positing their eggs. ^Vhen they have fully settled down, the scene 

 becomes one of great interest and animation. 



