HEEODIAS. 243 



" I could only get a few of those Dearest the lake; up to them 

 the men climbed from the boat, not daring to venture into the 

 water, which was alive with alligators watching for the young birds 

 which fell from the nests ; several times they snapped up the birds 

 which I shot before I could get them, though they only fell fifteen 

 or twenty yards away. The branches of the trees were white with 

 droppings, and the water below thick and putrid ; the stench was 

 intolerable. It was with difficulty 1 could distinguish one nest 

 from another, so as to be certain of the parentage of the eggs ; but 

 by remaining quiet I marked a bird to its nest, and then rowed up 

 to it, robbed it, and then lay-to again. The nests seemed to be 

 used year after year, if one may judge from the masses of sticks of 

 different ages of which they were composed. My guide also con- 

 firmed this idea, and said the birds were not particular as to 

 the nest one species occupying it one year, another the next 

 perhaps. 



Unfortunately most of my eggs were hard-set. 1 was there 

 at the beginning of May. In shape they are equal at both ends 

 and very rounded; they are also all of the pure pale-blue colour." 

 Colonel Butler writes from Siud : " Mr. Doig and I found this 

 species breeding in hundreds with other Egrets and Herons on the 

 24th July, 1878, in the E. Karra, Sind. The eggs, varying from 

 4 to 5 in number, were mostly fresh. The breeding-place con- 

 sisted of a dense tamarisk-thicket, several acres in extent, that had 

 become partly submerged by the rise of the Indtis, looking like a 

 large island in the middle of an immense dhund ; and in the upper 

 branches of these trees, sometimes only four or five feet from the 

 surface of the water, the nests were built in countless numbers. 

 I fancy that the birds of this family in this part of the country 

 never leave their nests when once they have laid until the eggs 

 are hatched, as we always found them on their nests, and the 

 moment they rose on our approach flocks of Crows descended and 

 carried off every egg they could find, and it was only by arming 

 ourselves with eggs of some of the commoner species that we did 

 not want and using them freely as missiles that we were able to 

 secure the few eggs we wanted for ourselves." 



Mr. Davidson informs us that in Western Khandesh the breeding- 

 season of this Heron is April. 



Mr. Gates notes from Pegu : " In most parts of Burma this 

 bird makes its nest in trees ; but near Myitkyo, in the swamp 

 already mentioned under A. purpurea, it builds among the reeds, 

 making a nest of small sticks about one foot in diameter. It 

 breeds in July and August." 



The eggs of this species are precisely similar in most respects io 

 those of the last-described species, but they are decidedly smaller, 

 and very pale bluish-white varieties, approaching the coloration of 

 those of Bubulcvs coromandus, are much commoner amongst them. 

 In length they vary from 1'6 to 1-85, and in breadth from 1-25 

 to 1*38; but the average of twenty-eight eggs is 1'73 by 1-32. 



1(5* 



