XENOEHYNCHUS. 267 



" Whether these were built by the birds themselves or were old 

 nests of OtoriDps calvus or Haliaetiis leucoryplim is uncertain." And 

 later he wrote to me that he had never obtained eggs earlier than 

 the 20th October ; but the very next year Baboo Kalee Narayn 

 lioy took, within a circle of a dozen miles round Jhujgur, four 

 nests on the 9th, one on the 13th, one on the" 14th, and one on 

 the 16th September, all but one of them containing four eggs. The 

 rains had ceased very early, and hence the birds bred early ; while 

 in other years when the rains are late, I believe Mr. Brooks is 

 quite right, and that scarcely an egg is to be seen before the middle 

 of October. 



Colonel Gr. E. L. Marshall remarks that this species " builds a 

 large nest of sticks at the top of a tree, from 20 to 60 feet high, 

 from August to October, earlier in Saharunpoor, later in Aligurh. 

 In the former district I found young and hard-set eggs early in 

 September. In the latter district I took five fresh eggs from a 

 large nest at the top of a peepul-tree fully 50 feet high ; while on 

 the 12th I noticed a bird with a stick in his huge bill, awkwardly 

 arranging a habitation on another peepul-tree ; the nest was only 

 half finished. They are sometimes walled round with karounda 

 thorn:' 



Major C. T. Bingham remarks : " I found two nests of this 

 bird in October, one on a large peepul-tree close to the village of 

 Kunkerabad near Mohar, the second station on the East-Indian 

 Railway from Cawnpore. This was a shapeless mass of sticks, 

 with a deep depression in the centre containing four hard-set eggs, 

 on the 8th Octooer. On the 13th of the same month I found a 

 second nest on a large sheeshuni tree ; this, like the last, was a 

 large platform of sticks, and contained three fresh eggs. I found 

 it near the village of Kundla, 11 miles from Allahabad." 



Mr. George Reid writes that at Lucknow " on the loth 

 November last I came across a nest and three half -fledged young 

 ones." 



Colonel Butler writes : " The Black-necked Stork breeds in the 

 Xarra District, Sind, in September, towards the end of which 

 month Mr. Doig obtained three or four nests containing fresh 

 eggs. It continues laying till the 29th of November if not later, 

 as we took eggs from the 15th September up to that date." 



Mr. Oates notes from Pegu : " In the Pegu plain these birds 

 select an isolated tree, and make a large nest near the summit. On 

 the 1st December I took two eggs, and on the 6th January a 

 clutch of four. Young birds reared from the nest are now (June) 

 moulting into the adult plumage." 



The eggs of this species closely resemble those of the Common 

 European Stork and of Dissura episcopus, but they are certainly 

 larger than those of the latter, and probably exceed average eggs of 

 the former. In shape they are typically broad ovals, compressed 

 towards one end, so as to have a slightly pyriform tendency ; 

 elongated ovals and almost spherical varieties are not uncommon. 

 The eggs are dull and mostly glossless, but, though the texture is 



