PLOTUS. 275 



out of the water. I cannot say how many nests there were, but 

 the man who went up the tree brought me about 70 eggs, most 

 of which contained chicks about to hatch, and informed me that 

 there were any number of young bfrds in the nests as well. A 

 number of Little Cormorants were in company with the Snake- 

 birds, but I do not think that any of the eggs brought to me belong 

 to them. In number the eggs vary from 3 to 4. On the 14th 

 September I discovered a single nest containing four fresh eggs in 

 another tank about a mile from where I took the other nests. 

 Probably it was built by one of the birds previously robbed." 



He subsequently added this note : " Mr. Doig and 1 found 

 numerous colonies of Snake-birds breeding in dense tamarisk trees, 

 that had become partly submerged by the inundation on a dhund 

 in the E. Xarra, Sind, at the end of July 1878. Most of the eggs 

 were then fresh, and many of the birds were still building." 



AVriting from Pegu Mr. Gates says : " Breeds on trees and not 

 in reeds. It is very abundant in the Myitkyo swamps, where, on 

 the 6th August, I saw some 200 nests on a few low trees. The 

 nests, with few exceptions, contained eggs, a few contained young 

 birds a few days old." 



Colonel Legge, writiug from Ceylon, says of this species : 

 " Plotus melanog aster is common on the inland tanks of the north 

 and north-east as well as the south-east of Ceylon. The breeding 

 months in the latter region are February and March, and most 

 likely January and February in the north, as the rains are over 

 earlier there than in the south. Three or four pairs may be found 

 nesting at the same spot. They build a flat nest of sticks on the 

 branches of thorny trees growing round the tanks and freshwater 

 swamps on the south-east coast, and lay from two to three eggs. 

 In shape they resemble somewhat the eggs of Podiceps, being of 

 less diameter for their length than those of the Little Cormorant 

 (- pygmceus). They are of a uniform faint greenish white over 

 a green ground, which latter is perceptible when the egg is scratched. 

 They vary a good deal in dimensions." 



The eggs closely resemble (though they are perhaps slightly longer 

 and narrower) those that I have already described under Phal. 

 fuscicolHs. They are much elongated ovals, more or less pointed 

 towards one end, with a dingy greenish-white chalky exterior coat, 

 which becomes more and more sullied as incubation proceeds, and 

 beneath this the real shell of a somewhat pale greenish-blue tint. 

 The chalky covering, as in other eggs of this family, is easily re- 

 moved by scraping, and even in nature is generally more or less 

 worn off a larger or smaller portion of the surface. 



In length the eggs vary from 1-95 to 2*29, and in breadth from 

 1*28 to 1-46 ; but the average of sixteen eggs is 2-13 by 1'37. 



18* 



