360 PABBIDJE. 



Dr. Jerdon says : " It makes a large floating nest of dried pieces 

 of grass and herbage, sometimes, according to some accounts, of the 

 stalks of growing rice, which it bends downwards and intertwines ; 

 and it lays in July or Angust from four to seven eggs, sometimes 

 more, of a fine bronze brown or green." 



Major Bingham writes : "While wading out to the nest of a 

 Sarus Crane near Allahabad I came on the semi-floating nest of this 

 bird. It was made of a few decayed rushes and laid on the top 

 of some lotus-leaves, containing three eggs." 



Mr. Scrope Doig, writing from the E. Sarra, Sind, says: "Found 

 numerous nests all through August ; no nest contained more than 

 four eggs, which seemed to be the normal number." 



Colonel Butler remarks : " I found any number of eggs of the 

 Pheasant-tailed Jacana at Milana, 18 miles E. of Deesa, in August 

 and September this year (1876), from the 21st of the former month 

 to the 20th of the latter. The nests contained either three or four 

 eggs, except in one instance, when there were two only. 



" The nest of this species is exactly like the nest of M. indicus, 

 consisting of a mass of aquatic weeds collected together under the 

 water, the tops of the nest being either on a level with the water 

 or raised slightly above the surface, but placed as a rule in more 

 exposed situations. The eggs vary a good deal in size and colour. 

 One type exhibits every shade of rich olive-brown, and another 

 every shade of rich olive-green. One egg I possess, which I took 

 out of a nest containing three other fresh eggs of the olive-brown 

 type, is pale sea-green all over. I have never seen another Jacana's 

 egg like it. I have an egg taken at Tanua in October 1875. It 

 is a perfect pegtop and of a greenish-bronze colour. The eggs as a 

 rule are highly glossed, but some are dull at the large end." 



Mr. H. Wenden says : " Many nests observed at Callian 

 between 29th August and 29th October. No nest contained more 

 than four eggs." 



And this gentleman aud Mr. Davidson, writing of the Deccan, 

 remark : " Sparingly observed. Believed to breed." 



In the north-west of Ceylon, according to Colonel Legge, this 

 Jacana breeds in March and April. 



In shape the eggs of this species are so peculiar that once seen 

 they can never be mistaken. They may be described as pegtops 

 without the pegs cones slightly obtuse at the point, based upon 

 somewhat flattened hemispheres. In texture the shell is compact 

 and hard, and, especially when fresh, has a fine gloss. The colour 

 varies a good deal ; when quite fresh they are of a rich deep bronze 

 colour, sometimes a greenish and sometimes a more rufous bronze 

 colour ; but as incubation proceeds, they very commonly, though not 

 always, bleach somewhat under the long-continued influence of 

 sun and water, and grow paler and paler until they become a pale 

 yellowish stone, or in other cases pale cafe-au-lait colour. 



In length the eggs vary from 1-26 to* 1-62, and in breadth from 

 1-03 to 1-18 ; but the average of fifty eggs is 1-46 by 1-12. 



