EETTHEA. 393 



I was anxious to know how the bird would get its young ones 

 down, but I failed to catch it in the act:' 



Mr. W. Theobald makes the following remarks on the nidification 

 of this species in Monghyr : " Lays in the first week of August. 

 Eggs, seven in number, long ovato-pyriform. Size, 1'70 by 1*10. 

 Colour dark brownish cream, much spotted and blotched with 

 brownish red. Nest, of weeds in jheels." 



Mr. Scrope Doig writes from Sind : " Very common on the 

 Xarra from the middle of June to August ; they can be heard 

 calling all over the country, and when two or more male birds come 

 across one another, the noise they make is atrocious ; at other 

 times, that is when single, they generally have one note which at a 

 distance sounds almost exactly like the noise the servants make 

 when pounding coffee or spice in an iron pestle, a sharp metallic 

 sound, which is sometimes kept on all night long. 



" Nearly every nest I took contained seven eggs, never more ; 

 in fact the nest could not contain more. The nests were made of 

 coarse sedge, and were generally in some thorny bush in the water 

 and which had grass gro\\ ing up through it. The nest was com- 

 paratively shallow, and the wonder to me was that the bird in going 

 on and off her nest did not knock the eggs out." 



Colonel Butler remarks : " The White-breasted Water-hen 

 breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa during the rains in July, 

 August, and September. I found a nest at Milana, 18 miles east 

 of Deesa, on the 26th of August 1876, containing one fresh egg. 

 It consisted of a mass of sedge and rush floating on the surface of 

 the water, amongst some long thin reeds growing in a tank covered 

 with every description of aquatic vegetation, exactly resembling the 

 nest of G. cliloropus" 



He continues : " Belgaum, 17th August, 1879, a nest in a sugar- 

 cane field surrounded by inundated cornfields, containing six fresh 

 eggs. It was built about halfway up the sugarcane, some three 

 feet from the ground. 



" Another nest, same date, in a tank, built in long rushy grass 

 growing out in the water, raised a few inches above the level of 

 the water, containing six incubated eggs. Both nests were solid 

 heaps of rushes, with a moderately deep depression at the top for 

 the eggs. On the 21st August, in the same neighbourhood, I observed 

 a brood of young ones about three weeks old." 



The late Major Cock wrote : " A common bird at Sitapore, the 

 bamboo clumps on the outskirts of every village would always yield 

 one or two nests in July or August. The nests are usually placed 

 high up in the clumps, and are difficult to get at except by a ladder 

 laid on the clump. The nest is a large loosely made structure of 

 dried grass, bamboo-leaves and twigs, and the number of eggs found 

 was usually eight." 



Messrs. Davidson and Wenden remark of this bird in the 

 Deccan: "Tolerably common, and breeds. Five nests taken at 

 Xulwar in July.*' 



