HYPOT.IXIDIA. 399 



guinea-grass, noticed a bird sitting on her nest. He put his cloth 

 over the bird, which was sitting on six eggs. The nest was merely 

 a lot of grass rolled together. He brought the bird and the eggs 

 iu to ine. The guinea-grass grows under a lot of big trees left 

 standing at the edge of the jungle, and the nest was in a hollow a 

 little above a small wet-weather stream, on a projecting root.*' 



The eggs are broad, very regular ovals, scarcely narrowed at the 

 smaller end. The shell is fine, glossless.in some specimens, with a 

 faint gloss in others. The ground-colour varies from pinky white 

 to a rich pinky stone-colour, or even warm cafe-au-lait, and they 

 are boldly streaked and blotched, chiefly about the large end, with 

 maroon-red and reddish purple of varying shades and degrees of 

 intensity in different specimens ; spots and specks of the same tints 

 are scattered over the rest of the surface of the egg, but it is only 

 towards the large end that the markings are large or thickly set. 



The eggs vary from 1*35 to 1'44 in length, and from I'Oo to 1*13 

 in breadth. 



Hypotaenidia striata (Linn.). The Blue-breasted Banded Rail. 



Rallus striatus, Linn., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. T^O. 



Hypotaenidia striata (Linn.}, Hume, Rough Draft N. # E. no. 913. 



The Blue-breasted Banded Rail breeds from May to October 

 according to locality. The nest, a pad or heap of grass varying 

 from one to twelve inches in height and from six to ten inches in 

 diameter at top, where there is a small depression for the eggs, 

 is at ways placed in grass, rushes, or standing rice in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of water. 



Dr. Jerdon says : " It probably breeds in the well-watered 

 districts of Bengal, &c. I found its nest in a swamp below Ran- 

 goon, containing six eggs, reddish cream-colour with dark red and 

 brown spots." 



Colonel Butler writes from Belgaum : " Belgaum, loth August, 

 1880. A nest in a rice-field on a small mound of earth about one 

 foot above the level of the ground. The field was damp but not 

 very wet, and the nest, which consisted of a pad of dry grass, con- 

 tained nine slightly incubated eggs. 



" Another nest taken on the same date contained eight eggs, also 

 slightly incubated. The nest was similar to the one above described, 

 but was built in longish grass in swampy ground adjoining rice-fields. 



" On the 2nd September, 1880, 1 shot a hen bird, in a rice-field near 

 Belgaum, that was just going to lay, but unfortunately the egg 

 was broken by the shot. On the llth September one of my nest- 

 seekers took another nest in a rice-field containing six fresh eggs. 



" Another nest containing seven fresh eggs on the 17th September, 

 1880, and one with seven incubated eggs in long rushes growing 

 round a tank on the 27th September same year.*' 



Mr. J. R. Cripps found a nest of this Rail in Sylhet on the 22nd 

 of J une, containing four fresh eggs. 



