NOTES ON THE NIDIFICATION OF SOME BURMESE BIRDS. 165 



I found a nest of this species a few miles from Pegu at the 

 commencement of May. It was empty. On the 12th I revi- 

 sited it, and took four eggs, which were all fresh, although the 

 old bird was sitting. 



The nest was suspended from the branch of a small shrub in 

 dense evergreen jungle. The nest itself is a ball about six 

 inches in diameter exteriorly, with a circular opening two inches 

 wide exactly in the centre. The entrance is protected by a rude 

 porch. The materials are chiefly coarse grass, and the outer 

 bark of elephant grass and weeds bound together by fine, black, 

 hair-like roots. The exterior of the nest is adorned with numer- 

 ous yellow cocoons. Towards the bottom of the nest the mate- 

 rials become very coarse and are loosely put together, the ends 

 straggling down a foot or more, forming a long tail. The total 

 length is nearly two feet. The interior of the nest is beauti- 

 fully and firmly lined with broad leaves of elephant or thatch 

 grass, and a few green leaves are spread over the egg cavity. 

 Altogether the nest is one of the most elaborate I have seen, 

 differing in nothing but size from some of the many nests of 

 Arachnechthra Jlammaxillaris that I have found. 



The eggs are tolerably glossy, excessively smooth, and blunt 

 at the smaller end. The ground color is white, tinged with 

 pink, and the whole egg is speckled and spotted with underlying 

 spots of purple and surface spots of rusty brown, more so at the 

 thick end than elsewhere. They measure from '93 to 1 inch in 

 length by '68 to *70 in breadth. 



120.— Gecinus occipitalis, Fig. (172.) 



This bird lays four eggs as a rule, but in one instance I found 

 only three in one nest. 



It is extremely common in all large forests, and breeds from 

 the 1st May to the end of June throughout Pegu. 



Its mode of nidification appears to be well-known. (" Nests 

 and Eggs," p. 125.) 



121.— Tiga javanensis, Ljung. (184.) 



On the 7th May I got three eggs, quite fresh, from a hole 

 of a tree. The hole appeared to have been a natural cavity, but 

 the entrance had been enlarged and made circular. The nest 

 was at no great height from the ground. 



The three eggs are pure white and very glossy and smooth. 

 They are extremely pointed at one end. They measure 1*1 by 

 '77, 1-07 by -71 and 1-09 by -75. 



