228 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



limbs. In 1893 the hole had again found a tenant, and the female was 

 observed to keep so continually inside the nest that I felt sure the eggs 

 were laid and that the bird had begun to sit. 



Thinking thus I shot the male and female, and after some time 

 induced a Naga to climb up the tree and inspect the nest and bring 

 down the contents. My disappointment was natural when there was 

 found to be but one egg which was carefully brought by the Naga to 

 within a few feet of the ground and then just as carefully dropped. 



The first nest I ever took of this bird was found in a hollow of a 

 dead stump standing in some bamboo jungle close by a road from 

 which the hole was easily visible, and from which the bird could 

 be seen quite distinctly whenever it put its head close to the entrance. 

 In spite of this the nest was not discovered until the eggs were so 

 far incubated as to render the cleaning of them a long and difficult 



The number of eggs laid seems to be always four. I have twice 

 seen four hard set eggs and twice four young ones. As I have never 

 seen a whole fresh egg 1 can only judge from the hard set ones that 

 their surface is rather more porous and the texture softer than in the 

 eggs of Athene brama, allowing of course for their becoming softer as 

 incubation advances. Both clutches were also much discoloured, and 

 even after long washing and brushing still presented a very yellow 

 appearance. The fragments of the broken egg were white and very 

 glossy, but even that egg had begun to get soiled in places, though 

 the dirt had not had time to penetrate the shell. 



The only clutch of eggs I have been able to measure were 1*35 

 inches by 1*2 inches and are very large in proportion to the size of the 

 bird, even more so than are most owls' eggs. 



The great discoloration of the eggs appears to be caused by the 

 chronically filthy state of the bird's feet. All those I have shot have 

 been more or less dirty, and some are simply coated with mud and 

 evil smelling remnants of former meals. 



This bird is the mosfc common of all the family in North Oachar, 

 nearly every hundred yards of jungle which contains a few big trees 

 holding one or more paira of this owlet. Their ordinary cry — and I 

 have frequently watched them in the very act of uttering it — is a long 

 drawn rippling whistle, highest and loudest at the commencement 



