189 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VILL. 
(57) DryMocATAPHUS TICKELLI.—Tickel’s Babbler. 
Oates, No. 151 ; Hume, No. 899 Tr. 
Nipirrcation.—I have now taken fully a score of nests of this 
bird, and I can therefore have no doubt as to the identity of the 
owner, although, as will be seen, the eggs have not the slightest 
resemblance to those which Bingham found and which he believed 
to have belonged to this bird. On ten occasions 1 have trapped the 
bird on the nest ; twice I have shot it as it flew out of it and once as 
it rested on a branch of a bush above the nest. The nest is either 
a globular concern or else a very deep cup with one side prolonged 
and bent somewhat forward. Asarule it is made of bamboo leaves 
and shreds of the softer parts of sun grass, but very often there are a 
great many pieces of bracken and fern also interwoven with the 
former materials. It is much like the usual type of nest of Pellor- 
neum ruficeps, but is far more compact and therefore somewhat 
smaller in external measurements, and also much neater, though 
internally averaging about the same. Most nests are placed actually — 
on the ground, either at the foot of a bamboo clump, a thick bush or a 
mass of grass and weeds. Other nests are placed a foot or two above the 
ground in tangles of creepers or wild raspberry bushes, the latter kind of 
situation especially being a very favourite one. Most nests are very 
well concealed, but such is not always the case, for on one occasion 
I found a nest just by a pathway which led from my camp down toa 
stream and which was used by some twenty people every day on their 
way to and from the water. The nest was placed about eighteen 
inches from the ground, in a mass of wild caladium plants and raspberry 
creepers and, from one direction, was fully exposed to view. When I 
first came to the camp the nest contained a single egg, and two days 
afterwards, when another had been laid, the two were taken away, bul- 
buls’ eggs being put in as substitutes in order that the bird should not 
desert the nest. ‘Two more eggs were laid, and the bulbuls’ eggs were 
taken out and thrown away. The bird was very shy at first and always 
used to leave the nest before a sight could be got of it, but afterwards 
she sat very close and would lie in ber nest and blink at me when I 
stood barely three yards away. I regret to say that durmg my absence 
for a short time from the camp some Naga boys trapped the bird and 
