482 Mr. W. Jesse on the 
although I have taken it on sheshum and pepul trees. 
Five is the full clutch^ though three and four incubated eggs 
are almost as common. I have a most lovelv series varving: 
enormously in shape, size, and colour. The commonest 
variety is leaden white profusely blotched with red ; but 
I have pure white examples with red, bluish green with 
reddish and yellowish brown, green with profuse yellow- 
brown blotches (like very spherical and miniature Crow's), 
and pale yellowish green absolutely without a ma)'k. With 
regard to these last, had I not — as, indeed, I have with 
every clutch of the Tree-Pie — observed the bird not once, 
but several times on the nest, and seen the eggs lifted 
out from under her, I would not have believed in their 
parentage. 
Of sixteen Lucknow eggs the average is 1^^*11 x '82 
>// 
No. 105. Argya caudata. Common Babbler. 
Hedge-Sparrow; Bush-Sparrow [Anglo-Indian boys]. 
'' The striated Bush-Babbler is a common and permanent 
resident, very abundant in dhak and thorn jungle, less so 
in patches of thatching-grass which it also frequents^ and is 
seen, though not habitually, in hedgerows and about 
gardens, and is not uncommon in the large, grass-hedged, 
guava-groves about Lucknow.'^ — G-. B. 
My own experience is that this bird is not common just 
round the station, its favourite jungle having been cleared 
away to a great extent for cultivation during the last decade. 
It is found in small parties in the tamarisk-jungle along the 
river, but is commoner some miles from Lucknow. 
I once found its nest on March 25th, shooting the bird off 
three eggs, in a stunted bush near the butts on the La Mar- 
tiniere rifle-range. Another nest, in which there were two 
eggs, was robbed — apparently by crows — some days before. 
Both nests were neat cups, something like those of 
A. malcolmi, but were very much smaller, deeper, and lined 
with fine grass. 
Mr. George Beid took eggs, seemingly in corounda and 
dhak jungle, on the following dates : — 
