OEATEROPUS. 79 



separate the Madras, Mangalore, and Anjango birds, and insist on 

 their being different species ; but for my part, seeing how the 

 birds vary in each locality and what a perfect and unbroken chain 

 of intermediate forms connects the most different-looking examples, 

 and that all the several races are separable from the other species 

 of this group by their more or less conspicuously pale heads, I 

 prefer to keep them all as G. griseus. 



This species, thus considered, breeds apparently twice a year 

 from April to June, and again in October and even later. 



About Madras the nest is commonly placed in thick thorny 

 hedges of a shrub locally known as " Kurka-puli," said by Balfour 

 to be Garcinia cambogia, but which does not look like a Grarcinia 

 at all. The nest is a loosely^made cup, composed of grass-stems 

 and roots, and the eggs vary from three to five in number. 



Dr. Jerdon says : — " 1 have often found the nest of this bird, 

 which is composed of small twigs and roots, carelessly and loosely 

 put together, in general at no great height from the ground. It 

 lays three or four blue eggs." 



Colonel Butler writes : — " A nest containing four fresh eggs 

 apparently of this species (it being the common Babbler in this 

 district) was brought to me by some wood-cutters on the 18th 

 March, 1880. It was taken in the jungles about six miles from 

 Belgaum, and measured about 2£ inches in diameter and about 

 2 inches deep interiorly, and was of the usual Babbler type, 

 consisting of dry stems loosely but neatly constructed. The eggs 

 were highly glossed and deep bluish green, some people might say 

 greenish blue." 



Mr. Iver Macpherson writes of this bird from Mysore : — " I 

 have found their nests in every month between March and August, 

 and they possibly breed both earlier and later. The nests are 

 generally fixed in thorny bushes and at no great height off the 

 ground. Tour is the usual number of eggs laid, but very often 

 five are found, and I feel much inclined to think that the fifth egg 

 is often that of H. varius." 



The eggs of this species that I possess were taken by Mr. Davi- 

 son in May, in the immediate neighbourhood of Madras. They 

 are all pretty regular, somewhat cylindrical ovals, excessively 

 glossy, spotless, and of a deep greenish blue, much deeper than 

 the eggs of any of the other Grateropi are as a rule; in fact, 

 they approach in colouring to the eggs of Garrulax albigularis. 



They vary in length from 0-9 to 1*0, and in breadth from 0*62 

 to 0'74 ; but I have seen too few eggs to be able to strike any 

 reliable average. 



112. Crateropus striatus (Sw.). The Southern-Indian Babbler. 



Malacocercus striatus (Sw.), Hume, Cat. no. 432 bis. 



Colonel Legge, writing of this bird's nidification in Ceylon, 

 sa y S ;_« The breeding-season of the ' Seven Brothers ' lasts from 



