98 CBATEEOPODIDJG. 



" July 20, 1876. A nest containing 3 fresh eggs. 



" July 28, 1876. „ „ 4 fresh eggs. 



" From this date to the end of August I found any number of 

 nests containing eggs of both types. The nest is usually built in 

 the fork of some low thorny tree from 3 to 7 feet from the ground. 

 The outside of the nest is usually smeared over with cobwebs, re- 

 minding one of the nest of a JRhipidura." 



Mr. Oates writes : — " Breeds abundantly throughout Pegu in 

 June, and probably in the other months of the rains up to Sep- 

 tember." 



The eggs vary a good deal in size and shape, and very much in 

 colouring. They are mostly of a very broad oval shape, very ob- 

 tuce at the smaller end. Some are, however, slightly pyriform, 

 and some a little elongated. There are two very distinct types of 

 coloration : one has a pinkish-white ground, thickly and finely 

 mottled and streaked over the whole surface with more or less 

 bright and deep brick-dust red, so that the ground-colour only 

 faintly shows through, here and there, as a sort of pale mottling ; 

 in the other type the ground-colour is pinkish white, somewhat 

 sparingly, but boldly, blotched with irregular patches and eccentric 

 hieroglyphic-like streaks, often Bunting-like in their character, of 

 bright blood- or brick-dust red. The eggs of this type, besides 

 these primary markings, generally exhibit towards the large end 

 a number of pale inky-purple blotches or clouds. There is a third 

 type somewhat intermediate between these, in which the ground- 

 colour, instead of being finely freckled all over as in the former, or 

 sparingly blotched as in the latter, is very coarsely mottled and 

 clouded, as if clumsily daubed over by a child, with a red inter- 

 mediate in intensity between that usually observable in the two 

 first-described types. Combinations of these different types of 

 course occur, but fully two thirds can be separated distinctly under 

 the first and second varieties. Though much smaller, many of the 

 eggs recall those of the English Eobin. The eggs have often a fine 

 gloss. I have one or two specimens so uniformly coloured that, 

 though perhaps slightly shorter and broader in form, they might 

 almost pass for the eggs of Cetti's Warbler. 



In length they vary from 065 to 0-8, and in breadth from 053 

 to 0-68 ; but the average of seventy-seven eggs measured is 0-73 

 by 059. 



140. Pyctorhis nasalis, Legge. The Ceylon Yellow-eyed Babbler. 

 Pyctorhis nasalis, Legge, Hume, Cat. no. 385 bis. 



Colonel Legge writes in his 'Birds of Ceylon': — "In the 

 Western Province this Babbler commences to breed in February ; 

 but in May I found several nests in the Uva district near Fort 

 Macdonald ; and that month would thus seem to be the nesting- 

 season in the Central Province. The nest is placed in the fork of 

 a shrub, or in a huge tuft of maana-grass, without any attempt at 

 concealment, about 3 or 4 feet from the ground. It is a neatly- 



