190 CEATEEOPODIDJE. 



Mr. E. Aitken writes : — " I once found a nest in Bombay, not 

 many feet above the level of the sea of course. 



" The first egg was laid on 14th September. The nest was built 

 in a bush on the edge of an inundated field, but in our garden. 

 It was fixed to a thin waving branch underneath the bush, which 

 completely overshadowed it. It was only 2 feet from the ground, 

 a cup just large enough to hold the body of the bird, whose head 

 and tail always projected over the edge ; and it was made of thin 

 twigs and neatly lined with coir. The bird laid two eggs and then 

 deserted the nest. One of these, which I took, was thicker and 

 rounder than a Bulbul's, and thickly spotted with claret-coloured 

 spots, which gathered into a ring at the larger end. 



"The eggs were laid on successive days. I think the birds had 

 already had one brood (in another nest), for I saw apparently the 

 same pair followed by a young one not long before." 



Dr. Jerdon says : — " 1 found the nest in my garden at Nellore. 

 It was rather loosely made with roots, grass, and hair, placed in a 

 hedge, and the eggs, four in number, were reddish white, with 

 darker lake-red spots, exceedingly like those of the Common Bulbul.'' 



Colonel Legge, in his ' Birds of Ceylon,' tells us that this Bulbul 

 breeds in the west and south-west of Ceylon from December to 

 June, the months of April and May, however, appearing to be the 

 favourite time. On the eastern side of the island it breeds during 

 the north-east rains. 



The eggs answer well enough to Dr. Jerdon's description, but 

 to an oologist's eye they are excessively uiv-lilce those of the 

 Common Bulbul ; shape, tone of colour, and character of markings 

 alike differ. 



In shape they are decidedly elongated ovals. The shell is very 

 fine and smooth, and moderately glossy. The ground is reddish 

 white, and this is profusely speckled and blotched (the blotches 

 being chiefly confined, however, to a broad irregular zone round 

 the broader end) with a deep but certainly, I should say, not lake- 

 red, but much nearer what one would get by mixing brown with 

 vermilion. Besides these red markings sundry clouds and spots of 

 a pale greyish lilac are intermingled in a zone, and one or two spots 

 of the same colour may be traced elsewhere. 



The eggs measure 0-92 by 0-62, and 0-97 by 0-63. 



306. Pycnonotus blanfordi (Jerd.). Blanford's Bulbul. 

 Ixus blanfordi (Jerd.), Hmne, Cat. no. 452 quint. 



Mr. Oates writes from Pegu : — " Nest in a small tree, well 

 concealed by leaves, about 7 feet from the ground, near Pegu. A 

 very neat cup measuring 3 inches diameter externally and 2| in- 

 ternally. The depth If inch outside and 1| inside. The sides of 

 the nest, though very strongly woven, can be seen through. The 

 materials consist of small fine branchlets of weeds, and the inside 

 is neatly lined with grass. One or two dead leaves, or rather 

 fragments, are used in the exterior walling. 



