AOHIDOTHEBES 381 



551. Acridotheres ginginianus (Lath.). The Bank Myna. 



Acridotheres gingimanus (Lath.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 326; Hume, 

 Bough Draft N. $ E. no. 685. 



The Bank Myna breeds throughout the North -West Provinces 

 and Oudh, Behar, and Central Bengal, the greater portion of the 

 Central Provinces, and the Punjab and Sindh. Adams says it does 

 not occur in the Punjab ; but, as Colonel C. H. T. Marshall correctly 

 pointed out to me years ago, and I have verified the facts, it breeds 

 about Lahore and many other places, and in the high banks of the 

 Beas, the Sutlej, the Jhelum, and the Indus, congregating in large 

 numbers on these rivers just as it does on the Jumna or the 

 Ganges. 



It builds exclusively, so far as my experience goes, in earthen 

 banks and cliffs, in holes which it excavates for itself, always, I 

 think, in close proximity to water, and by preference in places 

 overhanging or overlooking running water. 



The breeding-season lasts from the middle of April to the middle 

 of July, but I have found more eggs in May than in any other 

 month. 



Four is the usual number of the eggs ; I have found five, but 

 never more. If Theobald got seven or eight, they belonged to two 

 pairs ; and the nests so run into each other that this is a mistake 

 that might easily be made, even where coolies were digging into 

 the bank before one. 



There is really no variety in their nesting arrangements, and a 

 note I recorded in regard to one colony that I robbed will, I think, 

 sufficiently illustrate the subject. All that can be said is that very 

 commonly they nest low down in earthy cliffs, where it is next to 

 impossible to explore thoroughly their workings, while in the in- 

 stance referred to these were very accessible : — 



" One morning, driving out near Bareilly, we found that a colony 

 of the Bank Myna bad taken possession of some fresh excavations 

 on the banks of a small stream. The excavation was about 10 feet 

 deep, and in its face, in a band of softer and sandier earth than the 

 rest of the bank, about afoot below the surface of the ground, these 

 Mynas had bored innumerable holes. They had taken no notice of 

 the workman who had been continuously employed within a few 

 yards of them, and who informed us that the Mynas had first 

 made their appearance there only a month previously. On digging 

 into the bank we found the holes all connected with each other, in 

 one place or another, so that apparently every Myna could get into 

 or out from its nest by any one of the hundred odd holes in the 

 face of the excavation. The holes averaged about 3 inches in dia- 

 meter, and twisted and turned up and down, right and left, in a 

 wonderful manner ; each hole terminated in a more or less well- 

 marked bulb (if I may use the term), or egg-chamber, situated 

 from 4 to 7 feet from the face of the bank. The egg-chamber was 



