96 BUBONIDyE. 



elongated oval than those of S. Jlammea. The two eggs sent 

 by Mr. Parker measured 1-65 by 1"27 inch and 1-66 by 1-28 

 inch. 



Other eggs vThich I have received from the Khasia Hills and 

 Cachar are quite similar, dull white glossless eggs, rather elongated 

 ovals, varying bat httle in size or shape ; the shell is quite yellow 

 when held up against the light. 



They measure from 1-53 to 1'61 in length, and from 1-21 to 

 1"25 in breadth. 



Family BUBONIDiE. 



Ketupa ceylonensis (Gmel.). The Brown Fish-Owl. 



Ketupa ceylonensis ( Om.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 133 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. ^ E. no. 72. 



The Brown Pish-Owl breeds from December to March, but the 

 majority lay, I think, in February. They always nest in the 

 vicinity of water, sometimes choosing a cleft in rocks overhanging 

 a mountain-stream, sometimes a broad shelf in the clay cliffs of 

 some river, sometimes a huge cavity in some old banyan-tree, and 

 at times appropriating an old nest of Haliaetus leueoryphus. 



"Where they make their own nest, on a ledge or recess of a cliff, 

 it consists of little but a few sticks, mingled with a few feathers, 

 or, when in holes of trees, of a few feathers and dead leaves ; but 

 when they annex an old nest of the Fishing-Eagle (and I have 

 several records of this), they seem to line it more carefully with 

 finer twigs, grass, and feathers. I have never found green lea\es 

 under the eggs of this species. 



Normally they lay two eggs ; I have altogether records of nine 

 nests, and in none of them were there more than two eggs or 

 young ones. 



Colonel G. Marshall writes : — " This bird is pretty common in 

 the Saharunpore District ; it lays two round white eggs, and 

 returns year after year to the same nest. I found one nest in a 

 hollow in the fork of a banyan-tree about 25 feet from the ground, 

 the hollow being so deep that the parent bird, sitting, could not be 

 seen, from the ground on any side. I found it accidentally, as I 

 was climbing the tree for another nest. I watched it for three 

 years : in 1866, on the 10th April, I found it with two young ones ; 

 in 1867, I visited it on the 17th March, and again found young 

 ones ; in 1868, on the 24th February, I found two eggs, the first 

 of which was hatched on 14th March, the other egg I took. The 

 tree in which the nest was was a very large one, in a small grove 

 of jamun-trees {Eugenium jambolaiium), on the bank of an extensive 

 jheel near Sirsawar." 



