SYENKJM. 115 



the gi'ound. A young bird, about one month okl, and just able to 

 fly, was taken on the 20th April, and another one rather younger 

 on the 24th March. Eggs should, therefore, be looked for at the 

 end of February and the commencement of March." 



Syrnium ocellatum. Less. The Mottled Wood-Owl. 



Syruium sinense (Lath.), Jerd. B. Ind- i, p. 123. 



Bulaca ocellata (Less.), Hume, Rough Draft N. §• E. no. 65. 



The Mottled Wood-Owllaysinthe plains of the North- Western 

 Provinces and the Punjab, in February and March, but I have a 

 note of the eggs having been taken in the Doon early iu April. 

 In the Central Provinces it lays from November to January. 



Its eggs are deposited at heights of from 8 to 25 feet froin the 

 ground, in some large cavity, or in the depression at the fork of 

 two or more huge branches, of some old peepul or mango tree. 

 There is no nest, so to speak, but a little dry touch-wood, a few 

 dead leaves, or a little earth covering the floor, if I may so call it, 

 of the nesting-place, forms a scanty bed for the eggs. 



I have more than once shot the male sitting on the eggs. 

 Mr. W. Blewitt writes : — " I found a nest near Hansie in a hollow 

 of a peepul-tree about 19 feet from the ground, on the 16th of 

 March. The nest-hole, which was lined with leaves, contained two 

 partially incubated eggs." 



Mr. Brooks says that on the 3rd of March 1867 he " took a 

 pair of eggs out of a nest in a mango-tree. The nest was in the 

 fork of two huge branches about 20 feet from the ground. There 

 was a little earth and a few dry mango-leaves. The eggs were 

 pure white and very round." 



Writing from Eaepore (Central Provinces), Mr. F. E. Blewitt 

 remarks : — " This Owl certainly breeds from November to January. 

 On the 5th December, 1870, I secured for the first and last time 

 the eggs of this species in the Toomgaon (Eaepore Districts) open 

 forest. At a height of some 12 feet from the ground, the trunk 

 of a kaim tree {Naudea parviflora) had divided into two branches, 

 and in the open cavity between these two, which was nearly 2 feet 

 deep, were deposited three fresh eggs, on some loose dry touch- 

 wood and earth. I have occasionally met with this Owl, but only 

 in the Eaepore, and not in the Sumbulpore, District. Mango topes 

 are it^s favourite haunts, though an occasional pair may be met with 

 in open forest." 



Two is the ordinary number of eggs laid ; indeed there ^ere two 

 eggs (in three instances more or less incubated) in every one of 

 the seven nests of which I have notes. 



The late Major Cock wrote to me : — " I took this bird's eggs 

 upon the 20th March, 1875, at Sitapurin Oudh. I had been look- 

 ing about for Keiiyja ceylonensis, some pairs of which were always 

 found there, when I saw in the fork of a mango about 15 feet up 

 what I took to be the wing of some dead bird. Looking closer I 

 could not make it out exactly, so I pitched a stone up ; but as it 



8* 



