PHALACEOCOEAX. 273 



The eggs sent me by Mr. Blewitt, though unquestionably be- 

 longing to this family, strike me as large for this species. The 

 majority of them are nearly, and some of them are quite, 

 as large as those of the Snake-bird ; and though the bird itself is 

 by no means very much larger than our Little Cormorant, the eggs 

 sent me as belonging to it are fully double the size of those of this 

 latter. I cannot therefore help fearing that perhaps some mis- 

 take has been made. The Cormorant and the Snake-birds breed 

 together, at times in the same trees, and the wrong, birds may 

 possibly have been shot when the eggs were taken, further 

 observations are necessary. 



Fhalacrocorax pygmsBUS (Pall.). The Little Cormorant. 



Graoulus javanicus {Horsf.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 863. 

 Graculus melanognathus {Brandt), Hume, liough Draft N. Sf E. 

 no. 1007. 



The Little Cormorant breeds all over the Empire, always, as far 

 as my experience goes, on trees in the immediate vicinity of lakes, 

 jheels, or ponds, and very commonly in trees standing well into 

 the water. 



In Upper India they lay during the latter part of August and 

 the first week in September. They nest in companies of from five 

 or six to fifty or more pairs. The nests are moderate-sized stick 

 structures, very often old ones of a previous year repaired, and not 

 unfrequently they take possession of those originally built by 

 Crows and Egrets. Very commonly they are found breeding in 

 company on the same tree with the Snake-bird, and occasionally 

 (but rarely) with some of the smaller Herons. 



I have noticed that they seem to have a decided preference for 

 nesting in babool trees. 



Of the breeding of this bird in Sind, Colonel Butler writes : — 

 " Mr. Doig and 1 found large colonies of the Small Cormorant 

 breeding in the E. Narra, Sind, in a dense tamarisk thicket in the 

 middle of a large dhund on the 24th July, 1878. The nests were 

 of the usual type and contained fresh eggs, and the birds were 

 breeding in company with P. melanogaster and P.fascicollis." 



" In Ceylon," says Colonel Legge, " it breeds in February and 

 March, on trees by the side of unfrequented tanks, and often 

 in company with Plotus melanogaster. Numbers of nests ai'e 

 placed in one tree, and are not large for the bird, being constructed 

 of small sticks, placed on horizontal branches towards their ends. 

 The number of eggs laid at the colony of these birds, at Uduwila 

 Tank, was usually three ; they were long and elliptical in shape, 

 and of a greenish white over an inner surface of green, appearing 

 when the egg was scratched." 



Mr. Oates writes from Pegu : — " Incredible numbers of this bird 

 breed in the reeds of the Myitkyo swamps. The water is alive 

 with the young birds which tumble out of the nests. They seem 



TOl. III. 18 



