336 



The season of nidificatiori throughout India and Ceylon is said to be July and August ; but 

 Dr. Eadde had eggs brought to him at Lenkoran late in April, and Mr. Parker (Ibis, 1886, 

 p. 187) surmises that in the south-east of Ceylon this Gallinule has two broods in the year. 



Mr. A. O. Hume, in his ' Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds,' 2nd ed. iii. p. 384, gives the 

 following account of its nidihcation : — " The Purple Coot breeds all over the plains of India 

 wherever there are large swamps and jheels with plenty of rush and weed. As a rule, not 

 less than ten pairs breed in the same place. I have invariably in Northern India found the 

 eggs in July and August, never earlier or later ; but they are said to have been met with in 

 June and September. 



"Two noteworthy points are (1st) that all the birds in the same swamp both lay and 

 hatch off about the same time ; (2nd) that in two different jheels only a dozen miles apart, and 

 apparently precisely similarly situated, there will be a difference of fifteen days or more in the 

 period of the laying of the two colonies. Thus I have noted that one year, on the 10th August, 

 I found every one of over a dozen nests in the Atchuldy jheel empty and the young hatched 

 off; while on the 16th of the same month at Rahun, distant some twenty miles only, I found 

 seventeen nests full of eggs — mostly a good deal incubated it is true, but none ready to hatch off 

 for at least a week. 



" The nest is made of pieces of rush and reed amongst thick grass and rice. Sometimes 

 it is on the ground, sometimes, though not free, it is floating. In the latter case the bottom of 

 the cavity will not be above an inch or two above the surface of the water, but there will be a 

 mass of stuff submerged. Ten is the maximum number of eggs that I have as yet found in any 

 nest, and I have repeatedly taken seven and eight well-incubated ones." 



Latterly the eggs of this Gallinule have come in considerable numbers into the hands of 

 dealers here in Europe, and are not unfrequently made to do duty for the rarer eggs of Porphyrio 

 cceruleus. I possess four eggs from Sikkim which have the ground-colour clay-buff, and are 

 spotted and blotched with purplish-grey underlying markings and deep brownish-red surface 

 spots, and measure from 1*9 by 1*4 inch to 2 - by L42. Compared with the eggs of P. cceruleus 

 the ground-colour is paler, and the markings are fewer and smaller, and they are somewhat 

 smaller in size. 



The specimen figured is the male above described and is in my own collection. 



In the preparation of the above article I have examined, besides the large series in the 

 British Museum, the following specimens : — 



E Mus. H. E. Dresser. 



a,$ ad. Lenkoran, January 16th (Schhiter). b,$,c,$. Lenkoran, January 1888 (Schliiter). d, $. Len- 

 koran December 1887 {Dr. G. Radde). 



