THE BLUE-BREASTED BANDED RAIL. 249 



Calcutta, but they seem much more numerous there in March and 

 April than at any other time — perhaps because the whole country 

 is drier and fewer places suited to their habits are then avail- 

 able, and they are therefore easier to find. 



They seem to breed in all the localities where I have noted 

 their occurrence, the breeding season extending from May to 

 the end of October, and they rear, I believe, at least two 

 broods during this period. 



The nest, a pad or heap of grass varying from one to twelve 

 inches in height, and from six to ten inches in diameter at top, 

 where there is a slight depression for the eggs, is always placed 

 in grass, rushes, or standing rice in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of water. 



Six is the largest number of eggs that I have known to 

 be found in any nest, but seven appears to be the full comple- 

 ment. 



A nest taken on the 12th of July in a small swamp outside 

 and south of the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta, which several of 

 the birds had frequented throughout the cold season, was a 

 conical heap of dry rush about eighteen inches in diameter at base, 

 nine at the top, and about six inches in height. The depres- 

 sion may have been an inch deep in the centre, and was lined 

 with green grass. It was placed half on the land and half in 

 the water, completely surrounded by dense bulrushes, through 

 which, on the land side, the birds had made three distinct paths. 

 On the water side there was a tiny natural opening through the 

 bulrushes. The nest contained six hard-set eggs, and the 

 female was snared on it, having returned to it despite the dis- 

 turbance caused by two people smashing through the bulrushes 

 to it and all round about in looking for it. 



Mr. Cripps " found a nest in Sylhet on the 22nd of June, snar- 

 ing the female on it. It was a heap of grass, rushes, &c, about 

 five inches in height, with a slight, central depression, placed 

 in a grass field close to water, and contained four fresh eggs." 



Mr. Darling writes that he "found a nest on the 26th 

 August at Sultan's Battery, Wynad, elevation about 2,000 feet. 

 The nest was placed in some long grass by the side of a small 

 swamp lying between the public road and a bamboo jungle. 

 The nest was in the centre of a tuft of grass about eighteen 

 inches in diameter, and was entirely concealed. It was built 

 exclusively with grass, dry and decaying at base, green and 

 fresh at top, and was some eight inches high and six in diameter, 

 with a central depression two inches in depth. There were five 

 eggs, all covered with mud, which must have first adhered to 

 the feathers of the bird when she was feeding. In this same 

 swamp, not quarter of an acre in extent, I found fifteen shells of 

 three other nests that had hatched off," 



32 



