DETAILED LIST OF BIRDS. 
203 
effect of some temporary derangement of the system, pre- 
cisely as we sometimes detect a white specimen in the nest 
of the hill Mynah [Eulabes intermedia).'^ 
Mr. Brooks, writing from Almorah, remarks correctly 
that " the nest is formed of the materials described by Dr. 
Jerdon, but in the hills moss is freely used.^^ 
This species breeds also throughout the plains of Upper 
India, but the majority resort during the nesting season to 
the Dhoons and Terais that skirt the Himalayas, and to the 
lower ranges of these latter. In the plains the nest is 
commonly placed in holes of trees, and composed of roots, 
fibres, and feathers. I myself have generally found them in 
May in Agra, Bareilly, and Etawa. Captain Marshall, R.E., 
writing from Saharanpur, says: I send the bird and a pair 
of its eggs. I have found only one nest, and this was on 
the 23rd of April, in a hole in the wall of a building. The 
nest was made of fine twigs very neatly shaped, and lined 
with fibre ; there were five fresh eggs in it.^'' 
Mr. F. R. Blewitt, writing from Saugor, remarks : On 
the 29th June I found the nest in the hollow of a large 
dried limb of a Goolue-tree {Ficus glomerata). It was made 
of coarse and fine grass and roots, placed to about the 
thickness of an inch at the base of the hollow; as to the 
lining there were a few horsehairs. The structure as a 
whole was circular, with a diameter of four and a half inches. 
The five eggs taken are of a pale green, with light brown 
spots and blotches ; on some the brown spots coalesce to- 
wards the broad end.^^ 
The full complement of eggs is almost invariably five. 
They are typically oval, neither very broad nor narrow, but 
somewhat elongated ; pyriform and almost globular varieties 
occur. They are moderately glossy. The ground colour 
varies as much as does the size and shape of the egg. In 
some it is greenish, in others greenish- white, while in others 
it is a beautiful pale sea-green, or again a delicate pale, only 
slightly greenish blue. Many of the eggs are perfect 
miniatures of eggs of Merula simillima, and recall varieties 
of the English Blackbird, which, indeed, is almost the only 
English egg with which I am familiar to which their 
