altogether in persuading her to come out. Captain Beavan’s description of the eggs is quite 
accurate. It is a familiar and fearless bird, breeding freely in gardens close to houses in 
the stations of the North-west Provinces. 
Dr. Jerdon, in his work on the Birds of India, gives the following notes on the 
nidification and habits of this species “ The Crimson-breasted Barbet is very common 
wherever there is a sufficiency of trees, inhabiting open spaces in jungles, groves of trees, 
avenues, and gardens, being very familiar, and approaching close to houses, and not unfie- 
quently perching on the house-tops. As far as I have observed, it does nou climb like the 
Woodpeckers, but hops about the branches like other perching birds. The Rev. Mr. 
Philipps states that it runs up and down the tree like a Woodpecker; and other observers 
have asserted that it climbs to its hole. A pair bred in my garden at Langor, in the cross 
beam of a vinery : the entrance was from the underside of the beam, perfectly circular ; it 
appeared to have been used for several years, and the bird had gone on lengthening the 
cavity inside year by year till the distance from the original entrance was four or five feet ; 
and it had then made another entrance, also from below, about two and a half feet from the 
nest. I quite recently observed a nest of this bird in a hole of a decayed branch of a tree, 
close to a house, in a large thoroughfare in Calcutta.” 
There are figures of this species to be found in Buffon, Le Vaillant, and Des Murs, but 
no modern ones. Our Plate is taken from specimens in our own Collection, obtained from 
Umballa, and represents a pair of adult birds life-size. 
