PITTA COEONATA. 
691 
■when the birds begin to answer one another. Mr. Ball says that when uttering the wlieet (or, as the Singhalese 
render it, avit) the head is drawn hack as far as possible and then jerked forward again as the bird concludes 
with the pe-u. He has heard it (in the breeding-season I conclude) utter a sweet Thrush-like song 
resembling that of the Shdma. 
Though very shy and wary it is possessed of considerable inquisitiveness. While standing still under 
the shelter of dense jungle I have not unfrequently had it approach me within a few yards, flitting from the 
ground to a low branch and quietly scanning me with its bright eye, its head cocked on one side and its tail 
erect. While I remained motionless it would continue to scrutinize me, but on the least stir it would dart 
otf into the surrounding cover. 
M hen it first arrives it wanders into strange places — gardens, compounds, and even houses. Jerdon 
writes of capturing one in the General Hospital, Madras. My friend Mr. Forbes Laurie related to me that 
one night, on returning from dining at a friend^s, he found one running about among the flowers in his 
garden at Tunisgala; on bringing a lamp upon the seene he easily caught it. Mr. Bligh, too, informs me 
that they are frequently caught on coffee-estates in the bungalows on cold stormy days, and that one so 
captured in his distriet lived for many weeks, chiefly on worms ; it was kept in a lumber-room with only a 
small window in it and seemed quite happy, standing a good deal on one leg and nervously moving its tail 
up and down. He tells me that they come some distance to roost, as they are fond of bushy trees like the 
lime and orange, which are not plentiful on the coffee- estates j and he has seen them making their way across 
a coffee-plantation by short flights or stages. 
It feeds entirely on the ground, picking up beetles, termites, ants, and other insects which it finds in 
the soil and among dead leaves, its bill being usually covered more or less with earth when it is shot. Layard 
says that it resorts to the same ant-hill for days together, 
I have already referred, in my article on Turdus spiloptera, to a Singhalese legend connected with the 
Pitta; and Mr. Parker sends me the following as bearing on its name {Ayittd) in the North-west Province : — 
“ It is said that this bird once possessed the Peacock^s plumes ; but one day when he was bathing the Peacock 
stole his dress ; ever since that he has gone about the jungle calling for them, ‘ Ayittam, ayittam ’ (mv 
dress, my dress) . 
Another legend is that the Pitta was formerly a prince who was deeply in love with a beautiful 
princess. Ilis father sent him to travel for some years, as was in olden times the custom with princes here. 
When he returned the princess w'as dead, and the unfortunate prince 'W'andered disconsolately about, continually 
calling her by name, ‘ Ayitta, Ayitta.^ Out of pity to him, the gods transformed him into this bird.’^ 
There is something peculiar, in fact startling, in this bird’s curious cry, proceeding from dense thickets, 
where it cannot itself be seen ; and this fact, combined with its beautiful plumage and its sudden appearance 
in the island as a migrant, which is not intelligible to the untutored native mind, has naturally made it the 
subject of legends with the Singhalese. 
Nidification. In the Central Provinces of India this Pitta breeds in July and August, according to 
Mr. Blewitt, who has taken numbers of its eggs. The nests are described by Mr. Hume as “ large globular 
sti’uctures, fully 9 inches in horizontal diameter and 6 inches high, with a circular opening on one side ; thev 
are composed internally of fine twigs, notably of the tamarisk, and grass-roots ; externally of drv leaves, many 
of them skeletons, held in their places by a few roots or twigs. The inteimal cavity may be about 4 inches 
in diameter. The nests are placed in brushwood and scrub-jungle, either on the ground or on low branches 
close to it.’'’ 
“lew Indian eggs are,” says the same author, “more beautiful than those of this species. In shape 
they are excessively broad and regular ovals ; they are excessively glossy ; the ground-colour is china-white, 
sometimes faintly tinged with pink, sometimes creamy, speckled and spotted, and sometimes also painted, with 
fine hair-like lines of deep maroon, dark purple, and brownish purple as primary markings, and pale inky 
purple as secondary ones. The primary markings arc scattered, in some instances pretty thickly, in others very 
sparingly, over the whole surface of the egg, but are always much denser towards one end, to which in 
some eggs they are entirely confined; and here alone the secondary markings are at all conspicuous.. 
I should note that there is one not uncommon type in which the whole egg is devoid of markings, except 
4t2 
