190	CRA'JCEEOrODIM,
Mr. E. Aitken writes :-—"I once found a nest in Bombay, not
many feet above the level of the sea of course.
" The first egg was laid on 14th September. The nest was built
in a bush on the edge of an inundated field, but in our garden.
It was fixed to a thin waving branch underneath the bush, which
completely overshadowed it. It was only 2 feet from the ground,
a cup just large enough to hold the body of the bird, whose head
and tail always projected over the edge; and it was made of thin,
twigs and neatly lined with coir. The bird laid two eggs and then
deserted the nesfc. One of these, which I took, was thicker and
rounder than a Bulbiil's, and thickly spotted with claret-coloured
spots, which gathered into a ring at the larger end.
" The eggs were laid on successive days. I think the birds had
already had one brood (in another nest), for I saw apparently the
same pair followed by a young one not long before."
Dr. Jerdon says:—" 1 found the nest in my garden at Nellore.
It was rather loosely made with roots, grass, and hair, placed in a
"hedge, and the eggs, four in number, were reddish white, with
darker lake-red spots, exceedingly like those of the Common Bulbul.'''
Colonel Legge, in his 'Birds of Ceylon,^7 tells us that this Bulbul
breeds in the west and south-west of Ceylon from December to
June, the months of April and May, however, appearing to be the
favourite time. On the eastern side of the island it breeds during
the north-east rains.
The eggs answer well enough to Dr. Jerdon's description, but
to an oologist's eye they are excessively un-UJce those of the
Common Bulbul,- shape, tone of colour, and character of markings
alike differ.
In shape they are decidedly elongated ovals. The shell is very
fine and smooth, and moderately glossy. The ground is reddish
white, and this is profusely speckled and blotched (the blotches
being chiefly confined, however, to a broad irregular zone round
the broader end) with a deep but certainly, I should say, not lake-
red, but much nearer what one would get by mixing brown with,
vermilion. Besides these red markings sundry clouds and spots of
a pale greyish lilac are intermingled in a zone, and one or two spots
of the same colour may be traced elsewhere.
The eggs measure 0*92 by 0-62, and 0-97 by 0-63.
300. Pycnonotus blanfordi (Jerd.)-   BlanforcVs Bulbul.
Ixus blanfordi (Jerd.), Hume, Cat. no. 452 quint,
Mr. Gates writes from Pegu :—«Nest in a small tree, well
concealed by leaves, about 7 feet from the ground, near Pegu. A
very neat cup measuring 3 inches diameter externally and 24 in-
ternally. The depth 1| inch outside and 1| inside. 'The sides of
the nest, though very strongly woven, can be seen through. The
materials consist of small fine branchlets of weeds, and the "inside
is neatly lined with grass. One or two dead leaves, or rather
fragments, are used in the exterior walling.