LATICILLA.	247
"The eggs measured 0-62 by 0*44.
" The nest was found hanging on a large-leafed annual shrub
growing in the Dhoon, and was placed about 2 feet from the
ground. It was taken on 22iid July."
386. Laticilla burnesi (BL).    The Long-tailed Grass-Warbler.
Eurycercus burnesii, BL, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 74.
Mr. S. B. Doig appears to be the only ornithologist who has
found the nest of the Long-tailed Grass-Warbler. Writing of the
Eastern Narra District, in Sind, he says :—
"This bird is in certain localities very numerous, but invariably
confines itself to dense thickets of reed and tamarisk jungle. The
discovery of my first nest was as follows:
" On the 13th March, while closely searching some thick grass
along the banks of a small canal, 1 heard a peculiar twittering which
I did not recognize. After standing perfectly still for a short
while, I at length caught sight of the bird, which I at once identified
as L. lurnesi. Leaving the bed of the canal in which I was walking
and making a slight detour, I came suddenly over the spoil-bank
of the canal on to the place where the bird had been calling.
My sudden appearance caused the bird to get very excited, and it
kept on twittering, approaching nie at one time until quite close
and then going away again a short distance; I at once began
searching for its nest, and out of the first tussock of grass I touched,
close to where I was standing, new the female, who joined her mate,
after which both birds kept up a continuous and angry twittering.
On opening out the grass, I found the nest with three fresh eggs
in it, placed right in the centre of the tuft and close to the ground.
The eggs were of a pale green ground-colour, covered with large
irregular blotches of purplish brown, and not very unlike some of
the eggs of Passer flavlcollis. After this I found several nests, but
they were all building, and were one and all deserted, though in
umny instances I never touched the nest, often never saw it, as on
seeing the birds flying in and out of the grass with building material
in their bills I left the place and returned in ten days' time, but
only to find the nest deserted. In one case where a single egg had
been laid, I found that the bird before deserting the nest had broken
the egg. In July I again got a nest and shot the parent birds;
the eggs in this nest were quite of a different type, being of a very
pale cream ground-colour, with large rusty blotches, principally
confined to the larger end. The nests of this bird are composed
of coarse grass, the inside being composed of the finer parts ; they
are 4 to 5 inches external diameter and 2^ inches internal diameter,
the cavity being about 1J inches deep. The months in which they
breed are, as far as I at present know, March, June, and September.
The eggs vary in size from *65 to *SO in length and from. -50 to *55
in breadth. The average of seven eggs is -72 in length and -54
in breadth/^7