ohiolus.	361
adjoining tree there was a nest with two slightly-set eggs. He
says :—" It was a very deep cup on the end of a thin branch, and
though in cutting the branch to get at the nest, it got turned at
right angles to its proper position, the eggs were uninjured. I do
not think this nest belonged to the same pair as that which had
young ones flying.
" These Orioles are very common here, and I found three nests :
one was new and empty; from another the birds had just flown ;
while the remaining one contained one fresh egg. The bird would
no doubt have laid more; but to get at the nest I had to cut the
branch off, and it was only then I discovered that only one egg
bad been laid."
Major C. T. Biugham says:—"Plentiful at Allahabad across
the Ganges, notwithstanding which I only found one nest, and
that I have no note about, but I remember it was some time in
June, and contained four half-fledged young ones; the materials
of the nest were the same as those used by 0. kundoo."
"Writing of his experience in Tenasserim he adds :—" On the
5th March I found a nest of this bird in a small tree near the
village of Hpamee. It, however, contained three unfledged young,
so I left it alone.
" On the 21st April I found a second nest suspended from the
tip of a bamboo that overhung the path from Shwaobah village to
Hpamee. This contained two awfully hard-set eggs, white, with
a few dark purple blotches and spots at the larger ends. Nest
made of grass and dry bamboo-leaves, lined with the dry midribs
of leaves, and firmly bound on to the fork of the bamboo with a
strip of some bark."
Mr. Oates writes from Pegu:—" My nests of this Oriole have
been found in March, April, and May, but I have no doubt they
also breed in Juue. No details appear necessary."
Typically the eggs are somewhat elongated ovals, only slightly
compressed towards one end, but pyriform as well as more pointed
varieties may be met with. The shell is very fine and moderately
glossy. The ground-colour varies from a creamy or pinky white to
a decided but very pale salmon-colour. They are sparingly spotted
and streaked with dark brown and pale inky purple. In most
eggs the markings are more numerous towards the large end.
Some have no markings elsewhere. The dark spots, especially
towards the large end, are not unfrequently more or less enveloped
in a reddish-pink nimbus. Though much larger and much more
glossy, some of the eggs, so far as shape, colour, and markings go,
exactly resemble some of the eggs of Dicrurus ater. The eggs of
0. Jcundoo are typically excessively glossy china-white, with few
well-defined black spots. The eggs of 0. melanoceplialus are
typically somewhat less glossy, with a pinky ground and more
numerous and less defined brownish-purple spots and streaks. I
have not yet seen one egg of either species that could be mistaken
for one of the other, although of course abnormal varieties of each
approach each other more closely than do the typical forms.