364	EULABETIDJ2.
tame ones brought up from the nest, but have never succeeded
in getting a perfect egg owing to my having found all the nests in
very hard places to get at.
" I cut down a tree containing a nest and broke all the eggs,
which must have been very pretty—blue ground, very regularly
marked with purplish-brown spots. The nest was composed of
sticks, twigs, feathers, and some snake-skin. I have found them
in March, April, September, and October. I hope this year to
get a number of eggs, as Culputty is a very good place for
them."
Mr. C. J. "W. Taylor notes from Manzeerabad in Mysore:—
" Common up in the wooded portions of the district. Breeding in
April and May."
Mr. T. Fulton Bourdillon, speaking of this GracMe in Travan-
core, says :—" This bird lays one or two light blue eggs beautifully
blotched with purple in the holes of trees. It does not like heavy
jungle, but after a clearing has been felled and burnt it is sure to
appear. During the fine weather it is very abundant on the hills,
descending to the low country at the foot when the rains have
fairly set in. The nest scarcely deserves the name, being only
a few dead leaves or some powdered wood at the bottom of the
hole, and there about the end of March the egg or eggs are laid.
The young birds, which can be taught to speak and become very
tame, are often taken by the natives, as they can sell them in the
low country. I have obtained on the following dates eggs and
young birds:—
'March 29 th. One egg slightly set.
^£ April 20th.    Two young birds.
'April 22nd.      „
' April 25th.    Two eggs slightly set.
^6 May 2nd.      One young bird.
'I also had three eggs, slightly set, brought me on May 21.
They are rather smaller and a deeper blue than the ones obtained
before, being 1-25 x 1, 1*19 x -95, 1-21 x '97 inch. They were all
out of the same nest, so that the bird sometimes lays three eggs,
though the usual number is two."
Colonel Legge writes in the ' Birds of Ceylon':—"The Black
Myna was breeding in the Pasdun Korale on the occasion of a
visit I made to that part in August, but I did not procure its
eggs."
Other eggs subsequently sent me by Mr. Bourdillon from
Mynall, in Southern Travancore, taken on the 9th and 13th April,
1875, are precisely similar to those already described. The eggs
that I have measured have only varied from 1/2 to 1*37 in length,
and from 0-86 to 0-9 in width.