CEATBEOPUS. 77

" June 17,1876. A nest containing 4 young birds.

" Oct. 15,1876. „ „ 4 fresh eggs.

" Nov. 3,1876. „ „ 4 slightly incubated.

" In some nests I have noticed a breach upon one side of the
nest as if intended for the convenience of the bird's tail. It is
not unusual to find an egg of 0. jacobinus in the nest."

Major C. T. Eingham writes :—" Common both at Allahabad
and at Delhi; I have found this bird breeding from April to the end
of July. All nests that I have found have, with the exception of
one, been placed in low babool bushes; once1 only I found a nest
near Delhi in the fork of a low bough of a inango-tree, this was
on the 31st July. The nests are more or less loosely constructed
cups of slender twigs and grass-roots and inclined."

Mr. J. E-. Cripps writing from Eastern Bengal says :—" On the
15th April I found a nest on the very top of a mango-tree about
30 feet off the ground, shooting the male as it flew off the nest."

The eggs of this species are very variable in colour, shape, and
size. Typically they are rather broad ovals, somewhat compressed
towards one end, and much the shape of, though a good deal
smaller than, those of our English Song-Thrush. Some are, how-
ever, long and cylindrical; others more or less spherical. The
colour varies from a pale blue, like that of Troclialopterum lineatum,
to a deep dull blue, recalling, but yet not so dark as, that of
Garrulax alblc/ularis. The eggs are typically glossy, but it is re-
markable that in a large series the deepest coloured are always far
the most glossy. Some deep blue eggs of this species are most
intensely glossy, more so than almost any other of our Indian
eggs, except those of Metopidius indicus. I need scarcely say that
the eggs are entirely spotless and devoid of all markings, but I may
note that each egg is invariably the same colour throughout, and
that I have never met with a specimen in which the shade of colour
varied in the same egg.

In length the eggs vary from 0*88 to 1*15, and in breadth from
0-75 to 0*82; but the average of fifty-one eggs measured is 1*01
by 0-78.

C. malabaricus.

The Jungle Babbler, like the White-headed one, breeds pretty
well over the whole of Southern India, but while the latter is
chiefly confined to the more open plain country, the former is the
bird of the uplands, hills, and forests. Still the Jungle Babbler
is found at times in the same localities as the White-headed one,
and what is more, specimens occur, as in Cochin, which partake
of the distinctive characters of both. A great deal still remains to
be done in working out properly this group ; both in Siridh on the
west and the Tributary Mehals on the east, and again in some
parts of the Nilghiris, races occur quite intermediate between
typical (7. terricolor and typical C. malabaricus, while in the south,
as already mentioned, forms intermediate between this latter and
(7. griseus seem common. Three distinguishable races again of