98 CKATEROPODIDJi!.

" July 20, 1876. A nest containing 3 fresh eggs.

" July 28, 1876. „ „ 4 fresh eggs.

" Prom this date to the end of August I found any number of
nests containing eggs of both types. The nest is usually built in
the fork of some low thorny tree from 3 to 7 feet from the ground,
The outside of the nest is usually smeared over with cobwebs, re-
minding one of the nest of a Ehipidura"

Mr. Gates writes :—" Breeds abundantly throughout Pegu in
June, and probably in the other months of the rains up to Sep-
tember."

The eggs vary a good deal in size and shape, and very much in
colouring. They are mostly of a very broad oval shape, very ob-
tuse at the smaller end. Some are, however, slightly pyriform,
and some a little elongated. There are two very distinct types of
coloration: one has a pinkish-white ground, thickly and finely
mottled and streaked over the whole surface with more or less
bright and deep brick-dust red, so that the ground-colour only
faintly shows through, here and there, as a sort of pale mottling ;
in the other type the ground-colour is pinkish white, somewhat
sparingly, but boldly, blotched with irregular patches and eccentric
hieroglyphic-like streaks, often Bunting-like in their character, of
bright blood- or brick-dust red. The eggs of this type, besides
these primary markings, generally exhibit towards the large end
a number of pale inky-purple blotches or clouds. There is a third
type somewhat intermediate between these, in which the ground-
colour, instead of being finely freckled all over as in the former, or
sparingly blotched as in the latter, is very coarsely mottled and
c?ouded9 as if clumsily daubed over by a child, with a red inter-
mediate in intensity between that usually observable in the two
first-described types. Combinations of these different types of
course occur, but fully two thirds can be separated distinctly under
the first and second varieties. Though much smaller, many of the
eggs recall those of the English Eobin. The eggs have often a fine
gloss. I have one or two ! specimens so uniformly coloured that,
though perhaps slightly shorter and broader in form, they might
almost pass for the eggs of Cetti's Warbler.

In length they vary from O65 to 0-8, and in breadth from 0-53
to 0*68; but the average of seventy-seven eggs measured is 0*73
by 0-59.

140. Pyctorhis nasalis, Legge. The Ceylon Yellow-eyed Babbler.
Pyctorhis nasalis, Legge, Hume, Cat. no. 385 bis.

Colonel Legge writes in his 'Birds of Ceylon':—"In the
Western Province this Babbler commences to breed in February;
but in May I found several nests in the Uva district near Fort
Macdonald • and that month would thus seem to be the nesting-
season in the Central Province. The nest is placed in the fork of
a shrub, or in a huge tuft of maana-grass, without any attempt at
concealment, about 3 or 4 feet from the ground. It is a neatly-