MOLPASTES. 171

uniformly speckled all over with small spots of light purplish grey,
light reddish brown, and very dark brown. These eggs scarcely
seem to belong to the same bird as the boldly blotched and richly-
mottled specimens that we have taken to-day."

Writing from the neighbourhood of Delhi, Mr. E. H. Blewitt says :
" This Bulbul breeds from the middle of May to about the middle
of August. Its selection of a tree for its nest is arbitrary, as I
have found the latter on almost every variety of bash and tree.
The nest is neatly cup-shaped, generally fragile in structure, though
I have seen many a nest strong and compact. The outer diameter
of the nest varies from 3 to nearly 4 inches, and the inner diameter
from 2 to almost 3 inches.

" The chief material of the nest is, on the outside, coarse grass,
with fine Wins or fine grass for the lining. Very frequently horse-
hair is likewise used for lining the interior of the cavity.

" I have seen some nests bound round on the outside with hemp,
other kinds of vegetable fibres, and even spider's web.
" The regular number of the eggs is four."
Mr. W. Theobald found the present species breeding in Mon-
ghyr in the fourth week of June.

Mr. Nunn remarks :— " I took a nest of this species at Hoshun-
gabad on 26th June, 1868, which contained four eggs; it was
placed in a lime-tree, was composed of very small twigs, and lined
inside with fine grass-roots; it was cup-shaped, and measured
internally 2-25 inches in breadth by 1'75 in depth."

The late Mr. A. Anderson wrote from Eut tehgurh:—" On the 30th
April last (1874) I took a very beautifully and curiously constructed
nest of our Common Bulbul. In shape and size it resembled the
ordinary nest, but the curious part of it was that the upper por-
tion of the nest for an inch all round was com posed entirely of green
twigs of the neem tree on which it was built, and the under surface
(below) was felted with fresh blossoms belonging to the same tree.
The green twigs had evidently been broken ofi: by the birds, but
the flowers were picked up from off the ground, where they were
lying thick."

Colonel Butler says:—"The Madras lied-vented Bulbul breeds
in the neighbourhood of Deesa all through the hot weather and in
the monsoon. I found a nest at Mount Aboo in a garden on the
15th of April in the middle of a pot of sweet peas, containing three
fresh eggs. I found other nests in Deesa, from the llth May to
20th August, each containing three eggs.

" The nest is usually built of dry grass-stems, lined with fine roots
and a few horsehairs neatly woven together. One nest I found
was in a very remarkable situation, viz. inside an uninhabited
bungalow upon the top of a door leading out of a sitting-room;
the door was open and the bolt at the top had been forced back,
and it was between the top of the door and the top of the bolt
that the nest rested. The old bird entered the building by passing
first of all through the lattice-work of the verandah and then
through a broken window-pane into the room where the nest was
built,"