300

SYLYIIDJE.

" Aug. 13. A nest containing 5 fresh eggs.

16. , 4 young birds fledged.

17. , 5

3

19. 4

5

30. 5

Sept, 3. 5

"In addition to the above, I found nests in the same neigh-
bourhood in 1.875. One on the 14th August containing four
young birds almost ready to leave the nest. It was placed in the
middle of a tussock of coarse grass on the side of a nullah on a
bank overgrown with grass and bushes, and my attention was
attracted first of all to the spot by the incessant chattering and
uneasiness of the two old birds, one of which had a large grass-
hopper in its mouth. After hiding behind a bush for a few
minutes, I saw the hen bird fly to the nest, which led to its dis-
covery. The nest was dome-shaped, with an entrance upon one
side, composed exteriorly of blades of rather coarse dry grass (green,
however, as a rule when the nest is first built), and interiorly of
similar, but finer, material. It is an easy nest to find when once the
locality in which the birds breed is discovered, as it is a conspicuous
ball of grass, smeared over, often more or less, exteriorly with a silky
white vegetable-down or cobweb, and many of the blades of the
tussock in which it is placed are often drawn down and woven into
the nest, which at once attracts attention. Then, again, the cock
bird is almost always to be found on the top of some low tree
near the nest, uttering his peculiar ventriloquistic note ' tissip}
tissiji), tissi$>S etc. All the above nests were exactly alike and in
similar situations, viz. fixed in the centre of a tussock of coarse
grass on the banks of some deep nullahs running through a large
grass ' Beerh/ The eggs remind me more of the English Boom's
eggs than those of any other species I know. The ground-colour
is dull white, sometimes tinted with pale green, and the markings
reddish fawn. In some cases the eggs are peppered all over witli
a conspicuous zone at the large end, sometimes a dense cap instead
of a zone. In other cases the markings, though always present,
are almost invisible, as also the zone or cap. They are about the
size of the eggs of the Spotted Flycatcher. I found a few other
nests besides those I have mentioned during July and August
1875."

Captain Cock informed me that this species is " common in the
jungles around Seetapore. Nest is largish, dome-shaped, and
placed low down in a thorny bush. The bird lays in August five
eggs, the fac-simile of the eggs of Pratincola ferrea, perhaps of a
more elongated type than the eggs of that bird."

Mr. H. Parker, writing on the birds of North-west Ceylon, refers
to this bird under the titles D. jerdoni and D. valida, and informs
us that it breeds from January to May.