354

that the nest, although apparently finished, was empty. The nest
was built entirely of grass, somewhat coarse on the exterior, finer
on the inside; it was a shallow saucer-shaped structure, and was
placed in a hollow at the top of the stump."

Family ORIOLID^E.

518. Oriolus kimdoo, Sykes. The Indian Oriole.

Oriolus kundoo, 8ykest Jerd. B. 2nd. ii. p. 107 j Hume, Rough Draft
N. $ E. no. 470.

The Indian Oriole breeds from. May to August (the great
majority, however, laying in June and July) almost throughout
the plains country of India and in the lower ranges of the Hima-
layas to an elevation of 4000 feet. In Southern and Eastern
Bengal it only, so far as I know, occurs as a straggler during the
cold season, and I have no information of its breeding there. It
does not apparently ascend the Nilghiris, and throughout the
southern, portion of the peninsula it breeds very sparingly, if at
all; indeed, it is just at the commencement of the breeding-season,
when the mangoes are ripening, that Upper India is suddenly
visited by vast numbers of this species migrating from the south.

The nest is placed on some large tree, I do not think the bird
has any special preference, and is a moderately deep purse or
pocket, suspended between some slender fork towards the ex-
tremity of one of the higher boughs. Erom below it looks like a
round ball of grass wedged into the fork, and the sitting bird is com-
pletely hidden within it; but when in the hand it proves to be a
most beautifully woven purse, shallower or deeper as the case may
be, hung from the fork of two twigs, made of fine grass and slender
strips of some tenacious bark and bound round and round the
twigs, and secured to them much as a prawn-net is to its wooden
framework. Some nests contain no extraneous matters, but
others have all kinds of odds and ends—scraps of newspaper or
cloth, shavings, rags, snake-skins, thread, &c.—interwoven in the
exterior. The interior is always neatly lined with fine grass-
stems.

Yery commonly the bird so selects the site for its nest that
the leaves of the twigs it uses as a framework form more or less
of a shady canopy overhead; in fact, as a rule, it is from very few
points of view that even a passing bird of prey can catch sight of
the female on her eggs. Possibly the brilliant plumage of the
bird (which has endowed it amongst the natives with the name of
Peeluk, or "The Yellow One") may have had something to do
with the concealment it so generally affects.

The nests vary a good deal in size. I have seen one with an