ACBIDOTHEKES. 379

suspect that instinct teaches the birds that, when the natural
temperature of the nest reaches a certain point, any addition of
their body-heat is unnecessary, and this may explain why during
the hot days (when we alone noticed them), in this very hot hole,
the parent Mynas spent so little of their time in the nest whilst
.the process of hatching was going on."

They lay. indifferently four or five eggs. I have just as often
found the former as the latter number, but I have never yet met
with more.

Prom Lucknow Mr. G-. Eeid tells us:—" Generally speaking
the Common Myna, like the Crow (Gowns splendens\ commences to
breed with the first fall of rain in June—early or late as the case
may be—and has done breeding by the middle of September. It
nests indiscriminately in old ruins, verandahs, walls of houses, &c.,
but preferentially, I think, in holes of trees, laying generally four,
but sometimes five eggs."

Colonel E. A. Butler writes :—" In Karachi Mynas begin to lay
at the end of April. The Common Myna breeds in the neighbour-
hood of Deesa during the monsoon, principally in the months of
July and August, at which season every pair seems to be engaged
in nidification. I have taken nests containing fresh eggs during
the first- week of September; and birds that have had their first
nests robbed or young destroyed probably lay even later still."

Lieut. H. E. Barnes informs us that this Myna breeds in
Hajputana during June and July.

Mr. Benjamin Aitken has furnished me with the following
interesting note :—" A pair of Mynas clung tenaciously for two
years, from June 1863 to August 1865, to a hole in some matting
in the upper verandah of a house in Bombay. During this period
they hatched six broods, one of which I took and another was de-
stroyed, by rats perhaps. 1 had a strong suspicion that more than
one set of eggs were destroyed besides.

"The remarkable thing I wish to note is that every alternate brood
of young contained an albino, pure white and with pink eyes ;
being three in all. Every time a new set of eggs was to be laid,
a new nest was built on the top of the old one. I once tore down
the whole pile, as it was infested with vermin, and found that
seven nests had been made, one upon another, showing that the
Mynas must have occupied the hole long before I noticed them.
Each nest was complete in itself and well lined, and as Mynas are
not sparing of their materials, the accumulated heap was nearly
two feet deep. Every separate nest contained a piece of a snake's
skin, and with reference to your remark on this point I may say
that every Myna's nest that I have ever examined has had a piece
of snake-skin in it. This may, I think, be simply accounted for
by the fact of snake-skin lying about plentifully in those places
where Mynas mostly pick up their building-materials. The
breeding-season extends into September in Bombay ; and though
it usually begins in June, I found a nest of half-fledged young at
Khandalla on the 31st May, 1871.