AOEIDOTHEEES 381

551. Acridotheres gmginianus (Lath.). The Bank Myna.

Acridotheres gmginianus (Lath.), Jerd. B. Ind.ii, p. 326: Hume,
Rough Draft N. $ JE. no. 685.

The Bank Myna breeds throughout the North-West Provinces
and Oudh, Behar, and Central Bengal, the greater portion of the
Central Provinces, and the Punjab and Sindh. Adams says it does
not occur in the Punjab; but, as Colonel C, H. T. Marshall correctly
pointed out to me years ago, and 1 have verified the facts, it breeds
about Lahore and many other places, and in the high banks of the
Beas, the Sutlej, the Jhelum, and the Indus, congregating in large
numbers on these rivers just as it does on the Jumna or the
Ganges.

It builds exclusively, so far as iny experience goes, in earthen
banks and cliffs, in holes which it excavates for itself, always, I
think, in close proximity to water, and by preference in places
overhanging or overlooking running water.

The breeding-season lasts from the middle of April to the middle
of July, but I have found more eggs in May than in any other
month.

Four is the usual number of the eggs ; I have found live, but
never more. If Theobald got seven or eight, they belonged to two
pairs : and the nests so run into each other that this is a mistake
that might easily be made, even where coolies were digging into
the bank before one.

There is really no variety in their nesting arrangements, and a
note I recorded in regard to one colony that I robbed will, I think,
sufficiently illustrate the subject. All that can be said is that very
commonly they nesfc low down in earthy cliffs, where it is next to
impossible to explore thoroughly their workings, while in the in-
stance referred to these were very accessible:—

" One morning, driving out near Bareilly, we found that a colony
of the Bank Myna had taken possession of some fresh excavations
on the banks of a small stream. The excavation was about 10 feet
deep, and in its face, in a band of softer and sandier earth than the
rest of the bank, about a foot below the surface of the ground, these
Mynas had bored innumerable holes. They had taken no notice of
the workman who had been continuously employed within a few
yards of them, and who informed us that the Mynas had first
made their appearance there only a month previously. On digging
into the bank we found the holes all connected with each other, in
one place or another, so that apparently every Myna could get into
or out from its nest by any one of the hundred odd holes in the
face of the excavation. The holes averaged about 3 inches in dia-
meter, and twisted and turned up and down, right and left, in a
wonderful manner; each hole terminated in a more or less well-
marked bulb (if I may use the term), or egg-chamber, situated
from. 4 to 7 feet from the face of the bank. The egg-chamber was