rm welcome. The nests are at all
times exposed, and the natives believe that two males and one female
are found occupying one nest. The birds being gregarious build on
adjoining trees, and while the ladies are engaged with their domestic
affairs their lords keep each other company, so the natives put them
down as polyandrous. I have found over a dozen nests, and every one
has been the counterpart of the other, and only on date-trees."

Miss Cockburn writes from the Nilghiris:--"On the 17th May, 1873, a
nest of this bird was found. It was formed in a perpendicular hole in
a dried stump of a tree, about 15 feet in height. The nest consisted
entirely of slight sticks lined with fine grass, no soft material
being added as a finish, and the whole structure went to pieces when
removed. This nest contained three eggs, their colour white, with a
few dark and light brown spots and blotches all over, and a strongly
marked ring round the thick end.

"The birds frequently returned to the place while the eggs were being
taken, till one of them was shot."

Mr. J. Davidson remarks:--"This bird is very local in the Tumkur
districts in Mysore, and I have only found it in three or four
gardens. I knew it had been breeding (from dissection) since March,
but till to-day (May 9th) I could not find its nest. To-day, however,
I saw four or five birds perpetually flying round and round a very
ragged old cocoanut-tree, the highest in that part of the garden, and
determined to send a man up. Two birds, however, at that moment lit on
one branch and I shot them both, and they proved to be fully-fledged
young ones. I sent the man up, however, and was rewarded by his
announcing two old nests and a new one containing one egg. The nests
were near the trunk of the tree on the horizontal leaves, and were
formed of thin roots and a little grass and were very slight. The egg,
which is large for the size of the bird, is creamy white, with a broad
ring round the larger end formed of blotches of orange, brown, and
purple, and in the cap within the ring there are a number of faint
purple spots. The egg was perfectly fresh, and the old birds defended
it by swooping down upon the man; and I can't help thinking that both
the young birds and the new nest belonged to one pair of birds, and
that as soon as their first brood was fledged they had commenced to
lay again."

A nest taken by Mr. Gammie on the 24th April, at an elevation of about
3500 feet in Sikhim,