and laboriously dislodging some projecting
point of mortar; then marching up and down on the ground, the male
screeching out his harsh love-song, bowing and swelling out his throat
all the while, and then rushing after and soundly thrashing any chance
Crow (four times his weight at least) that inadvertently passed too
near him; never during the whole time had either bird been long
absent, and both had been seen together daily at all hours. I made
certain that they had not even begun to sit, and behold there were
four fine young ones a full week old chirping in the nest! Clearly
these birds are not close sitters down here; but I well remember a
pair at Mussoorie, some 6000 feet above the level of the sea, the most
exemplary parents, one or other being on the eggs at all hours of the
day and night. The morning's sun beats full upon the wall in the inner
side of which the entrance to the nest is; the nest itself is within 4
inches of the exterior surface; at 11 o'clock the thermometer gave 98 deg.
as its temperature. I have often observed in the river Terns (_Seena
aurantia, Rhynchops albicollis, Sterna javanica_) and Pratincoles
(_Glareola lactea_) who lay their eggs in the bare white glittering
river-sands, that so long as the sun is high and the sand hot they
rarely sit _upon_ their eggs, though one or other of the parents
constantly remains beside or hovering near and over them, but in the
early morning, in somewhat cold and cloudy days, and as the night
draws on, they are all close sitters. I 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.

From Lucknow Mr. G. Reid tells us:--"Generally speaking the Common
Myna, like the Crow (_Corvus 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. Butl