te-sized bush about 7 or 8
feet from the ground. The eggs are greenish blue, bluer and not so
brightly coloured as those of _C. terricolor_."

Mr. R.M. Adam remarks:--"Near Muttra, on the 31st October, I found a
pair of birds busy lining the interior of a nest which they had built
in a plum-tree. At the Sambhur lake it is very common, and commences
to breed about the end of March."

Writing from Kotagherry (Nilghiris), Miss Cockburn remarks:--"Their
nests are built of a few twigs and roots, very loosely put together
(on some low branch of a tree), and so few of even these as hardly to
keep the eggs from falling through. These Babblers lay four oval eggs
of a greenish-blue colour, but I once saw a nest with eight, and as
there were several of these birds close to it, I have no doubt two or
three shared it together, perhaps to avoid the necessity of each pair
building for itself. Their nests are found in the months of March and
April.

"It is in the nests of this species and our Common Laughing-Thrush
(_T. cachinnans_) that I have chiefly found the eggs of the Pied
Crested Cuckoo."

Of this species Colonel G.F.L. Marshall remarks:--"I have taken eggs
on the 20th June in Cawnpoor, the 31st July in Bolundshuhur, and the
25th August in Allyghur. The nest is almost always in a keekur tree in
a fork about halfway up, and near the end of a branch. It is composed
of keekur-twigs and lined with roots. It is thinner in structure than
that of _M. terricolor_, but has an outer casing of thorns which the
latter wants. They lay four blue eggs, larger and paler than those of
_M. canorus_"

Lieut. H.E. Barnes writes that in Rajputana the Large Grey Babbler
is "very common. I have found nests in each month from January to
December. They have, I believe, several broods in the year; and even
when nesting associate in small parties of seven or eight."

Messrs. Davidson and Wenden say:--"Common, and breeds in the Deccan."

Major C.T. Bingham says:--"Breeds both at Allahabad and at Delhi from
March to quite the end of August, placing its loosely constructed
(rarely firmly built) nest of twigs and fine grass-roots generally at
no great height in babool-trees. Twice only I have found them in dense
mango-trees at about thirty feet from the ground. The nests are not, I
think, as a rule, so deep as those of _Crateropus terricolor_; once
or twice I have found the soft down of the Madar (_Catatropes
hamiltonii_) incorporated into the lining