ide and 5 inside, with a hole on
the side. The eggs are laid at the rate of one a day, and three are
usually found in one nest, occasionally only two. On one occasion
after securing the female bird, he found the cock bird sitting on the
eggs and he continued to sit there for three days.

Mr. J. Davidson tells us that he found a nest of this bird on the 15th
July at Kondabhari with four fresh eggs.

Colonel Legge writes in his 'Birds of Ceylon':--"The breeding-season
lasts from March until July, the nests being built in a low bush
sometimes only a few inches from the ground."

In shape the eggs are moderately elongated ovals. The shell is very
fine and smooth, and has in some a rather bright, in some only a very
slight gloss. The ground is a China-white. The markings consist of
a profusion of specks and spots of a very bright red, which, though
spread over the whole surface, are gathered most densely into an
imperfect, more or less confluent, cap or zone at the larger end,
where also a few purplish-grey spots and specks not usually found on
any other part of the egg, are noticeable.

In length the eggs vary from 0.66 to 0.78, and in breadth from 0.5 to
0.55. The average of 28 eggs is 0.72 by 0.53.

139. Pyctorhis sinensis (Gm.). _The Yellow-eyed Babbler_.

Pyctorhis sinensis (_Gm.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 15; _Hume, Rough
Draft N.& E._ no. 385.

The Yellow-eyed Babbler breeds throughout the plains of India, as also
in the Nilghiris, to an elevation of 5000 feet, and in the Himalayas
to perhaps 4000 feet. It lays in the latter part of June, in July,
August, and September. Gardens are the favourite localities and in
these the little bird makes its compact and solid nest, sometimes in
a fork of the fine twigs of a lime-bush, sometimes in a mangoe-,
orange-, or apple-tree, occasionally suspended between three stout
grass-stems, or even attached to a single stem of the huge grass from
which the native pens are made. I have taken a nest, hung between
three reeds, exactly resembling in shape and position the
Reed-Warbler's nest (_Salicaria arundinacea_), figured in Mr.
Yarrell's vignette at page 313, vol. i. 3rd edition.

The nest is typically cone-shaped (the apex downwards), from 5 to 6
inches in depth, and 3 or 4 in diameter at the base; but it varies of
course according to situation, the cone being often broadly truncated.
In the base of the cone (which is uppermost) is the egg-cavity,
measuring from 2 to 3 inche