ass very
loosely put together, of broad reed-leaves, between 3 or 4 inches in
diameter, and with a central unlined cavity.

Mr. Iver Macpherson, writing from Mysore, says:--"I have only met with
this bird in heavy bamboo-forest, and have only found two nests, viz.,
on the 25th May and 2nd July, 1879. Both nests were fixed low down (2
to 3 feet) in bamboo-clumps, and each contained two eggs, which, for
the size of the bird, I considered very large. Nest globular, and very
loosely constructed of bamboo-leaves and blades of grass."

An egg sent me from Coonoor by Mr. Wait is a moderately broad, very
regular oval, only slightly compressed towards the smaller end. The
shell is very fine and satiny, but has only a slight gloss. The
ground-colour is white or slightly greyish white, and towards the
large end it is profusely speckled with minute dots of brownish and
purplish red, a few specks of the same colour being scattered about
the rest of the surface of the eggs.

Another egg sent me from Kotagherry by Miss Cockburn exactly
corresponds with the above description.

Both are precisely the same in size, and measure 0.75 by 0.55.
Other eggs measure from 0.75 to 0.79 in length by 0.53 to 0.58 in
breadth[A].

[Footnote A: Mr. T. Fulton Bourdillon (S.F. ix, p. 300) gives
an interesting account of the nest and eggs of a species of
_Rhopocichla_, which he failed to identify satisfactorily. It may have
been _R. atriceps_ or _R. bourdilloni_. Most probably, judging from
the locality, it was the latter. As, however, there is a doubt about
it, I do not insert the note.--ED.]

167. Rhopocichla nigrifrons (Bl.). _The Black-fronted Babbler_.

Alcippe nigrifrons, _Bl., Hume, cat._ no. 390 ter.

Colonel Legge writes regarding the nidification of the Black-fronted
Babbler in Ceylon:--"After finding hundreds of the curious dry-leaf
structures, mentioned in 'The Ibis,' 1874, p. 19, entirely void of
contents, and having come almost to the conclusion that they were
built as roosting-places, I at last came on a newly-constructed one
containing two eggs, on the 5th of January last; the bird was in the
nest at the time, so that my identification of the eggs was certain.
The nest of this Babbler is generally placed in a bramble or
straggling piece of undergrowth near a path in the jungle or other
open spot; it is about 3 or 4 feet from the ground, and is entirely
made of dead leaves and a few twigs; the leaves are laid one over
another