Eastern Bengal this bird is very common
and a permanent resident. Eggs are found from the beginning of May to
the end of June, in grass-jungle almost on the ground. The nest is a
deep cup, externally of fine grasses, internally of the downy tops of
the sun-grass.

In the Deccan, Messrs. Davidson and Wenden state that it is "common in
all grass-lands. It breeds in the rainy season."

Mr. Oates, writing on the breeding of this bird in Pegu, says:--"The
majority of birds begin laying at the commencement of June, and
probably nests may be found throughout the rains. I procured a nest
on the 2nd of November, a very late date I imagine. It contained four
eggs."

I have taken the eggs of this bird myself on many occasions. I have
had them sent me with the nest and bird by Mr. Brooks from Etawah, and
Mr. F.R. Blewitt from Jhansi. From first to last I have seen fully
fifty authentic eggs of this species. All were of one and the same
type, and that type widely different from any one of those that Dr.
Bree, following European ornithologists, figures. Dr. Bree's three
figures all represent a perfectly spotless egg--one pink, the other
bluish white, and the third a pretty dark bluish green. Our eggs, on
the contrary, are _spotted_; the ground is white with, when fresh and
unblown, a delicate pink hue, due not to the shell itself, but to its
contents, which partially show through it. Occasionally the white
ground has a _faint_ greenish tinge.

_Every_ egg is spotted, and most densely so towards the large end,
with, as a rule, excessively minute red, reddish-purple, and pale
purple specks, thus resembling, though smaller, more glossy, and far
less densely speckled, the eggs of _Franklinia buchanani_. These are
beyond all question the eggs of our Indian species, and the only type
of them that I have yet observed; but the question remains--Is our
Indian _Prinia cursitans_, Franklin, really identical with the
European _C. schoenicola_, Bonaparte? [A]--and this can only be
settled by careful comparison of an enormous series of good specimens
of each bird. For my part I personally have little doubts as to the
identity of the two. At the same time differences in the eggs may
indicate difference of species. Thus of the closely allied _C.
volitans_, Swinhoe, the latter gentleman informs us that "the eggs of
our bird vary from three to five, are thin and fragile, and of a pale
clear greenish blue"[B]. He called it _C. schoenicola_ when he