stems and the ends worked into
the body of the nest; sometimes against a bamboo-stem seated on, and
attached to, the bunch of twigs given out at a node; or in a fork of a
small tree, or end of an upright cut branch where several shoots have
sprung away from under the cut and keep the nest in position, when it
has a large pad of an everlasting plant or of the downy heads of a
large flowering grass to rest on--when the former material is handy it
is preferred. The nest is sometimes exposed to view, but generally is
tolerably well concealed. It is of a deep cup-shape, very compactly
built of flowering grass and stems of herbaceous plants intermixed
with fibry twigs, and lined with the small fibry-looking branchlets of
grass-panicles. Externally it measures 5 inches across by 31/2 inches
in depth; internally the cavity is 31/2 inches in diameter by nearly 2
inches deep. Usually the eggs are either four or five in number. On
one occasion only have I seen so many as six. The coloration is of two
distinct types, but one type only is found in the same nest. I suspect
that the age of the bird has something to do with the variation
of colour in the eggs. In a nest containing four eggs one had the
majority of the spots collected on the small, instead of the thick end
as usual, and, strange to say, it was addled white. The other three
were hard-set. The parents get very much excited when their young are
approached, and, as long as the intruder is in the vicinity, keep up
an incessant volley of their harsh grating cries, at the same time
stretching out their necks and jerking about their tails violently."

Mr. J.R. Cripps, writing from Furreedpore in Eastern Bengal,
says:--"Excessively common and a permanent resident. Prefers open
plains interspersed with bushes, also the small bushes on road-sides
are a favourite haunt of theirs. Breeds in the district. I took ten
nests this season from the 11th April to 4th June, with from one to
five eggs in each. Four nests were placed in bamboo clumps from 9 to
30 feet high; one 40 feet from the ground on a casuarina-tree, one 20
feet up in a but-tree, and the rest in babool-trees at from 6 to 15
feet high from the ground. There is no attempt at concealment. The
nest is a deep cup fixed in a fork, and is made of grasses with a deal
of the downy tops of the same for an outside lining; this peculiarity
at once distinguishes the nest of this species. The description given
by Mr. Hodgson of a nest