ience, is the ordinary one, is covered all over with
reddish-brown spots or rather blotches, chiefly towards the big end,
on a pale greenish-white ground, and is rather a handsome egg; the
other is a pale green egg with _faint brown_ markings, which are
confined almost entirely to the obtuse end. I have another clutch of
eggs taken at Budaon in 1865, which presents an intermediate variety
between the above two extremes; these are profusely blotched with
russet-brown on a dirty-white ground.

"The second and third nests above referred to contained five eggs; but
the usual complement is not more than four. On the 2nd August, 1872,
I made the following note relative to the breeding of this bird:--The
bird flew off immediately we approached the tree, and never appeared
again. The nest viewed from below looked larger; this is owing to dry
_babool_ twigs or rather small branches (some of them having thorns
from an inch to 2 inches long!) having been used as a foundation, and
actually encircling the nest, no doubt by way of protection against
vermin; some of these thorny twigs were a foot long, and they had
to be removed piecemeal before the nest proper could be got at. The
egg-cavity is deep, measuring 5 inches in depth by 4 in breadth inside
measurement; it is well lined with khus grass."

Major Bingham says:--

"Common as is this bird I have only found one nest, and that was at
Allahabad on the 9th July, and contained one half-fledged young one
and an addled egg. The nest, which was placed at the very top of a
large mango-tree, was constructed of branches and twigs of the same
lined with fine grass-roots. The egg is a yellowish white, thickly
speckled, chiefly at the large end, with rusty. Length 1.10 by 0.82 in
breadth."

Colonel Butler tells us that it "breeds in Sind, in the hot weather.
Mr. Doig took a nest containing three fresh eggs on the 1st May, 1878.
The eggs, which seem to me to be remarkably small for the size of the
bird, are of the first type mentioned in Rough Draft of 'Nests and
Eggs,' p. 422."

Lieut. H.E. Barnes says in his 'Birds of Bombay:'--"In Sind they breed
during May and June, always choosing babool trees, placing the nest
in a stoutish fork near the top; they are composed at the bottom of
thorny twigs, which form a sort of foundation upon which the true nest
is built; the latter consists of fine twigs lined with grass-roots;
the nest is frequently of large size."

Mr. G.W. Vidal, writing of