Mr. Mandelli sent me a nest of this species which was found, he said, on the 8th May about 4 feet from the ground amongst the foliage of a kind of prickly bamboo growing out of the crevices of a patch of large stones near Lebong (elevation 5000 feet), and contained two eggs nearly ready to hatch.  The nest is a shallow cup, about 3.75 inches in diameter and 1.5 in height externally, composed entirely of fine brown fibrous roots, a little bound together outside with wool and the silk of cocoons and with two or three little bits of moss stuck about it, and sparingly lined with hair-like grass.  It is altogether a light brown nest, no dark material being used in it at all.  The cavity is 2.75 inches in diameter and about 1 deep.

278.  Molpastes haemorrhous (Gm.). The Madras Red-vented Bulbul.

Pycnonotus haemorrhous (Gm.), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 94.  Molpastes pusillus (Bl.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 462.

The Madras Red-vented Bulbul, which by the way extends northwards throughout the Central Provinces, Chota-Nagpoor, Rajpootana (the eastern portions), the plains of the North-Western Provinces, Oudh, Behar, and Western Bengal, breeds in the plains country chiefly in June and July, although a few eggs may also be found in April, May, and August.  In the Nilghiris the breeding-season is from February to April, both months included.

Elsewhere I have recorded the following notes on the nidification of this species in the neighbourhood of Bareilly:—­

“Close to the tank is a thick clump of sal-trees (Shorea robusta), the great building-timber of Northern India, whose natural home is in that vast sub-Himalayan belt of forest which passes only 30 miles to the north of Bareilly.

“In one of these a Common Madras Bulbul had made its home.  The nest was compact and rather massive, built in a fork, on and round a small twig.  Externally it was composed of the stems (with the leaves and flowers still on them) of a tiny groundsel-like (Senecio) asteraceous plant, amongst which were mingled a number of quite dead and skeleton leaves and a few blades of dry grass:  inside, rather coarse grass was tightly woven into a lining for the cavity, which was deep, being about 2 inches in depth by 3 inches in diameter.

“This is the common type of nest; but half an hour later, and scarcely 100 yards further on, we took another nest of this same species.  This one was built in a mango-tree, towards the extremity of one of the branches, where it divided into four upright twigs, between which the Bulbul had firmly planted his dwelling.  Externally it was as usual chiefly composed of the withered stems of the little asteraceous plant, interwoven with a few jhow-shoots (Tamarix dioica) and a little tow-like fibre of the putsan (Hibiscus cannabinus), while a good deal of cobweb was applied externally here and there.  The interior was lined with excessively fine stems of some herbaceous exogenous plant, and there did not appear to be a single dead leaf or a single particle of grass in the whole nest.