The eggs in size, colour, and shape closely resemble those of Molpastes leucotis.  All that I have said in regard to these latter is applicable to those of the present species, and, so far as varieties of coloration go, the description of the eggs of Molpastes leucogenys is equally applicable to those of the present species.  If any distinction can be drawn, it is that, as a body, bold blotches of rich red and pale purple are more commonly exhibited in the eggs of this species than in those of either of the preceding ones.

In length the eggs vary from 0.8 to 0.9, and in breadth from 0.85 to 0.7, but the average of twenty-seven eggs was 0.83 nearly, by 0.63 barely.

289.  Otocompsa fuscicaudata, Gould. The Southern Red-whiskered Bulbul.

Otocompsa fuscicaudata, Gould, Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 400 bis.

The Southern Red-whiskered Bulbul is found throughout the more hilly and more or less elevated tracts of the peninsula, from Cape Comorin northwards as far as Mount Aboo on the west, and the Eastern Ghats, above Nellore, on the east.  How far northwards it extends in the centre of the peninsula I am not certain, but I have seen a specimen from the Satpooras.

They breed any time from the beginning of February to the end of May.  Their nests are usually placed at no great height from the ground (say at from 2 to 6 feet) in some thick bush.

The nests of this species that I procured at Mount Aboo, and which have been sent me by Mr. Carter both from Coonoor and Salem, and by other friends from other parts of the Nilghiris, where the bird is excessively common, very much resemble those of O. emeria, but they are somewhat neater and more substantial in structure.  They differ a good deal in size and shape, as the nests of Bulbuls are wont to do.  Some are rather broad and shallow, with egg-cavities measuring 31/4 inches across, and perhaps 1 inch in depth; while others are deeper and more cup-shaped, the cavity measuring only 21/2 inches across and fully 11/2 inch in depth.  They are composed in some cases almost wholly of grass-roots, in others of very fine twigs of the furash (Tamarix furas) in others again of rather fine grass, and all have a quantity of dead leaves or dry ferns worked into the bottom, and all are lined with either very fine grass or very fine grass-roots.  The external diameter averages about 41/2 inches, but some stand fully 3 inches high, while others are not above 2 inches in height.  As might be expected, the White-cheeked and White-eared and the two Red-whiskered Bulbuls’ types of architecture differ considerably; inter se, the nests of M. leucotis and M. leucogenys differ just sufficiently to render it generally possible to separate them, and the same may be said of the nests of O. emeria and O. fuscicaudata.  But there is a very wide difference between the nests of the two former and the two latter species, so that it would be scarcely possible to mistake a nest belonging to the one group for that of the other.  The incorporation of a quantity of dead leaves in the body of the nests, reminding one much, of those of the English Nightingale, is characteristic of the Red-whiskered Bulbul, and is scarcely to be met with in those of the White-cheeked or White-eared ones.