The eggs are of the ordinary Bulbul type, but not amongst the more richly-coloured examples of these; in shape and size they vary a good deal, but typically they seem to be moderately broad ovals slightly compressed towards the small end.  The shell is fine and smooth, but has scarcely any appreciable gloss; the ground is pale pink or pinky white.  At the large end the markings are dense, forming in some eggs an almost confluent zone, in others a mottled cap; they consist of irregular-shaped spots and specks of deep red and pale subsurface-looking greyish purple; over the rest of the surface of the egg outside the zone or cap the markings are much smaller in size and much more thinly scattered, and it is observable that the secondary purple markings are to a great extent confined to the zone or cap, as the case may be, and its immediate neighbourhood.

Occasionally the markings, which seem always to be small and speckly, are very sparsely set, leaving comparatively large portions of the surface unmarked; and occasionally eggs are met with in which the primary markings are wholly wanting, and there is nothing but a pale reddish-purple cloudy mottling over the greater portion of the surface of the egg.[A]

[Footnote A:  PYCNONOTUS PLUMOSUS, Bl. The Large Olive Bulbul.

Ixus plumosus (Bl.), Hume, cat. no. 452 sept.

Mr. W. Davison writes:—­“I found one nest of this Bulbul at Kossoom:  it was of the ordinary Bulbul type and placed in a small but dense clump of cane, about 18 inches from the ground.  The parent birds were very vociferous when the nest was approached.”

The eggs of all these Bulbuls, though they are separable when individually compared, follow so closely the same type of colouring that, it is almost impossible to make their distinctions apparent by any verbal descriptions.

The eggs of the present species are like those of so many others, moderately broad ovals, obtuse at the large end, somewhat compressed towards the small end, at times slightly pyriform.  The shell very fine, smooth and thin, but strong, and generally with an appreciable though not at all conspicuous gloss.

The ground-colour is pink or pinky white, and they are very thickly speckled and spotted everywhere, but extremely densely so, and there blotched also in a broad irregular zone, round the large end with rich reddish maroon and dull greyish or inky purple—­the rich colour predominating in some eggs, the dull colour in others; and in some the markings being all extremely fine and speckly, while in others they are rather bolder.  Two eggs measure 0.9 by 0.66.

PYCNONOTUS SIMPLEX, Less. Moore’s Olive Bulbul.

Ixus brunneus (Bl.), Hume, cat. no. 452 oct.

Mr. W. Davison says:—­“I took a nest of P. simplex in some rather thick jungle at Klang.  The nest, of the ordinary Bulbul type (in fact it might easily have passed for a nest of Olocompsa), was placed in the fork of a small sapling about 6 feet from the ground.  The nest contained two eggs.  The female was shot from the nest.”