Megalurus palustris, Horsf., Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 70; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 440.

Nothing has hitherto been recorded of the nidification of the Striated Marsh-Warbler, although it has a very wide distribution and is very common in suitable localities.

The Striated Marsh-Babbler, as Jerdon calls it, has nothing of the Babbler in it.  It rises perpendicularly out of the reeds, sings rather screechingly while in the air, and descends suddenly.  It has much more of a song than any of the Babblers, a much stronger flight, and its sudden, upward, towering flight and equally sudden descent are unlike anything seen amongst the Babblers.

Mr. E.C.  Nunn procured the nest and an egg of this species (which along with the parent birds he kindly forwarded to me) at Hoshungabad on the 4th May, 1868.  The nest was round, composed of dry grass, and situated in a cluster of reeds between two rocks in the bed of the Nerbudda.  It contained a single fresh egg.

Writing from Wau, in the Pegu District, Mr. Oates remarks:—­“I found a nest on the 19th May containing four eggs recently laid.  The female flew off only at the last moment, when my pony was about to tread on the tuft of grass she had selected for her home.

“The nest was placed in a small but very dense grass-tuft about a foot above the ground.  It was made entirely of coarse grasses, and assimilated well with the dry and entangled stems among which it lay.  The nest was very deep and purse-shaped.  It was about 8 inches in total height at the back, and some 2 inches lower in front, the upper part of the purse being as it were cut off slantingly, and thus leaving an entrance which was more or less circular.  The width is 61/2 inches, and the breadth from front to back 4 inches.  The interior is smooth, lined with somewhat finer grass, and measures 4 inches in depth by 3 inches from side to side, and by 2 inches from front to back.

“Megalurus palustris is very common throughout the large plains lying between the Pegu and Sittang Rivers.  At the end of May they were all breeding.  The nest is, however, difficult to find, owing to the vast extent of favourable ground suited to its habits.  Every yard of the land produces a clump of grass likely enough to hold a nest, and as the female sits still till the nest is actually touched, it becomes a difficult and laborious task to find the nest.”

He subsequently remarks:—­“May seems to be the month in which these birds lay here.  The nest is very often placed on the ground under the shelter of some grass-tuft.”

Mr. Cockburn writes to me:—­“I found a nest of this bird on the north bank of the Bramaputra, near Sadija.  One of the birds darted off the nest a foot or two from me in an excited way, which led me to search.  The nest was almost a perfect oval, with a slice taken off at the top on one side, built in a clump of grass, and only 9 or 10 inches from the ground.  It was made of sarpat-grass, and lined internally with finer grasses.  The grass had a bleached and washed-out appearance, while the clump was quite green.  This was on the 29th May.  I noticed at the same time that the nest was not interwoven with the living grass.  I removed it easily with the hand.”