Mr. Cripps says:—­“They breed in April and May in the Dibrugarh district, placing their deep cup-shaped nests in tussocks of grass wherever it is swampy, in some instances the bottoms of the nests being wet.  Four seems to be the greatest number of eggs in a nest.”

The eggs are much the same shape and size as those of Acrocephalus stentoreus.  They have a dead-white ground, thickly speckled and spotted with blackish and purplish brown, and have but a slight gloss; the speckling, everywhere thick, is generally densest at the large end, and there chiefly do spots, as big as an ordinary pin’s head, occur.  At the large end, besides these specklings, there is a cloudy, dull, irregular cap, or else isolated patches, of very pale inky purple, which more or less obscure the ground-colour.  In the peculiar speckly character of the markings these eggs recall doubtless some specimens of the eggs of the different Bulbuls, but their natural affinities seem to be with those of the Acrocephalinae.

The eggs vary from 0.8 to 0.97 in length, and from 0.61 to 0.69 in breadth; but the average of twelve eggs is 0.85 by 0.64.

390.  Schoenicola platyura (Jerd.). The Broad-tailed Grass-Warbler.

Schoenicola platyura (Jerd.), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 73.

Colonel E.A.  Butler discovered the nest of the Broad-tailed Grass-Warbler at Belgaum.  He writes:—­

“On the 1st September, 1880, I shot a pair of these birds as they rose out of some long grass by the side of a rice-field; and, thinking there might be a nest, I commenced a diligent search, which resulted in my finding one.  It consisted of a good-sized ball of coarse blades of dry grass, with an entrance on one side, and was built in long grass about a foot from the ground.  Though it was apparently finished, there were unfortunately no eggs, but dissection of the hen proved that she would have laid in a day or two.  On the 10th instant I found another nest exactly similar, built in a tussock of coarse grass, near the same place; but this was subsequently deserted without the bird laying.  On the 19th September I went in the early morning to the same patch of grass and watched another pair, soon seeing the hen disappear amongst some thick tussocks.  On my approaching the spot she flew off the nest, which contained four eggs much incubated.  The nest was precisely similar to the others, but with the entrance-hole perhaps rather nearer the top, though still on one side.  The situation in the grass was the same—­in fact it was very similar in every respect to the nest of Drymoeca insignis.  The eggs are very like those of Molpastes haemorrhous, but smaller, having a purplish-white ground, sprinkled all over with numerous small specks and spots of purple and purplish brown, with a cap of the same at the large end, underlaid with inky lilac.