“The Grass-Babbler is not uncommon about Deesa in the rains, at which season it breeds.  I found a nest containing four eggs on the 18th August, 1876.  It consisted of a round ball of dry grass with a circular entrance on one side, near the top, was placed on the ground in the centre of a low scrubby bush in a grass Bheerh, and when the hen-bird flew off, which was not until I almost put my foot on the nest, I mistook her for Argya caudata.  On looking, however, into the bush, I saw at once by the eggs that it was a species new to me.  I left the spot and returned again in about an hour’s time, when, to my disappointment, I found that three of the eggs had hatched.  The fourth egg being stale, I took it and added it to my collection.  The eggs are about the size of the eggs of A. caudata, but in colour very like those of Franklinia buchanani, namely, white, speckled all over with reddish brown and pale lavender, most densely at the large end.  This bird has a peculiar habit in the breeding-season of rising suddenly into the air and soaring about, often for a considerable distance, uttering a loud note resembling the words ‘chirrup, chirrup-chirrup,’ repeated all the time the bird is in the air, and then suddenly descending slowly into the grass with outspread wings, much in the style of Mirafra erythroptera.  This bird is so similar in appearance, when flying and hopping about in the long grass, to A. caudata, that I have no doubt it is often mistaken for that species.  I have invariably found it during the rains in grass Bheerhs overgrown with low thorny bushes (Zizyphus jujuba, &c.).  Whether it remains the whole year round I cannot say; at all events, if it does, its close resemblance to A. caudata enables it to escape notice at other seasons.”

Mr. Cripps, writing from Fureedpore, says:—­“Very common in long grass fields.  Permanent resident.  It utters its soft notes while on the wing, not only in the cold season but the year through; it is very noisy during the breeding-time.  Breeds in clumps of grass a few inches above as well as on the ground.  I found five nests in the month of May from 23rd to 28th:  one was on the ground in a field of indigo; the rest were in clumps of ‘sone’ grass and from the same field composed of this grass.  One nest contained three half-fledged young, and the rest had four eggs slightly incubated in each.  Although they nest in ‘sone’ grass which is rarely over three feet in height, it is very difficult to find the nest, as the grass generally overhangs and hides it.  Only when the bird rises almost from your feet are you able to discover the whereabouts.  On several occasions I have noticed this species perching on bushes.”