“The lining of the egg-cavity is simply fine grass, if we except the occasional capricious addition of a feather or two, an odd piece of cotton or rag, &c.  Three appears to be the regular number of eggs.  This bird is to be found in small numbers all over the country here; its habits are well described by Jerdon.  It is, as I have observed, hard to please in its choice of a nest site.  I have watched it for days going backwards and forwards, from tree to tree and from fork to fork, before it made up its mind where to commence work.”

Capt.  Hutton records that “this is a common bird in the Dhoon, and arrives at Jerripanee, elevation 4500 feet, in the summer months to breed.  Its beautiful cradle-like nest was taken in the Dhoon on the 29th of May, at which time it contained three pure white eggs, sparingly sprinkled over with variously sized spots of deep purplish-brown, giving the egg the appearance of having been splashed with dark mud.  The spots are chiefly at the larger end, but there is no indication of a ring.  The nest is a slight, somewhat cup-shaped cradle, rather longer than wide, and is so placed, between the fork of a thin branch, as to be suspended between the limbs by having the materials of the two sides bound round them.  It is composed of fine dry grasses, both blade and stalk, intermixed with silky and cottony seed-down, especially at that part where the materials are wound round the two supporting twigs; and in the specimen before me there are several small silky cocoons of a diminutive Bombyx attached to the outside, the silk of which has been interwoven with the fibres of the external nest.  It is so slightly constructed as to be seen through, and it appears quite surprising that so large a bird, to say nothing of the weight of the three or four young ones, does not entirely destroy it.”

From Futtehgurh, the late Mr. A. Anderson remarked:—­“The nest and eggs of this bird so closely resemble those of its European congener (O. galbula) that little or no description is necessary.  The Mango-bird lays throughout the rains, July being the principal month.  One very beautifully constructed nest was taken by me on the 9th July, 1872, containing four eggs, which, according to my experience, is in excess of the number usually laid.  I have frequently taken only a pair of well-incubated eggs.

“Two of the four eggs above alluded to were quite fresh, while the other two were tolerably well incubated.  The nest is fitted outwardly with tow, which I have never before seen.  One of the pieces of cloth used in the construction of this nest was 6 inches long.”

“At Lucknow,” writes Mr. R.M.  Adam, “I found this species on the 20th May building a nest in a neem-tree, and on the 24th I took two eggs from the nest.  On the 10th June I saw another pair, only making love, so they probably did not lay till the end of that month.”