The Jungle Myna eschews the open cultivated plains of Upper, Central, and Western India.  It breeds throughout the Himalayas, at any elevations up to 7000 feet, where the hills are not bare, and in some places in the sub-Himalayan jungles.  It breeds in the plains country of Lower Bengal, and in both plains and hills of Assam, Cachar, and Burma, and also in great numbers in the Nilgiris and all the wooded ranges and hilly country of the Peninsula.  The breeding-season lasts from March to July, but the majority lay everywhere, I think, in April, except in the extreme north-west, where they are later.

Normally, they build in holes of trees, and are more or less social in their nidification.  As a rule, if you find one nest you will find a dozen within a radius of 100 yards, and not unfrequently within one of ten yards.  But, besides trees, they readily build in holes in temples and old ruins, in any large stone wall, in the thatch of old houses, and even in their chimneys.

The nest is a mere lining for the hole they select, and varies in size and shape with this latter; fine twigs, dry grass, and feathers are the materials most commonly used, the feathers being chiefly gathered together to form a bed for the eggs; but moss, moss and fern roots, flocks of wool, lichen, and down may often be found in greater or less quantities intermingled with the grass and straw which forms the main body, or with the feathers that constitute the lining, of the nest.  I have never found more than five eggs, but Miss Cockburn says that they sometimes lay six.

From Murree, Colonel C.H.T.  Marshall writes:—­“This Myna, which takes the place of A. tristis in the higher hills, breeds always in holes in trees.  We found five or six nests in June and early in July.”

They breed near Solan, below Kussowlee, and close to Jerripani, Captain Hutton’s place below Mussoorie, in both which localities I have taken their nests myself.

Captain Hutton remarks:—­“This is a summer visitant in the hills, and is common at Mussoorie during that season; but it does not appear to visit Simla, although it is to be found in some of the valleys below it to the south.  It breeds at Mussoorie in May and June, selecting holes in the forest trees, generally large oaks, which it lines with dry grass and feathers.  The eggs are from three to five, of a pale greenish blue, shape ordinary, but somewhat inclined to taper to the smaller end.  This species usually arrives from the valleys of the Dhoon about the middle of March; and, until they begin to sit on their eggs, they congregate every morning and evening into small flocks, and roost together in trees near houses; in the morning they separate for the day into pairs, and proceed with the building of nests or laying of eggs.  After the young are hatched and well able to fly, all betake themselves to the Dhoon in July.”

In Kumaon I found them breeding near the Ramghur Ironworks, and, writing from Nynee Tal, Colonel G.F.L.  Marshall says that they “breed very commonly at Bheem Tal (4000 feet), but I have not noticed them at Nynee Tal.  I took a great many eggs; they were all laid in holes in rotten trees at a height of 2 to 8 feet from the ground; they average much smaller than the eggs of A. tristis, but are similar in colour.”