The Striated Babbler breeds in suitable localities throughout Continental India, from Sindh to Tipperah and Assam, as also in Burmah.  Reedy-margined lakes, canals and perennial streams are its favourite haunts, and wherever within the limits above indicated these abound, and the locality is moist and warm, A. earlii is pretty sure to be met with.

They lay twice during the year, between the latter end of March and the early part of September, building a neat, compact, and rather massive cup-shaped nest, either between the close-growing reeds, to three or more of which it is firmly bound, or in some little bush or shrub more or less surrounded by high reed-grass.  The broad leaves and stringy roots of the reed, common grass, and grass-roots are the materials of which it generally constructs its nest, which varies much in size, according to the situation and fineness of the material used.  I have seen them composed almost wholly of reed-leaves, fully 7 inches in diameter and 5 in height, and again built entirely of fine grass-stems not more than 4 inches across and 3 inches in height.  When semi-suspended between reeds, they are always smaller and more compact, while when placed in a fork of a low bush they are larger and more straggling.  The cavity (always neatly finished off, but very rarely regularly lined, and then only with very fine grass-stems or roots) is usually about 3 inches in diameter by 2 inches in depth.

Colonel G.F.L.  Marshall remarks:—­“In the Saharunpoor District A. earlii commences building about the middle of March, and the young are hatched towards the middle of April.  The nest is usually placed in the middle of a tuft of Sarkerry grass, and sometimes in a bush or small tree, generally 3 or 4 feet from the ground.  It is a deep cup-shaped structure, rather neatly made of grass without lining, and woven in with the stems if in a clump of grass, or firmly fixed in a fork if in a bush or low tree.  The interior diameter is about 3 inches, and the depth nearly 2 inches.  The eggs, four in number, are of a clear blue colour without spots of any kind.  In shape they are oval, rather thinner at one end; the shell is smooth and thin.  The eggs are of the same colour, but considerably larger than those of Argya caudata.  Argya earlii breeds commonly in the Sub-Siwalik District of the Doab; it seems fond of water, as most of the nests I have found were close to the canal bank.  It is gregarious even in the breeding-season; small flocks of seven or eight keeping together, fluttering in and out of the low bushes, but seldom alighting on the ground, and occasionally making a noisy chattering cry, especially when disturbed.”

From the Pegu District Mr. Oates writes:—­“I found two nests on the 24th May, one quite empty though finished, the other containing three eggs.

“The nests were placed a few feet apart in an immensely thick patch of elephant-grass, the undergrowth being fine, once tall, but now dead, grass.  It was upon this dead stuff, which in May is much flattened down, that I found the nests.  They were not attached to anything, but simply laid in a depressed platform about a foot above the ground, in among the thickest of the stalks of elephant-grass.