They build in low thorny bushes, and occasionally in clumps of high grass, the nest being rarely more than 3 feet from the ground.  The nest itself is cup-shaped, and composed of grass and roots, often unlined, at times lined with very fine grass-stems or horse-hair.  As a rule, it is neatly and compactly built, with a deep cavity some 2 to 3 inches in diameter, and 1.75 to 2.25 in depth, but I have seen straggling, ragged, and comparatively shallow nests of this species, having an external diameter of fully 7 inches.  Three is the normal number of the eggs, but four are occasionally met with.

Mr. Brooks says:—­“This species builds in much the same sort of places as A. malcolmi, but it chooses a low thick bush, the nest not being more than 3 feet from the ground.  Nest neatly built of grass, roots, hair, &c., and the eggs bright bluish green, very glossy, and much resembling those of Accentor modularis.”

Mr. R.M.  Adam remarks:—­“I took a nest of this bird in Oudh on the 22nd April.  It contained a young bird and one unhatched egg.  The nest was made of grass not well worked together, and had a lining of finer grass.  The ground-work was composed of twigs and stems of creepers interlaced.  The exterior diameter of the nest measured 5 inches, and the egg-cavity was 2 inches deep.  In one case this bird did not lay till the fifth day after the nest was finished.  About Agra this bird breeds during July and August.

“This Bush-Babbler is very common about the Sambhur lake.  I have noted it breeding from the beginning of March till the beginning of July.  Although this species generally prefers building in the hedges of prickly-pear, I have taken the nests in orange-trees, the karounda, the babool, &c.”

Messrs. Davidson and Wenden state that in the Deccan it is “very common and breeds.”

Major C.T.  Bingham says:—­“This bird, uncommon at Allahabad, is plentiful here at Delhi.  I found several nests between March and June, all of the Babbler type, deep cups, rather more firmly built than those of the preceding bird, but constructed like them of coarse roots of grass, with finer ones for the inside.  They are never placed at any great height from the ground, and generally in some thorny bush.  I have found mostly three, rarely four eggs in any one nest.”

Mr. Benjamin Aitken writes:—­“I never saw the Common Babbler in Poona, and it certainly does not occur in Bombay.  But it is very abundant on the arid plains of Berar, breeding in the low babool-bushes, where large numbers of its eggs are destroyed by lizards.  I have found four eggs in a nest oftener than three.”

Colonel Butler writes:—­“The Common Babbler breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa principally during the monsoon; but I have found nests occasionally at other seasons of the year, as the following table of dates will show:—­