"Belgaum, 14th September, 1880.--A nest in sugar-cane about 2 feet
from the ground, containing five fresh eggs. 17th September: another
nest in a sugar-cane field, containing five eggs about to hatch. In
both instances the nest was built, not on the blades of sugar-cane,
but on a solitary green-leaved weedy-looking plant growing amongst the
sugar-cane.
"The Yellow-eyed Babbler breeds during the rains. I have taken nests
on the following dates:--
"July 26, 1875. A nest containing 4 fresh eggs.
"July 30, 1875. " " 3 fresh eggs.
"Aug. 14, 1875. " " 4 fresh eggs.
"Aug. 21, 1875. " " 4 fresh eggs.
"July 18, 1876. " " 4 fresh eggs.
"July 20, 1876. " " 3 fresh eggs.
"July 28, 1876. " " 4 fresh eggs.
"From this date to the end of August I found any number of nests
containing eggs of both types. The nest is usually built in the fork
of some low thorny tree from 3 to 7 feet from the ground. The outside
of the nest is usually smeared over with cobwebs, reminding one of the
nest of a _Rhipidura_"
Mr. Oates writes:--"Breeds abundantly throughout Pegu in June, and
probably in the other months of the rains up to September."
The eggs vary a good deal in size and shape, and very much in
colouring. They are mostly of a very broad oval shape, very obtuse
at the smaller end. Some are, however, slightly pyriform, and some a
little elongated. There are two very distinct types of coloration: one
has a pinkish-white ground, thickly and finely mottled and streaked
over the whole surface with more or less bright and deep brick-dust
red, so that the ground-colour only faintly shows through, here and
there, as a sort of pale mottling; in the other type the ground-colour
is pinkish white, somewhat _sparingly_, but boldly, blotched with
irregular patches and eccentric hieroglyphic-like streaks, often
Bunting-like in their character, of bright blood- or brick-dust red.
The eggs of this type, besides these primary markings, generally
exhibit towards the large end a number of pale inky-purple blotches or
clouds. There is a third type somewhat intermediate between these, in
which the ground-colour, instead of being finely freckled all over
as in the former, or sparingly blotched as in the latter, is very
coarsely mottled and clouded, as if clumsily daubed over by a child,
with a red intermediate in intensity between that usually observable
in the two first-described types. Combinations of these different
types of course occur, but fully two thirds can be separated
distinctly under the first and second varieties. Though much smaller,
many of the eggs recall those of the English Robin. The eggs have
often a fine gloss. I have one or two specimens so uniformly coloured
that, though perhaps slightly shorter and broader in form, they might
almost pass for the eggs of Cetti's Warbler.
In length they vary from 0·65 to 0·8, and in breadth from 0·53 to
0·68; but the average of seventy-seven eggs measured is 0·73 by 0·59.