Yet another black-and-white bird nests in April.  This is the pied bush-chat (Pratincola caprata).  The cock is black all over, save for a white patch on the rump and a bar of white in the wing.  He delights to sit on a telegraph wire or a stem of elephant grass and there make cheerful melody.  The hen is a dull reddish-grey bird.  The nest is usually placed in a hole in the ground or a bank or a wall, sometimes it is wedged into a tussock of grass.

Allied to the magpie-robin and the pied bush-chat is the familiar Indian robin (Thamnobia cambayensis), which, like its relatives, is now engaged in nesting operations.  This species constructs its cup-shaped nest in all manner of strange places.  Spaces in stacks of bricks, holes in the ground or in buildings, and window-sills are held in high esteem as nesting sites.  The eggs are not easy to describe because they display great variation.  The commonest type has a pale green shell, speckled with reddish-brown spots, which are most densely distributed at the thick end of the egg.

Many of the grey partridges (Francolinus pondicerianus) are now nesting.  This species is somewhat erratic in respect of its breeding season.  Eggs have been taken in February, March, April, May, June, September, October, and November.  The April eggs, however, outnumber those of all the other months put together.  The nest is a shallow depression in the ground, lined with grass, usually under a bush.  From six to nine cream-coloured eggs are laid.

Another bird which is now incubating eggs on the ground is the did-he-do-it or red-wattled lapwing (Sarcogrammus indicus).  The curious call, from which this plover derives its popular name, is familiar to every resident in India.  This species nests between March and August.  The 122 eggs in the possession of Hume were taken, 12 in March, 46 in April, 24 in May, 26 in June, 4 in July, and 8 in August.  Generally in a slight depression on the ground, occasionally on the ballast of a rail-road, four pegtop-shaped eggs are laid; these are, invariably, placed in the form of a cross, so that they touch each other at their thin ends.  They are coloured like those of the common plover.  The yellow-wattled lapwing (Sarciophorus malabaricus), which resembles its cousin in manners and appearance, nests in April, May and June.

The nesting season of the various species of sand-grouse that breed in India is now beginning.  These birds, like lapwings, lay their eggs on the ground.

In April one may come across an occasional nest of the pied starling, the king-crow, the paradise flycatcher, the grey hornbill, and the oriole, but these are exceptions.  The birds in question do not as a rule begin to nest until May, and their doings accordingly are chronicled in the calendar for that month.

MAY

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year.
The Minstrelsy of the Woods.