The oriole lays from two to four white eggs spotted with dull red.  The spots can be washed off by water; sometimes their colour “runs” while they are in the nest, thereby imparting a pink hue to the whole shell.  Both sexes take part in nest construction, but the hen alone appears to incubate.  She is a very shy creature, and is rarely discovered actually sitting, because she leaves the nest with a little cry of alarm at the first sound of a human footfall.

May and June are the months in which to look for the nests of that superb bird—­the paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone paradisi).  This is known as the rocket-bird or ribbon-bird because of the two long fluttering tail feathers possessed by the cock.  The hen has the appearance of a kind of bulbul, being chestnut-hued with a white breast and a metallic blue-black crest.  For the first year of their existence the young cocks resemble the hens in appearance.  Then the long tail feathers appear.  In his third year the cock turns white save for the black-crested head.  This species spends the winter in South India.  In April it migrates northwards to summer in the shady parts of the plains of Bengal, the United Provinces and the Punjab, and on the lower slopes of the Himalayas.  The nest is a deep, untidy-looking cup, having the shape of an inverted cone.  It is always completely covered with cocoons and cobweb.  It is usually attached to one or more of the lower branches of a tree.  Both sexes work at the nest and take part in incubation.  The long tail feathers of the sitting cock hang down from the nest like red or white satin streamers according to the phase of his plumage.  In the breeding season the cock sings a sweet little lay—­an abridged version of that of the fantail flycatcher.  When alarmed both the cock and the hen utter a sharp tschit.

May is perhaps the proper month in which to describe the nesting of the various species of myna.

According to Hume the normal breeding season of the common myna (Acridotheres tristis) lasts from June to August, during which period two broods are reared.  This is not correct.  The nesting season of this species begins long before June.  The writer has repeatedly seen mynas carrying twigs and feathers in March, and has come across nests containing eggs or young birds in both April and May.  June perhaps is the month in which the largest numbers of nests are seen.  The cradle of the common myna is devoid of architectural merit.  It is a mere conglomeration of twigs, grass, rags, bits of paper and other oddments.  The nesting material is dropped haphazard into a hole in a tree or building, or even on to a ledge in a verandah.  Four beautiful blue eggs are laid.

At Peshawar Mr. A. J. Currie once found four myna’s eggs in a deserted crows’ nest in a tree.

As has already been stated, the nest of the bank-myna (A. ginginianus) is built in a hole in a well, a sandbank, or a cliff.  The birds breed in colonies; each pair excavates its own nest by means of beak and claw.  Into the holes dug out in this manner the miscellaneous nesting materials are dropped pell-mell after the manner of all mynas.  The breeding season of this species lasts from April to July, May being the month in which most eggs are laid.