Mr. H.M. Adam remarks:—"I took a nest of this bird in Agra on the 17th July. It contained five eggs, all of which were nearly hatched. Again on the 21st I took another nest containing only one hard-set egg."
Writing from Calcutta, Mr. J.C. Parker says:—"I found a nest of this bird, near my house in Garden Reach, on the 23rd June. It contained four fresh eggs."
Colonel Butler observes:—"The Bengal Babbler breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa as a rule, I think, during the rains and in the cold weather, but I have found nests as late as March. The nest is usually placed on the outside branch of some moderate-sized tree (neem &c.). It is a somewhat solidly built structure composed almost entirely of dead twigs, stems of dead leaves, and stalks of coarse dry grass, being lined with a few fine fibrous roots or stems of grass. I found nests on the following dates:—
"July 16, 1875. A nest containing 4 fresh eggs.
"March 20, 1876. " " 4 fresh eggs.
"May 29, 1876. " " 3 fresh eggs.
"June 17, 1876. " " 3 fresh eggs.
"June 17, 1876. " " 4 young birds.
"Oct. 15, 1876. " " 4 fresh eggs.
"Nov. 3, 1876. " " 4 slightly incubated.
"In some nests I have noticed a breach upon one side of the nest as if intended for the convenience of the bird's tail. It is not unusual to find an egg of C. jacobinus in the nest."
Major C.T. Bingham writes:—"Common both at Allahabad and at Delhi; I have found this bird breeding from April to the end of July. All nests that I have found have, with the exception of one, been placed in low babool bushes; once only I found a nest near Delhi in the fork of a low bough of a mango-tree, this was on the 31st July. The nests are more or less loosely constructed cups of slender twigs and grass-roots and inclined."
Mr. J.R. Cripps writing from Eastern Bengal says:—"On the 15th April I found a nest on the very top of a mango-tree about 30 feet off the ground, shooting the male as it flew off the nest."
The eggs of this species are very variable in colour, shape, and size. Typically they are rather broad ovals, somewhat compressed towards one end, and much the shape of, though a good deal smaller than, those of our English Song-Thrush. Some are, however, long and cylindrical; others more or less spherical. The colour varies from a pale blue, like that of Trochalopterum lineatum, to a deep dull blue, recalling, but yet not so dark as, that of Garrulax albigularis. The eggs are typically glossy, but it is remarkable that in a large series the deepest coloured are always far the most glossy. Some deep blue eggs of this species are most intensely glossy, more so than almost any other of our Indian eggs, except those of Metopidius indicus. I need scarcely say that the eggs are entirely spotless and devoid of all markings, but I may note that each egg is invariably the same colour throughout, and that I have never met with a specimen in which the shade of colour varied in the same egg.
In length the eggs vary from 0·88 to 1·15, and in breadth from 0·75 to 0·82; but the average of fifty-one eggs measured is 1·01 by 0·78.
C. malabaricus.