"On the 3rd May, 1875, I took a nest in a low carinda bush, containing two fresh eggs."
Mr. C.J.W. Taylor, writing from Manzeerabad, Mysore, says:--"Most abundant in the wooded district. Common everywhere. Eggs taken March and April. On the 5th July, 1883, I procured a, nest of this species with three pure white eggs. I found it in a coffee-bush the day before leaving, so snared parent bird to make sure it was _O. fuscicaudata_, or otherwise should have left a couple of the eggs to see if young would turn out true to parents."
Captain Horace Terry states that on the Pulney hills this species is "a most common bird, found wherever there are bushes. In the small bushes along the banks of the streams is a very favourite place. I found several nests with usually two, but sometimes three eggs."
Mr. Benjamin Aitken tells us:--"I never saw this bird in the plains, but it is, perhaps without exception, the commonest bird at Matheran, Khandalla, and other hill-stations in the Bombay Presidency. I have found the nests, always with eggs in May, placed from four to seven feet from the ground, and often in the most exposed situations. It is not unusual to find only two eggs in a nest. The bird is not in the least shy, and sets up no clatter, like the Common Bulbul, when its nest is disturbed."
Finally, Mr. J. Darling, Junior, remarks:--"I really wonder if anyone down south does not know the Red-whiskered Bulbul and its nest. On the Nilghiris and in the Wynaad I can safely say it is the commonest nest to be met with, built in all sorts of places, sometimes high up. They generally lay two, but very often three, eggs. In a friend's bungalow in the Wynaad there were three nests built on the wall-plate of the verandah and two eggs laid in each nest. The young were safely hatched.
"This year the nests have been rebuilt and contain eggs. As I am writing, there are two pairs building in a rose-bush about 3 yards from me. They breed from 15th February to 15th May."
The numerous eggs of this species that I possess, though truly Bulbul-like in character, all belong to one single type of that form. Almost all have a dull pinkish or reddish-white ground, very thickly freckled, mottled, and streaked all over with a rich red; in most blood-red, in others brick-red, underneath which, when closely looked into, a small number of pale inky-purple spots are visible. In half the number of eggs the markings are much densest at the large end: these eggs are one and all more brightly and intensely coloured than any of those that I possess of _M. leucotis, M. leucogenys_, and _O. emeria_; they are, moreover, larger than any of these.