178 STATURAL HISTORY. 



Government have constructed a very fair road down the valley, and as 

 the hills on both sides are densely wooded, it is both a capital place 

 for birds and easily worked. 



I wandered down the nullah for a mile or so and found lots of birds; 

 but nests were few and far between, and when I got back, about 11 

 or 12, o'clock, all I had found were some dozen of the beautiful hanging 

 nests of Zosterops palpebrosa. Most of these were empty; but three or 

 four contained young of various sizes, and two had each four eggs — in 

 one case fresh, in the other unblowable. The nests were in every case 

 suspended over the river (then dry), and varied in height from the 

 ground from 7 to 20 feet. I also found four nests of Myagra azurea — 

 one with a fresh egg, which I left, and the rest either empty and old 

 or with big young. This bird is very common on this Ghat, and 

 makes its nest, generally on an " Umar" tree, it is a very beautiful 

 structure —a deep cup, generally attached to the side of a single hanging 

 twig. Its sides are beautifully ornamented with white nests of some 

 spider, the pattern being so regular in some cases as to resemble Jace- 

 work, I noticed a single pair of Muscipeta paradisi in chesnut plu- 

 mage. They are rare at this season here, and I watched them a long 

 time but saw no signs of their breeding, and when I again visited the 

 place a couple of days later they were gone. 



In the evening I again went out and worked up the nullah. In 

 the first few paces a pretty little Blue Robin (0. tickelli) darted from 

 its nest. This was placed in a crevice of the bank, and might have 

 been mistaken for one of our own familiar Robin Redbreasts. It con- 

 tained three olive eggs, perfectly fresh. The Blue Robin is one of the 

 commonest birds at this season along the Ghats, and its pretty metallic 

 song seems never to cease if you wander along any of the nullahs. 

 Its nests, of which I found many,including four or five with eggs, were 

 placed in hollows either in banks or in the roots of trees> and were 

 composed of dead leaves, lined with fine roots, sometimes intertwined 

 with hair. I had hardly packed these eggs in my box when one of the 

 Bhil boys noticed a large rough nest on a bare tree close to the nullah. 

 It was a difficult tree to climb, and the boy declared it was an old one, 

 but was promptly sent up to make sure. He scrambled unwillingly 

 up, and as his hand was touching the nest, and his tongue again pro- 

 nouncing the antiquity of the structure, a short-tailed bluish 

 bird darted out. This was a specimen of the beautiful Yellow- 

 breasted Ground-thrush (Pitta braehyuva), and the nest, which was 

 a clumsy structure of fine twigs, lined with dead leaves, contained five 



