144 CEATEBOPODID^. 



at Delhi ; breeds in both places in May, June, and July. All nests 

 I have seen have been finely made little cups of tibres, bits of thread 

 and cobwebs, lined interiorly with horsehair, generally suspended 

 between two slender twigs at no great height from the ground." 



Mr. E. Aitken writes : — " I have only actually taken one nest of 

 the White-eye. That was in Poona (liOOO feet above the sea) 

 on the 21st July. The bird, however, builds abundantly in Poona 

 about gardens, trees on the roadside, &c. 



" This particular nest was fixed to a thin branch of a tamarind- 

 tree on the side of a lane among gardens. It was within reach of 

 my hand, and was attached both to the thin branch itself and to 

 two twigs. It was well sheltered among leaves. 



" The nest was a cup rather narrower at the mouth than in the 

 middle. Its external diameter at the top was 2^ inches ; internal 

 diameter Ig inch ; depth 1| inch internally. It was composed of 

 a variety of fibres closely interwoven with some kind of vegetable 

 silk, and was lined principally with horsehair and very fine 

 fibres. It contained three eggs." 



Mr. Davison tells us that " the White-eye breeds on the Nil- 

 ghiris in February, March, April, and the earlier part of May. 



" The nest is a small neat cup-shaped structure suspended 

 between a fork in some small low bush, generally only 2 or 3 feet 

 from the ground, but sometimes high up, about 20 or 30 feet 

 from the ground. It is composed externally of moss and small 

 roots and the down from the thistle ; the egg-cavity is invariably 

 sparingly lined with hair. The eggs, two in number, are of a })al6 

 blue, like skimmed milk." 



Prom Kotagherry Miss Cockburn remarks : — " Their nests are, 1 

 thiuli, more elegantly finished than those of any of the small birds I 

 have seen up here. They generally select a thick bush, where, 

 when they have chosen a horizontal forked branch, they construct 

 a neat round nest which is left quite open at the top. The 

 materials they commence with are green moss, lichen, and fine 

 grass intertwined. I have even found occasionally a coarse thread, 

 which they had picked up near some Badagar's village and used in 

 order to fasten the little building to the branches. The inside is 

 carefully lined m ith the down of seed-pods. White-eyes' nests 

 are very numerous here in the months of January, Pebruary, 

 and March. They are extremely partial to the \\ild gooseberry 

 bush as a site to build on. One year I found ten out of eleven 

 nests on these bushes, the fruit of which is largely used by the 

 aborigines of the hills. A pair once built on a thick orauge-tree 

 in our garden. We often stood quite close to one of them while 

 sitting on the eggs, and it never showed the slightest degree of 

 fear. They lay two eggs of a light blue colour." 



Mr. Wait, writing from Conoor, says that " Z. palpehrosa breeds 

 in April and May, building in bushes and shrubs, and making a 

 deep round cup-shaped nest very neatly woven in the style of the 

 Challinch, composed of moss, grass, and silk cotton, and sparsely 



