298 sTLYiiD.i;. 



together had actually commenced to wither, and in the course of a 

 few days later the whole .structure came down bodily. 



" This is the only Prinia to be found at Futtehgurh, and they 

 are one of our most common garden-birds. Their beautiful brick- 

 red eggs and neatly- sewn nests are too well known to require de- 

 scription. 



" Four generally, and five frequently, is the munber of eggs they 

 lay. I have one record of six on the 17th August, 1873; in this 

 case one egg was laid daily, the first having been laid on the 12th, 

 and the sixth on the I7tli." 



Captain Hutton remarks : — '' This is a true Tailor-bird in respect 

 to the construction of the nest, which is composed of one leaf as a 

 supporting base stitched to two others meeting it perpendicularly, 

 the apices of all three being neatly sewn together with threads 

 roughly spun from the cottony down of seeds. Between or w ithin 

 these lea\'es is placed the nest, very slightly and loosely constructed 

 of fine roots, grass-stalks, and seed-down, the latter material being 

 interwoven to hold the coarser fibres of the nest together. There 

 is no finer lining within, and the edges of the exterior leaves are 

 drav^n together round the nest and held there partly by roughly - 

 spun threads of down, and partly by the ends of the stiff fibres 

 being thrust through them. The whole forms a very light and 

 graceful fabric. A¥ithin this nest were four beautiful and highly 

 polished eggs of a deep brick-red colour, darkest at the larger end, 

 faint specks and blotches of a deeper colour being indistinctly dis- 

 cernible beneath the surface of the shell, which shines as if it had 

 been varnished. The nest is not closed above, but is open and 

 deeply cup-shaped. This was taken in the Dhoon on the 30th 

 May." 



Major C. T. Bingham says : — " Breeds at Allahabad in June, 

 July, and August. At Delhi I have not yet found its nest. I 

 once found in July three nests all attached together in a sort of 

 triangle, but whether built by separate pairs of birds T cannot say. 

 Only one nest contained eggs." 



Colonel G. F. L. Marshall writes : — "A nest found in July in the 

 Cawnpoor district was built of grass, a deep oblong domed nest 

 with the entrance at the side near the top. It was placed t'lose to 

 the ground in a tuft of surkerry grass sloping rather backwards. 

 The position is, I believe, unusual. The old birds were still putting 

 finishing touches to the building when I found it." 



The eggs are ovals, as a rule, neither very broad nor much elon- 

 gated. Pyriform examples occur, but a somewhat perfect oval is 

 the usual tvpe, and the examination of a largo series shows that 

 the tendency is to vary to a globular and not to an elongated shape. 

 The eggs are brilliantly glossy, and, though considerably smaller, 

 strongly resemble, as is well known, those of the little short-tailed 

 Cetti's Warbler. 



In colour they are brick-red, some, however, being ])aler and 

 yellower, others deeper and more mahogany-coloured, lliere is a 

 strong tendency to exhibit an ill-defined cloudy ca)) or zone, of far 



