350 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



final reason why more nests are not discovered is that they probably 

 do not hold to^a'thor more than a few weeks after desertion by the 

 birds. The leaves composing the nests die and shrivel up or may fall 

 otl'. Soon tlie neglected cornucopia-like structure disintegrates under 

 the influence of wind and weather; it does not remain and become 

 visible for a year or so — as many nests do — for the benefit of the 

 collector. 



The impression that the nest of the tailor bird is more common 

 liian it really is arises in part from mistaking other structures for it. 

 For example, the ashy wren warbler, Frlnia s. soeialis, occasionally 

 builds a nest that looks like that of the tailor bird; and there are 

 otlier birds' nests that externally reseml)le it. However, the struc- 

 ture that conmionly passes for the nest of Orthotomus is a small- 

 sized house of the red ant, which is made of leaves whose edges are 

 brought together and held in place by means of glutinous silk secreted 

 by the ant itself. Many a time have I been shown an alleged nest 

 of the tailor bii'd which was really built by this remarkable insect. 



I congi-atulate myself, accordingly, on having seen a recently con- 

 structed nest built in a tree where I could study it at my leisure. I 

 was s})ending a few days at Sigiriya, in the jungle of northeastern 

 Ceylon, studying the remarkable flora and fauna of that district. 

 The rest house where I lived had several plants flanking the front 

 entrance, one of them a year old Sapu {Michclia chmnpaca) seedling 

 about 7 feet high, planted in that ever-useful container — a kerosene 

 tin. Tliese fast-growing sapus always make effective ornamental 

 shrubs, with their large lanceolate leaves and sweet-scented, ci-eamy- 

 wliite flowers. Although people constantly passed within a few feet 

 of the Michel'ia. not until the small birds were noticed flying in and 

 out of the foliage was it suspected that they were nest building. 

 One day the rest-house keeper noticed that one leaf of the small sapu 

 was marked with white dots and, wliile examining it more closely, 

 he saw a tailor bird fly from behind it. Having marked the exact 

 sj^ot he was able to locate the nest and to watch the processes of rais- 

 ing the family of two small tailors. It was quite shortly after the 

 birds had left the nest that I saw it. 



Orthotomus sutorius^ which we maj' translate " the straight-cutting 

 tailor," loves to dwell in gardens and in the vicinity of human habi- 

 tations, but it is also found in the grass lands and jungle scrub of 

 Ceylon, Burma, and India. These lively, yellow-green, sharp-billed, 

 Avren-like birds generally go about in pairs, building their nests 

 I'arely more than 5 feet from the ground in trees provided with long 

 and rather bioad leaves. The females are smaller than the males. 

 Both, when out of the breeding season, have short tails and present 

 a " bunty " appearance, but duiing nidification the male gi'ows a re- 

 markably long tail which he flirts about with great eftect and takes 



