352 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



I may say, in passing, that I have never known the tailor bird — ■ 

 unlike tlie architect of the quite as wonderful w^eaver bird's nest — to 

 breed in captivity, or to make a good cage or aviary pet. 



To return to my treasure trove — the nest at Sigiriya — it occupied 

 a position in the very center of the Sapu, 41/2 feet from the ground. 

 It was made of three long, lanceolate, horizontally-placed leaves, 

 measuring respectively 12 by 3 inches, 13 by 314 inches, and 121/^ by 

 3 inches. It measured quite 3 inches at the widest and 21/^ at the 

 narrowest diameter. The whole nest took the form of an irregular 

 cornucopia. The cup cavity was lined more or less completely for a 

 distance of TV^ inches from the tip, thus leaving about 2 inches to 

 the free edge of the horn. The lining of the nest varied in thickness, 

 but was quite half an inch in some sectors of the cornucopia. The 

 nuiterial used in upholstering the nest was mostly the cotton-like 

 material taken from a neighboring species of Euphorbia, whose seeds 

 are provided witli a closed umbrella-like tuft of soft, shiny fibers. 

 There were in addition a few threads, some dried grass, cocoimt 

 fibers (probably from the house mats), two small feathers, and some 

 black hairs. The last named were probably from bullocks as no 

 horse had been seen in Sigiriya for over a year. There was also 

 among the lining materials some kapok, or native tree cottons, the 

 silk cotton tree {Geiba fentwndra) and red cotton tree {Bonibax 

 malabaricuvi) . Both those flosses were available in the neighbor- 

 hood and are nmch used by birds for lining nests. 



The solidarity of the nest as a whole was increased by the arrange- 

 ment of the fibrous material in the lining, the coconut fibers, dried 

 grass, and feathers being interwoven to form rings or bands that 

 ran around and were fitted into the interior of the cornucopia, the 

 cotton floss lining the cup cavity and padding the space below it. 



Most Avriters on the subject speak of the act of sewing as the chief 

 means employed by the tailor bird on the leaves that cover her nest, 

 but there were (as will be seen) but few signs of this method in 

 the Sigiriya nest. Close investigation of the free end of the leaf 

 pocket shows that a shred of fiber from tlie cotton mass had been 

 drawn through each of the small marginal openings and that these 

 strands had spread out as dot-like buttons on the exterior of the leaf, 

 preventing'the cotton from slipping back. In this way the margins 

 of the leaf had been drawn together by a sort of cross-riveting, that 

 also welded leaf edges, nest lining, and the cotton mass together as 

 one whole. The same process is seen all over the outer surface of 

 the joined leaves. 



The bird makes with her %^-inch bill a puncture in the leaf, grasps 

 a strand of nest lining, pulls it out through the small opening until 

 the mass of which it forms a part is firmly drawn against the inner 

 surface of the leaf. The external cotton then expands and forms a 



