— 241 — 



One of the most common birds occurring on the fringes of 

 the forests, in the bush areas and acacia-country, where the 

 ground was richly covered with tall, powerful plants and creepers. 

 They generally frequented the branches of the bushes but I often 

 saw them in the tops of the trees, where they jumped from 

 branch to branch and their behaviour was much asLonnberg 

 has described it (Birds coll. Sw. Zool. Exp. to B. E. A., 1911, 

 p. 123). On Elgon the bird was common right up to about 

 8.000 feet. 



I came across this bird's nest on two occasions. The first 



time was on the 21st of June at the foot of Elgon, about 6.500 



feet above sea-level. The nest was found among the grass and 



flowers of the undergrowth of an acacia-forest, and unless the 



bird itself had risen and thus revealed the nesting-place, I should 



certainly not have discovered it. It was built in a plant, about 



72 a metre in height, belonging to the family Verticillatae, about 



40 cm. above the ground. The nest itself was suspended within 



three large green leaves, two of which — those at the sides — 



were sewn onto the nest by means of fine threads of grass. 



The third leaf ran out a little above the top of the nest, one 



end being bent downwards while the other end was sewn to the 



favther edge of the nest. It is evident from the above that this 



latter leaf does not assist in holding up the nest, for in that 



case it would doubtlessly get severed at the attached end by any 



violent movement of the nest, as for instance when the birds 



flew to or from the nest. As the nest is bottle-shaped, thus 



having the opening at the top, this leaf protects the entrance-hole 



and the nest itself from rain and wet, which instead of getting into 



the nest runs along the downward-bent leaf and falls to the ground. 



This nest was 80 mm. deep and 65 mm. wide at the 



bottom. At the top it was about 40 mm. wide and the opening 



itself was 38 mm. across. The materials of the nest were composed 



of only narrow thin fibres and dry grass-blades, loosely and flim- 



sily plaited together into a disorderly mass. 



The nest contained oae newly hatched young bird and an 

 addled egg. The latter measured 15.5 X 12.2 mm. and weighed 

 87 mg. The colour is faint bluish green with large, brown spots 

 spread all over the shell. The superficial spots are dark-brown 

 and of a smaller size. The different spots are most strongly 

 marked at the thick end and here are also diffused brown-lilac 

 spots mingled with small black points. Both male and female 

 incubate, but on most of the occasions when I beat up the in- 

 cubating bird it was the male that left the nest. 



The second nest was found on the 24th July, below the 



slopes of Elgon. It was built something like the former and in 



the same sort of locality and contained 3 newly hatched young. 



If we read through the literature of the last decade about 



JBrinia mysiacea we shall find that the opinions concerning the 



16 



