I'LOCElNiE. 345 



It is very often suspended from the Ironds of some lofty Palm- 

 tree, either the Palmyra, Cocoanut, or Date, but by no means so 

 universally so as ]Mr. Blyth would imply, for a Babool {Acacia 

 arabica, or VucheUia Favnesiana), or other tree will often be 

 selected, in preference to a Palm-tree growing close by, as I have 

 seen within a few miles from Calcutta en the banks of the canal. 

 Very often a tree overhanging a river or tank, or even a large 

 well is chosen, especially, as Tickell says, if it have spreading 

 branches and scanty foliage. In India I have never seen the 

 Bay a suspend its nests except on trees, but in some parts of 

 Burmah, and more particularl}' in Rangoon, the Bayas usually select 

 the thatcli of a bungalow to suspend their nests from, regardless 

 of the inliabitants within. In the cantonment of Eangoon, very 

 many bungalows may be seen with twenty, thirty, or more of these 

 long nests hanging from the end of the thatched roof, and, in one 

 house in whicli 1 was an inmate, that of Dr. Pritchard, Garrison 

 Surgeon there, a small colony commenced their labors towards 

 the end of April, and, in August, when I revisited that station, 

 there were above one hundred nests attached all round the house ! 

 In India, in some localities, they appear to evince a partiality to 

 build in the neighbourhood of villages or dwellings; in other 

 places they nidificate in most retired spots in the juno-le, or 

 in a solitary tree in the midst of some large patch of rice 

 cultivation. 



The nest is frequently made of grass of different kinds plucked 

 when green, sometimes of strips of plantain leaf ; and not un- 

 frequently of strips from the leaves of the date palm, or cocoanut ; 

 and I have observed that nests made of this last material are smaller 

 and less bulky than those made wdth grass, as if the little architects 

 were quite aware that with such strong fibre less amount of mate- - 

 rial was necessary. The nest varies much in the length both of 

 the upper part or support, and the lower tube or entrance, and 

 the support is generally solid from the point whence it is hung for 

 two or three inches, but varies much both in length and streno-th. 

 When the structure has ^'advanced to the spot where the 

 birds have determined the egg compartment to be, a strong- 

 transverse loop is formed, not in the exact centre, but a little at 



2 X 



