AKACnNECHTUEA, 259 



came fluttering about the nest five minutes after, and I shot 

 him. The nest was on the end of a bough of a tree in jungle, 3 

 feet from the ground — the ordinary nest of this kind of bird, but 

 built entirely of shelled bark and cobwebs (the bark of the colour 

 of light brown paper), and lined with very fine grass, 5 inches in 

 length and 2| in diameter. The entrance-hole | in diameter. 

 The nest at ten paces distant is very hard to make out, looking 

 like a bunch of dried leaves. There was no tail or ornamen- 

 tations." 



The nest, a most lovely little felted purse suspended by a broad 

 band of attachment from a slender twig, is exactly 4-25 inches in 

 length outside. It is somewhat pear-shaped, but not much so, 

 owing to the great breadth of the attachment. At its broadest it 

 is 1*75 inch in diameter externally. The aperture, which is in 

 the front of the nest, is oval, 1-5 from top to bottom, and nearly 

 0-75 in width. Its lower lip, if I may use the phrase, is 1-5 ex- 

 teriorly from the bottom of the nest. The nest is everywhere 

 about 0-25 inch thick, except just at the bottom, where it is about 

 0*5 inch thick. It is composed entirely of the glistening red- 

 brown scales taken from the basal portions of the stems of ferns, 

 densely felted together, and exteriorly very thinly coated with 

 excessively fine black moss-roots and white sUk from cocoons, tiuy 

 pieces of moss and lichen being laid on here and there with this 

 slender fibrous covering, apparently for ornament. The nest has 

 no dependent tags or streamers, but ends quite obtusely. 



The eggs are tiny little ovals, a little elongated and with a slight 

 pyriform tendency. The shell, though very fine, decidedly stout 

 for the bird, and with a perceptible amount of gloss. The colour 

 is a sort of brownish cafe an lait, and round the large end is a 

 dusky-greyish mottled zone, not very markedly darker than the 

 ground-colour. The two eggs measure 0-58 by 0-41 and 0*57 by 

 0'4 respectively. 



Arachneclithra pectoralis (Horsf.). The Malay Yelloiv- 

 hreasted Sun-hird, 



Cyrtostomus pectoralis (Horsf.), Htime, Rough Draft N. i^ E. 

 no. 235 bis. 



Of the nidification of the Malay Yellow-breasted Sun-bird, which, 

 so far as we yet know, occurs within our limits only in the 

 Nicobars, the following brief note by Mr. Da\ison sums up all 

 we yet know : — " Although I found several nests of this species, I 

 never obtained the eggs. On the 19th of January I found a nest 

 at Camorta ; I shot both the birds, but on climbing up to the nest 

 found it empty. Again, on the 17th February, I found three nests, 

 two empty, one with two Aery young birds." 



The nest is quite that of an Arachneclithra, very similar to, but 

 larger and more coarsely made than, that of A. asiatica. The nest 

 is a pendent, elongated egg, a good deal drawn out towards the 



17* 



