ARACIINEC'IITIIUA. 265 



of thorny acacias. They buihl a very neat little hanging nest, 

 thick at the bottom and tapering towards the top, having a round 

 hole for entrance 2| inches from the bottom ; circumference at 

 the thickest part 7| inches ; length G inches. It has a prominence 

 above the hole covering about half of it. It is made of vegetable 

 fibres, cobwebs, and chips of dry wood, and lined with a beautiful 

 soft kind of silk-cotton (from a milky bush of the Asclepiadece 

 family, I think it is the Calofropis gigantea) which the natives of 

 Southern India call Vi'rhum puajee. 



" I always found two eggs in the nests of these birds, and think 

 that the young birds are male and female, for I invariably found 

 one a Httle bigger than the other ; the colour of the plumage in 

 the young is the same. The natives also informed me that two 

 eggs are the usual number, and that the young are always a ]jair." 

 Captain Beavau, writing from Maunbhoom, says : — " Two nests 

 were brought to me on the 27th March, from which I take the 

 following description : — Bottle-shaped ; the entrance from one side 

 near the top ; its aperture circular, with a dome over it. Com- 

 posed outside of bits of bark and fibres, firmly agglutinated with 

 spider's \veb ; the top of the nest attached firmly to a small twig, 

 from wliich it hangs suspended, and exposed to every breeze, which 

 must shake the nest severely and cause it to swing, but without 

 damacrine: the ee;2:s, owing to the peculiar elasticity of the silkv 

 webs employed. Extreme length of nest 6 niches ; breadth 2-5 

 inches ; aperture 1 inch in diameter ; circumference just below the 

 entrance 7*5 inches. The eggs were three in number, much elon- 

 gated at the smaller end. Ground-colour dirty white, covered with 

 miiuite ashy-brown specks, which combine so as to form a zone 

 near the blunt end. Both nest and eggs very much like those of 

 Arachnechthra asiatica ; but the former may be distinguished by 

 its slightly smaller size, and the eggs by the zone. The eggs of 

 both species vary considerably in colour ; and after a careful exa- 

 mination of fully forty nests and eggs of both species, I find it 

 very ditficult to discriminate between them, or dx-avv an exact line 

 of difference. The only way I could be certain of the identity v\as 

 by having the females caught by birdlime at the entrance of the 

 nest. From captures made in tliis way, I find that the male of this 

 species takes part in incubation, a fact not observed in A. asiatica. 

 Three of the eggs I obtained measured respectively "Go, '68, and 

 •56 inch in length ; and in breadth -43, -46, and -51 inch. The 

 young when fledged are like the female, but with brighter yellow 

 on the breast." 



Long ago Mr. Blyth, then at Calcutta, remarked : — " According 

 to Mr. Walter Elliot, the present species ' builds a hanging nest 

 with an entrance near the top, opening downwards,' and such is 

 the form of a beautiful fabric before me, which I am assured is the 

 production of this bird. It is attached, nearly throughout its 

 length, to a small thorn twig, and is of an elongated pear-shape, 

 composed chiefly of soft vegetable fibres, very densely and neatly 

 interwoven ; on the outside are some coarser strips of grass, leaves. 



