DRYMOICINA. 219 
resident throughout the distrit, breeding during July and August ; 
it usually constructs a rather pretty nest, composed of fine strips 
torn from blades of green grass which are plaited together like 
those of the Baya, but the strips are much finer and the nest 
altogether neater ; it is usually fastened to the thorny twigs of 
acacia bushes, at no great height from the ground, and the shape 
depends largely on the position of these twigs. According to my 
experience the nest is never lined. 
Another type of nest is composed of the same material, but 
is much coarser, and more loosely woven. 
Nests of this latter description are built in clumps of 
sarpat, guinea, or other rank-growing grass, or even in stand- 
ing corn; they are purse-shaped, with the entrance on one side, 
the opposite side being prolonged and projecting over, so 
as to form a canopy, The eggs, four or five in number, are 
moderately long ovals, of a glossy pale greenish-blue color, 
boldly spotted and blotched with chocolate and reddish-brown, 
with a delicate tracery of interlaced hair-like lines at the larger 
end, but occasionally these lines are absent, the small end being 
usually spotless. The ground color is also subject to variation, 
eggs having been taken of a dull olive-green tint, and still more 
rarely of a clear reddish-white. They measure 0°61 inches in 
length by 0°45 in breadth. D. inornata also equals D. terri- 
color. 
Drymoipus rufescens, Hume. 
544b7s.—Butler, Guzerat; Stray Feathers, Vol. III, p. 484; 
Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 407. 
THE GreAT Rurous WREN WARBLER. 
Length, 6°45 to 7-2 ; expanse, 71 to 8; tail, 3:3 to 3:9; wing, 
2°3 ; tarsus, 0°9 to 0°95; bill at front, 0°5 to 0°53. 
Bill blackish-horny, fleshy at base of lower mandible; -irides 
from brown to deep yellow ; legs fleshy to reddish-brown. 
Whole upper surface, including tail, and greater median- 
coverts, tertiaries, and outer webs of primaries and secondaries, 
rich rufous-brown in full plumage, dull, or earthy-brown, more or 
less tinged or overlaid with rufous in young birds; tail very 
distinctly and finely, but obsoletely barred, much less distinctly 
however in some specimens than in others ; all the feathers, except 
the central ones, narrowly tipped with fulvous-white, with a more 
or less distinct penultimate dusky bar; the young birds with a 
good deal of white on the inner webs of the lateral feathers, 
which is entirely wanting in adults. 
In some of the adults, the dark subterminal bar becomes 
almost obsolete; lores and a stripe over the eye fulvous white ; 
ear-coverts, sides of neck, and breast, and sometimes some 
of the lesser wing-coverts about the carpal joint, a greenish 
or greyish-brown ; the ear-coverts at times more or less mottled 
with fulvous-white ; lower parts pale fulvous, or buffy, albescent on 
