Letters, Announcements, ^c. 137 



1st. I notice what Dr. Von Heuglin says (Ibis^ 1869^ p. 133) 

 about the nidification of Cisticola schcenicola. Passler appears 

 to me to be very correct in his account. In Upper India^ at any 

 rate, this species almost invariably builds " a nest so peculiar 

 that it cannot be confounded with any other." I have myself 

 taken, or seen after they had been taken by my friends Messrs. 

 Brooks, Blewitt, and others, fully fifty nests, and all were, with 

 one exception, of the same type. The bird, which breeds in the 

 rainy season (commonly in August), selects a patch of dense, fine- 

 stemmed grass, from 18 inches to 2 feet in height, and, as a rule, 

 standing in a moist place; in this, at the height of from 6 to 8 

 inches from the ground, the nest is constructed, the sides of 

 which are formed by the blades and stems of the grass, in situ, 

 closely tacked and caught together with cobwebs and very fine 

 silky vegetable fibre. This is done for a length of from 2 to 

 nearly 3 inches, and, as it were, a narrow tube, from 1 to 1*5 

 inch in diameter, formed in the grass. To this a bottom, as 

 before mentioned, from 4 to 6 inches above the surface of the 

 ground, is added, a few of the blades of the grass being 

 bent across, tacked and woven together with cobwebs and fine 

 vegetable fibre. The whole interior is then closely felted with 

 the silky down of the Murdar {Palotropis hamiltoni). The nest 

 thus constructed forms a deep and narrow purse, about 3 inches 

 in depth, 1 inch in diameter at top, and 1*5 inch at the broadest 

 part below. The tacking together of the stems of the grass is 

 commonly continued a good deal higher up on one side than 

 on the other ; and it is through or between the untacked stems 

 opposite to this that the tiny entrance exists. Of course, above 

 the nest the stems and blades of the grass meeting together 

 completely hide it. The dimensions above given are those of 

 the interior of the nest. Its exterior dimensions cannot be 

 given. The bird tacks together not merely the few stems ab- 

 solutely necessary to form a side to the nest, but most of the 

 stems all round, decreasing the extent of attachment as they re- 

 cede from the nest-cavity. It does this, too, very irregularly ; 

 on one side of the nest, perhaps, no stem more than an inch 

 distant from the interior surface of the nest will be found in 

 any way bound up in the fabric, while on the opposite side, per- 



