Malayan Ornithology. 521 



through the jungle, I got within range and shot one. It 

 proved to be a Hill-Myna in its colours and markings very 

 like but larger than Gracula religiosa, Horsfield/' 



Ploceus baya, Blyth, The Weaverbird. 



Plentiful on Pulo Penang and the mainland ; but I rarely 

 saw it on the island of Singapore. In Perak it is very com- 

 mon, breeding from February to June, hanging its long, 

 bottle-shaped nest to the upper branches of trees, generally 

 selecting one standing in some isolated position, such as the 

 middle of a paddy-swamp, I noticed that, as a rule, they 

 built in colonies ; and there was one near Kwala Kangsar 

 where over twenty nests hung, like huge pears, from a single 

 tree standing alone in an open swamp, through which one 

 had to wade knee- deep before the nesting-place could be 

 reached. 



On May 18, the birds were hard at work building; and 

 standing motionless beneath the tree, I watched them for a 

 long time. One nest, within fifteen or twenty feet of where 

 I stood, appeared to be almost finished, even to the long, 

 tubular entrance ; and I fancy the hen must have been sitting 

 inside, as I did not see her at all, though the male worked 

 away most industriously, weaving long pliant stems of grass 

 into the body of the nest. 



Of this colony quite two thii-ds of the nests were of the 

 bottle-shape, the remainder exactly like inverted baskets, 

 suspended handle downwards. I cannot help thinking that 

 these basket-shaped structures are simply unfinished nests, 

 perhaps the " failures " of young birds new to the work, 

 which have been rejected as being in some way unsuitable, 

 as they only require the open space on one side of the handle 

 to be filled in (as the repository for the eggs) to make them 

 complete. That they are built specially for the accommoda- 

 tion of the male I do not believe, as, though I have watched 

 attentively on several occasions, I never saw them used by 

 either sex. 



I found the lumps of clay, which are stuck inside many of 

 the nests, most frequently in those of the basket-shape, but 



