644 Dr. ('. B. Ticehurst on [Ihls, 



performance of which they hang head downward on the side 

 ofthe nest with wings drooping and shivering. The pieces of 

 mud in the fabric of the nest must be, I think, for steadying 

 the nest ; to serve the same purpose I have seen the funnel 

 lixed to a twig. 



Sind specimens do not appear to me to be separable from 

 those from the rest of India. 



Ploceus manyar flaviceps Less. 



Throughout the province, in the better cultivated parts of 

 course, the Streaked Weaver is the commonest bird. Hume 

 noted in Upper Sind in the cold weather, that wherever the 

 "khan^' grass abounded, this Weaver was very common, 

 feedinof in flocks on the seeds and insects harbouring in the 

 grass. In Lower Sind it is perhaps not quite so abundant, 

 yet it is by no means rare. Hume noted that males vastly 

 predominated, a fact which I can corroborate both in this 

 species and in the B:\ya. 



The nesting season is from June to September, tiiough I 

 once found a male luisily building on 30 April. The colonies, 

 unlike those of the Baya, are always small, four or five up to 

 ten in a group and usually placed over water. Thus I have 

 found them in tamarisk, reeds, bulrushes, etc. ; but at 

 Karachi, where there is no water, I have found colonies in 

 " babool," cocoanut palm, etc. in cultivation. On 14 June 

 nests were being built and some were finished ; on 26 June 

 I examined a colony in a row of cocoanut palms, one or two 

 nests in five consecutive trees ; they contained fresh eggs, 

 incubated eggs, a day's difference in incubation between 

 each egg, and in one case feathered young. Two, but fairl}^ 

 often, three eggs are laid ; these are hiid as soon as the egg- 

 chamber is complete and before the funnel is built. Butler 

 records it breeding in great numbers along the bank of the 

 E. Narra and found the colonies to be always pure ones, as 

 were all I examined ; he found two colonies in " jowari.'' 



Hume noted that Sind birds were not typical manyar \ 

 the latter from Java has a deep gold head and dark brown 

 edges to the upper parts and a brownish wash below. In 



