PRINIA. 291 



12th, and iny second on the 17th of May. This evidently is the 

 second brood, as I noticed on the same day a lot of young birds 

 which must have been fully six weeks old. One nest was lined 

 with horsehair and fine grasses. Four was the normal number of 

 eggs." 



Mr. Gates writes: "The Yellow-bellied Wren-Warbler is 

 very abundant throughout Lower Pegu in suitable localities. In 

 the plains between the Sittaug and Pegu rivers they are constant 

 residents, breeding freely from May to August and September. 

 In Rangoon also, all round the Timber Depot at Kemandine, and 

 in the low-lying land between the town proper and Monkey Point, 

 they are very numerous." 



The eggs are of the well-known Prinia type broad regular 

 ovals, of a nearly uniform mahogany-red, and very glossy. To 

 judge from the few specimens I have seen, they average a good 

 deal smaller, and are somewhat less deeply coloured, than those of 

 P. socialis. They vary from 0*52 to 0*6 in length, and from 0-43 

 to 0-48 in breadth. 



464. Prinia socialis, Sykes. The Ashy Wren-Warbler. 



Prinia socialis, Sykes, Jerd. S. Lid. ii, p. 170; Hume, Rough 



Draft N. $ E. no. 534. 

 Prinia stewarti, Blyth, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 171 ; Hume, Rough Draft 



N. # E. no. 535. 



Prinia socialis. 



The Ashy Wren- Warbler breeds throughout the southern portion 

 of the Peninsula and Ceylon, alike in the low country and in the 

 hills, up to an elevation of nearly 7000 feet. 



The breeding-season extends from March to September, but I am 

 uncertain whether they have more than one brood. 



Dr. Jerdon says : " Colonel Sykes remarks that this species 

 has the same ingenious nesfc as 0. longioanda. I have found the 

 nest on several occasions, and verified Colonel Sykes's observations ; 

 but it is not so neatly sewn together as the nest of the true Tailor- 

 bird, and there is generally more grass and other vegetable fibres 

 used in the construction. The eggs are usually reddish white, 

 with numerous darker red dots at the large end often coalescing, 

 and sometimes the eggs are uniform brick-red throughout." 



Xow, first, as regards the eggs, it is clearly wrong to say that 

 the eggs are usually reddish white ; that such eggs, as exceptions, 

 may have occurred I do not doubt, but I have seen more than fifty 

 of this bird taken by Miss Cockburu, Messrs. Carter, Davison, 



ait, Theobald, and others, and all were without exception 

 mahogany- or brick-red, at times mottled, somewhat paler and 

 darker here and there, but making no approach, even the most 

 distant, to what Dr. Jerdon says is the usual type. Moreover, I 

 have taken many hundreds of the eggs of P. stewarti (the northern, 

 rather smaller form), which is not only most closely allied but 

 really ver>/ doubtfully distinct, and yet I never met with one single 



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