PRINIA . 295 



that can be said is that as a body they are slightly larger, and pos- 

 sibly, as a whole, the least shade less dark. In length they vary from 

 0-52 to 0-72, and in breadth from 0'45 to 0-52 ; but the average of 

 twenty-one eggs measured is 0'64 by rather more than 0-47*. 



Prinia stewarti. 



Stewart's Wren- War bier is one of those forms in regard to 

 which at present great difference of opinion prevails as to whether 

 or no they merit specific separation. P. stewarti from the N.W. 

 Provinces and P. socialis from the Xilghiris differ only in size ; 

 the latter is somewhat more robust, and probably weighs one fifth 

 more than the former. But then in the Central Provinces you 

 meet with intermediate sizes, and I have plenty of birds which 

 might be assigned indifferently to either race as a rather small 

 example of the one or rather large one of the other. 1 myself 

 consider all to belong to one species, but as this is not the general 

 view I have kept my notes on their nidification separate. 



This species or race breeds almost throughout the plains of 

 Upper India and in the Sub-Himalayan ranges to an elevation of 

 3000 or 4000 feet. In the plains the breeding-season extends 

 from the first downfall of rain in June (I have never found them 

 earlier) to quite the end of August. In the moist Sub-Himalayan 

 region, the Terais, Doons, Bhaburs, and the low hills, they com- 

 mence laying nearly a month earlier. 



This species often constructs as neatly sewn a nest as does the 

 Ortkotomus ; in fact, many of the nests built by these two species 

 so closely resemble each other that it would be difficult to distin- 

 guish them were there not very generally a difference in the 

 lining. With few exceptions all the innumerable nests of 0. suto- 

 rius that I have seen were lined with some soft substance 

 cotton-wool, the silky down of the cotton-tree (Bombax lieptaphyl- 

 lum), grass-down, soft horsehair, or even human hair, while the 

 nests of P. stewarti are almost without exception lined with fine 

 grass-roots. 



Our present bird does not, however, invariably construct a 

 " tailored " nest. When it does, like 0. sutorius, it sews two, 

 three, four, or five leaves together, as may be most convenient, 

 filling the intervening space with down, fine grass, vegetable fibre, 

 or wool, held firmly into its place by cross-threads, sometimes com- 

 posed of cobwebs, sometimes made by the bird itself of cotton, and 

 sometimes apparently derived from unravelled rags. It also, how- 

 ever, often makes a nest entirely composed of fine vegetable fibre, 

 cotton, and grass-down, and lined as usual with fine grass-roots. 

 Sometimes these nests are long and purse-like, and sometimes 

 globular, either attached to, or pendent from, two or more twigs. 

 One nest before me, a sort of deep watch-pocket, suspended from 



* As a matter of convenience I keep the notes on P. socialis and P. stewarti 

 separate, as is clone in the ' Bough Draft ' ; but there is no doubt whatever now 

 that the two birds are the same species. ED. 



