302 SYLVIUS. 



Mi'. R. M. Adam remarks: "I had a iiest brought me in 

 Oudh on the 17th April, containing four eggs. About Agra and 

 Mnttra, where as you know the birds are very common, I have 

 always obtained the greatest number of eggs during August ; four 

 is the regular number; in one taken on the 16th August I found 

 five eggs." 



Mr. W. Blewitt writes : " During July, August, and the early 

 part of September I found multitudes of nests of this species in 

 the neighbourhood of Hansie, almost exclusively in the Dhasapoor, 

 Dhana, and Secundapoor Beerhs or jungle-preserves. 



" The nests, of which numerous specimens were sent to you, 

 were of the usual type, and were nearly all found in ber (Z. jujuba) 

 and hinse (Capparis apliylla) bushes, at heights of from 3 to 4 feet 

 from the ground. I did not meet with more than four eggs in 

 any one nest." 



Colonel E. A. Butler says: "The Indian Wren- Warbler is 

 very common in the plains, frequenting low scrub-jungle and long 

 grass studied with low bushes (Calotropis, Zizyplms, &c.). It 

 breeds during the monsoon, commencing to build in July, during 

 which month and August in the neighbourhood of Deesa I must- 

 have examined some three or four dozen nests. There are two 

 distinct types of nests, and there may be two species of this genus 

 in this part of the country ; but I must confess that after shooting 

 a large number of specimens of both sexes, and after examining an 

 immense series of the eggs, 1 have failed to make out more than one 

 species, and that Mr. Hume informs me is his Drymoipus terricolor. 

 The nests alluded to vary as follows : One type is very closely 

 and compactly woven, as described of D. terricolor (' Nests and Eggs, 

 Rough Draft,' p. 349), \\ith the entrance almost at the top. The 

 other type is built of the same material, with the exception that 

 the grass is rather coarser, but is more in shape like a Wren's nest, 

 and the grass is somewhat loosely put together instead of being 

 woven, and it has the entrance with a slight canopy over it upon one 

 side. The eggs four, and not uncommonly five, in number, \\erc 

 exactly alike in both types, as also were the specimens of the birds 

 themselves that I obtained. 



" Nearly all the nests I have seen have been built on the outside 

 of ber bushes (Z. jujuba), at heights varying from 2| to 5 feet 

 from the ground." 



Mr. B. Aitken says : " I found this nest at Bombay on the 

 13th October, 1873, at the edge of a tank some 2 feet above the 

 ground. I have found four or five precisely similar ones before, 

 generally in similar situations. The nest was strongly attached to 

 the stems and leaves of four herbaceous plants growing close 

 together. In many cases the strips of grass had been passed 

 through and pierced the leaves. The nest is deep and purse- 

 shaped ; the sides were prolonged upwards, except in front where 

 the entrance was, and joined above so as to form a canopy. The 

 nest has no lining, and none of the nests of this species that I ever 

 saw have ever had anv lininir. The whole nest inside and out is 



