138 PLOCEIDvE. 



length and from 0*44 to 0*5 in breadth ; colour pure white. Two 

 pairs of birds frequently, if not usually, are employed in the con- 

 struction of one nest, in which the two hens consecutively lay, so 

 the same nest has sometimes twenty-five eggs in it in different 

 stages of incubation. Nest often clumsy and hastily made, but 

 usually a neat domed structure of fine grass with one opening ; 

 sometimes prolonged into a short deflected neck partially closed by 

 the elasticity of the long spikes of grass forming it ; sometimes 

 the nest is a simple platform of grass, open at each end, but the 

 grass-ends curved over to meet at the top ; usually placed in thorny 

 bushes, often very conspicuously and close to roads. It is much 

 to be doubted if the eggs found occasionally in October and 

 December are hatched." 



Mr. Brooks tells me he has often taken eggs at Mirzapoor in 

 December, and I have found young birds often in the commence- 

 ment of January, so that I see no reason to doubt the hatching of 

 the December eggs. 



Sometimes they will even share a nest with another species. 

 Colonel G. F. L. Marshall remarks of this Munia : " I have taken 

 eggs hard-set in the first week in February in the Allahabad 

 District. I have found them breeding in the eaves of a verandah, 

 the nest being formed of the usual materials fine grass-stems in 

 seed, but used only to line the hole in the roof. Out of one nest 

 similarly situated, but made of grass and feathers mixed, I took 

 seven eggs of this bird and four of Passer indicus. The nest in this 

 case was probably built by the Sparrow." 



Major C. T. Bingham remarks: "Breeds both at Allahabad 

 and at Delhi from February to September. Eggs white, from four 

 to eight in number ; nest of grass, sometimes domed, sometimes a 

 mere pad." 



Mr. R. M. Adam, under date November 15th, 1867, writes from 

 Baraich : " On the 25rh October I found a half-built nest of 

 Munia malabarica ; two days after, on visiting it again, I found 

 it finished. November 3rd, I found three eggs ; on the 9th one 

 bird was hatched and four eggs in the nest : one was hard-set 

 which I left, the other three I took and cleaned, and found in them 

 just the germs of life. On the 10th the egg T left was hatched. 

 On the 12th I found the birds had deserted the nest. It was 

 built in a saro-tree (Oupressus sempervirens) in the public gardens, 

 about 5 feet from the ground, and was composed of several kinds 

 of green and dry grasses, some of the heads of which were downy, 

 and these with some soft feathers formed the lining of the nest. 

 The grasses were matted without much skill into a shape like a 

 Florence flask without neck, and supported by the branches and 

 twigs of the tree. There was only one opening, which measured 

 2 inches in diameter. In length the nest measured 6 inches, in 

 width 5| inches, and in circumference, round thickest portion, 14 

 inches." 



As for the size of the nests, this varies very greatly. I have 

 seen some fully 2 feet in circumference. 



