AEACHNECHTHEA. 255 



of a dirty white colour covered with dingy .spots, which sometimes 

 tend to form a zone at the thicker end." 



Captain Hutton says : " We found a nest on the 29th of May 

 in the Doon, containing three eggs. 



" The nest is a beautiful little structure somewhat pear-shaped, 

 or rather, perhaps, resembling a miniature soda-water bottle, taper- 

 ing upwards to a point which is attached to a thin twig. The 

 mouth of the nest is placed at one side near the top, and has a 

 very conspicuous shade or verandah projecting over it, composed 

 of very fine fibres of the seed-stalks of minute grasses. The lining 

 consists of fine fibres and silky seed-down intermixed. It is some- 

 what rudely constructed externally of blades of grass, bits of 

 various kinds of leaves, fine shavings and fibres held together by 

 cobwebs and seed-down, not interwoven, but sparingly plastered 

 over the other materials, and most abundant at the point of 

 attachment to the twig from which it depends. In the specimen 

 before me there is much excrement of some species of caterpillar 

 spread over the surface, and seemingly not by the insect, but by 

 the bird, as it is found adhering to the bottom as well as to the 

 sides of the nest. It is, however, much more abundant at the 

 upper part, where it appears to have accumulated, as if dropped 

 from the branch of the tree." 



Mr. Brooks tells us that this species " is seen occasionally in 

 the valleys near Alniorah. On the banks of a small river there, 

 1 found a nest of this bird being built in May. The bird lays in 

 March in the plains." 



From Murree, Colonel C. 11. T. Marshall says : " Found 

 several nests of this species in May and June, in the lower valleys, 

 about 4000 feet up." 



Mr. B. M. Adam remarks : " The Purple Honey-sucker is 

 very common about Sambhur ; it breeds during the month of April 

 and up to June. On the morning of the 18th April, I saw a female 

 apparently in a great state of excitement over a piece of cobweb in 

 a tree, and I succeeded in lining it like a bee, until I found the 

 beginning of a new nest on a babool tree, about 15 feet from the 

 ground. On the 19th it had the upper portion of the nest well 

 formed ; on the 20th the nest was well blocked out, but had no 

 inner lining. From the 21st to the 24th, the bird was occupied in 

 ornamenting the outside of the nest with all sorts of stray 

 leathers and other odds and ends. During these days it also filled 

 in the inner lining. 



" It is curious how fond these birds are of tacking on pieces of 

 paper and, here and there, a bright-coloured feather from a Paro- 

 quet or a Eoller on the outside of their nests. When in Agra, a 

 bird of this species builb a nest on a loose piece of thatch cord in 

 my verandah, and on the side of the nest, stuck on like a sign- 

 board, was a piece of a torn-up letter with ' My dear Adam ' 

 on it. 



" On the 26th I found the bird sitting on the nest, and I presume 

 it had eggs, but I did not care to disturb it, and on the 27th, for 



