ARACHNECHTHBA. 265 



of thorny acacias. They build a very neat little hanging nest, 

 thick at the bottom and tapering towards the top, having a round 

 hole for entrance 2| inches from the bottom ; circumference at 

 the thickest part 7| inches ; length 6 inches. It has a prominence 

 above the hole covering about half of it. It is made of vegetable 

 fibres, cobwebs, and chips of dry wood, and lined with a beautiful 

 soft kind of silk-cotton (from a milky bush of the Asdepiadece 

 family, I think it is the Calotropis gigantea) which the natives of 

 Southern India call verJcum punjee. 



" I always found two eggs in the nests of these birds, and think 

 that the young birds are male and female, for I invariably found 

 one a little bigger than the other ; the colour of the plumage in 

 the young is the same. The natives also informed me that two 

 eggs are the usual number, and that the young are always a pair." 



Captain Beavan, writing from Maunbhoom, says : " Two nests 

 were brought to me on the 27th March, from which I take the 

 following description : Bottle-shaped ; the entrance from one side 

 near the top ; its aperture circular, with a dome over it. Com- 

 posed outside of bits of bark and fibres, firmly agglutinated with 

 spider's web ; the top of the nest attached firmly to a small twig, 

 from which it hangs suspended, and exposed to every breeze, which 

 must shake the nest severely and cause it to swing, but without 

 damaging the eggs, owing to the peculiar elasticity of the silky 

 webs employed. Extreme length of nest 6 inches ; breadth 2-5 

 inches ; aperture 1 inch in diameter ; circumference just below the 

 entrance 7'5 inches. The eggs were three in number, much elon- 

 gated at the smaller end. Ground-colour dirty white, covered with 

 minute ashy-brown specks, which combine so as to form a zone 

 near the blunt end. Both nest and eggs very much like those of 

 Arachnechthra asiatica ; but the former may be distinguished by 

 its slightly smaller size, and the eggs by the zone. The eggs of 

 both species vary considerably in colour ; and after a careful exa- 

 mination of fully forty nests and eggs of both species, I find it 

 very difficult to discriminate between them, or draw an exact line 

 of difference. The only way I could be certain of the identity was 

 by having the females caught by birdlime at the entrance of the 

 nest. From captures made in this way, I find that the male of this 

 species takes part in incubation, a fact not observed in A. asiatica. 

 Three of the eggs I obtained measured respectively "65, *68, and 

 56 inch in length ; and in breadth '43, -46, and '51 inch. The 

 young when fledged are like the female, but with brighter yellow 

 on the breast." 



Long ago Mr. Blyth, then at Calcutta, remarked : " According 

 to Mr. Walter Elliot, the present species ' builds a hanging nest 

 with an entrance near the top, opening downwards,' and such is 

 the form of a beautiful fabric before me, which I am assured is the 

 production of this bird. It is attached, nearly throughout its 

 length, to a small thorn twig, and is of an elongated pear-shape, 

 composed chiefly of soft vegetable fibres, very densely and neatly 

 interwoven ; on the outside are some coarser strips of grass, leaves, 



