270 



hair-like fibres very closely woven. "With these are intermingled 

 numerous small cocoons, pieces of bark, a few twigs here and 

 there, and large lumps of the excreta of caterpillars. The interior 

 is sparingly lined with fine grass. A fourth nest was made almost 

 entirely of strips of grass, a very small quantity only of black 

 fibres being used. Some huge pieces of bark, nearly as large as 

 the bird itself, were suspended by cobwebs from the lower part of 

 the nest. 



" The nest is pear-shaped, about 6 inches in height, and barely 

 3 inches outside diameter at the thickest part. The upper 2 inches 

 are solid. The entrance is about halfway down and measures 1| 

 by 1. The bottom of the egg-chamber is about one inch below the 

 tip of the entrance, and the thickness of the walls everywhere 

 is about one third of an inch. The wonderful part of the nest is 

 the verandah or portico. This springs from the upper edge of 

 the entrance and extends to two or three inches below the bottom 

 of the nest. Laterally it extends to rather more than the width 

 of the nest, and the sides are incorporated with the main structure 

 all the way down. It is made of the same materials as the other 

 portions, is about a quarter of an inch thick, and ver\ r strongly 

 woven and elastic." 



The only egg of this species that I have yet seen, sent me by 

 Mr. Gates, was a very elongated, slightly pyriform oval in shape. 

 The shell was very fine and fragile, but entirely devoid of gloss. 

 The ground-colour was a dull white or whitish stone-colour ; the 

 whole egg was extremely thickly freckled, mottled, and streaked 

 with a dull greyish purple, so thickly that at the large end the 

 markings are absolutely confluent, while even towards the small 

 end but little of the ground-colour is visible. 



Two other eggs are rather elongated ovals, and very dull and 

 glossless in appearance. The ground-colour is a sort of creamy 

 stone-colour, and the entire egg is thickly but very finely freckled 

 over with pale greyish purple, which freckling becomes confluent 

 and much more conspicuous in a rather narrow zone round the 

 large end. 



Family DICLEID^E. 



Dicaeum cruentatum (Linn.). The Scarlet-backed Flower- 

 pecker. 



Dicseum coccineum (Scop.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 373. 



Dicseum cruentatum (Linn.), Hume, Rough Draft N. $ E. no. 236. 



Mr. Gates, writing from Pegu, says : " I have taken many 

 nests of this bird from the 2nd March to the 9th April. The 



