274 



from the ground ; but I have known them to build in the slender- 

 leaved Acacia (Acacia melanoxylon\ and then the nest is seldom 

 placed lower than 35 or 40 feet from the ground, and is placed 

 where the foliage is thickest. I have always found three pure 

 white eggs." 



Miss Cockburn, writing from Kotagherry near Ootacamund, 

 remarks : 



" Dr. Jerdon appears not to have known anything of its nidifi- 

 cation. I have been fortunate in getting its nest and eggs, which, 

 I am sure, could not have been found if the bird had not been seen 

 with a white feather in its bill and watched till it flew to its nest, 

 which was built at the extremity of a high slender branch of an 

 Australian tree. The nest was at the measured height of 34 feet 

 from the ground and extremely difficult to reach, but, as it was 

 rare, every effort was made to approach it, and they were suc- 

 cessful. The Nilghiri Flower-pecker builds a very neat hanging 

 nest, 3 inches in length, and the opening at the side towards the 

 top. The materials used are fine long grass, green moss, and cob- 

 web. The inside warmly lined with a quantity of the down of 

 seed-pods and feathers. The nest alluded to above was found in 

 the month of January, and contained two very small pure white 



[r. Ehodes "W. Morgan, writing from South India to ' The 

 Ibis,' says : " This little bird breeds in March, building a beautiful 

 little pendulous nest at the extreme end of a small twig, some 20 

 or 30 feet from the ground. The tree usually chosen in the can- 

 tonment at Ootacamuud, on the Nilgiris, is the Acacia melanoxylon. 

 The nest is built of the silky down of some tree, and bound to- 

 gether with very fine fibres. The entrance is at the side. The 

 eggs are beautifully white and fragile-looking, usually two in 

 number. Measurements of one in my collection are as follows : 

 7 inch in length by *45 in breadth. Owing to the great height at 

 which these birds build, large numbers of their nests are torn off 

 and blown down if the weather becomes at all windy." 



The eggs of this species, which I owe to Miss Cockburn and 

 Mr. Davison, are elongated ovals, pure white and glossless, for all 

 the world like little sugarplums. 



The eggs vary in length from O'O to 0'68 inch, and in breadth 

 from 0-4 to 0'46 inch. 



Dicaeum erythrorhynchum (Lath.). TiclcelTs Flower-pecker. 



Dicseum minimum (Tick.}, Jerd. B. 2nd. i, p. 374 j Hume, Rouyh 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 238. 



The late Captain Beavan, so far as I know, was the first person 

 certainly to take the nest of TickelPs Flower-pecker. He says : 

 " The first nest was brought to me at Beerachalee on the 16th 

 March, with three pure white eggs, which measured 0'6 inch by 

 0*4 inch. The nest is much like that of Araclmecliihra asiatica, 



