THE SHARP-TAILED FINCH. 221 



of which the nest is made, projecting over it. The eggs are white, 

 and five or six in number. 



" This bird is much disliked by the natives, on account of the 

 large quantities of rice which it consumes. I have seen a flock of 

 twenty or thirty clinging to a single head of flowering grass, when 

 they appear, from a distance, more like a swarm of bees than a flock 

 of birds. 



" My bird-skinner came back from Chola, but with very little, and 

 nothing of any consequence. About ten days ago (i6th November) I 

 saw the young of U. acuticauda only half-fledged. I asked myself how 

 is it that the young of this bird is hatched so much later in the year 

 than all the other birds about here ? and it struck me that the parents 

 had sense enough not to have their young hatched until the rice (on 

 which the}' chiefly feed) was ripe, so that they could, with minimum 

 of trouble, feed their brood. In the same way the Hornbill places its 

 nest near, or in the fruit trees, and contrives to hatch its young when 

 the fruit of those trees is ripe, with which the male can easily feed 

 the female and the young. The time of the most abundant supply of 

 food, appears to me, to have more influence on the nesting time than 

 has the season of the year. The same principle, in a kind of way, 

 partly applies to human beings ; for instance, in Kent and Sussex, the 

 ' hopping-time,' when there is most money about, decides the time for 

 marrying of many of the working people in those counties." 



Air. Irwin, who took a nest of this species in the Tipperah Hills, 

 in June, described it as composed of fine grass-stems placed in a half- 

 open hole in a low bank. It contained five eggs. 



Mr. Davison, writing from Mergui (Tenasserim), observes : "This 

 species is either a very irregular breeder, or it has several broods 

 during the year. In November it was not only breeding, but there 

 were many fully-fledged young abroad, usually in small parties, without 

 any admixture of adults ; and now in June there are still young to be 

 found, that have not long left the nest, and nests are to be found 

 containing eggs, both fresh and hard set, while other nests are in 

 coiirse of construction. 



" The species is very plentiful, and breeds freely, resorting to 

 gardens or low secondary scrub for the purpose, and never, to my 

 knowledge, to grass or rushes. 



" Usually the nest is placed at a moderate elevation in some 

 bush a thorny one by preference. 



" On June the 2Oth, I took a nest with five fresh eggs from a 

 small citron tree. It was rather compactly put together, composed on 



