THE THREE-COLOURRD MANNIKIN. 237 



hair-like filaments, from the brown grass of this country. Seven is, 

 I think, the full complement of eggs ; I have never found more in 

 any one nest." 



Mr. F. R. Blewitt says : " On the igth July we were encamped 

 in the open forest country, in the immediate neighbourhood of the 

 western side of the hill ranges (branches of the great Vindhyian 

 group), lying in the extreme eastern section of the Bhundara District. 



" In a sugar-cane field, not far distant from our camp, we found 

 five unfinished, and one all but complete nest, containing a single egg, 

 of the Black-headed Munia. The parent birds were shot while busily 

 engaged in finishing off the entrance of the nest.* 



"This latter was nearly globular, a mass of coarse grass, lined 

 with somewhat finer grass, between six and seven inches in diameter. 

 It was more loosely constructed than those of Estrelda formosa, several 

 of which we had found in a similar locality, about a mile distant, two 

 days previously. Both this nest and the other unfinished ones were 

 placed amongst, and attached to the cane leaves, precisely after the 

 fashion of the Green Amaduvat. 



" The eggs of this species, which I owe to Messrs. Carter, Theobald, 

 and others, are of the usual Mimia type dull pure white, somewhat 

 elongated, oval eggs ; there is nothing, that I can see, to distinguish 

 them from those of M '. punctulata and M. malabarica, except, perhaps, 

 that elongated varieties are more common amongst them." 



Captain Legge, writing of this species in Ceylon, says : " This 

 fine Munia is common in the south of the island, particularly in the 

 district lying between Bentota river, round the south-west coast to the 

 Wallaway river. Between Galle, and the Kukkul Korale forests, it is 

 found in wild paddy-fields, and small cultivated tracts of land, near the 

 inland villages in that wooded region. I met with it close to the sea, 

 between Tangalla and Hambantota, but did not see it in the coast- 

 district east of the latter plain. It re-appears in the Park country; 

 and is not uncommon between Batticaloa and Madulsima ; it ascends 

 into the hills between Bibile and Badulla, and inhabits all the region 

 and the Uva patna-basin in considerable numbers, luxuriating in the 

 long grass and tangled vegetation, which clothe the maze of hills, 

 between Udu Pusselawa and Haputale. In the western parts of the 

 Kandy country it is far less common. It does not seem to be common 

 in the Western Provinces, except in certain localities, such as the 

 sylvan paddy-fields in the lower part of the Pasdun Korale; there I 



* This is only one, out of many recorded instances, of the cold-blooded tendency to slaughter, 

 characteristic of the English collector. A.G.B. 



