THE BAYA WEAVER. 313 



Grains of all kinds, especially rice and various grass-seeds, form the 

 chief food of the Weaver-bird, and I never observed it feeding on fruit, 

 as Sykes asserts he has known it do on the fig of the Banian tree. 

 Whilst feeding, particularly, as well as at other times, the whole flock 

 keeps up a perpetual chirruping. I have seen it feeding in grain 

 fields in company with flocks of Emberiza melanoccphala ; and Sykes 

 relates that he has seen it associate with the common Sparrow. 



"The Baya breeds during the rains, according to the locality, from 

 April to September, but I am not aware if they ever have more than 

 one brood. Its long retort-shaped nest is familiar to all, and it is 

 indeed a marvel of skill, as elegant in its form, as substantial in its 

 structure, and weather-proof against the downpour of a Malabar or 

 Burmese Monsoon. 



"It is very often suspended from the fronds of some lofty palm- 

 tree, either the palmyra, cocoanut, or date, but by no means so 

 universally as Mr. Blyth would imply, for a babool (Acacia arabica, or 

 Vuchellia farnesianaj , or other tree will often be selected, in preference 

 to a palm-tree growing close by, as I have seen within a few miles 

 from Calcutta on the banks of the canal. Very often a tree over- 

 hanging a river or tank, or even a large well is chosen, especially, as 

 Tickill says, if it have spreading branches and scanty foliage. In 

 India I have never seen the Baya suspend its nests, except on trees, 

 but in some parts of Burmah, and more particularly in Rangoon, the 

 Bayas usually select the thatch of a bungalow to suspend their nests 

 from, regardless of the inhabitants within. In the cantonment of 

 Rangoon, very many bungalows may be seen with twenty, thirty, or 

 more of these long nests hanging from the end of the thatched roof, 

 and, in one house in which I was an inmate, that of Dr. Pritchard, 

 Garrison Surgeon there, a small colony commenced their labors towards 

 the end of April, and, in August, when I revisited that station, there 

 were above one hundred nests attached all round the house! In India, 

 in some localities, they appear to evince a partiality to build in the 

 neighbourhood of villages or dwellings ; in other places they nidificate 

 in most retired spots in the jungle, or in a solitary tree in the midst 

 of some large patch of rice cultivation. 



" The nest is frequently made of grass of different kinds, plucked 

 when green, sometimes of strips of plantain leaf; and not unfrequently 

 of strips from the leaves of the date-palm, or cocoanut ; and I have 

 observed that nests made of this last material are smaller and less 

 bulky than those made with grass, as if the little architects were quite 

 aware that with such strong fibre less amount of material was necessary. 



