IO8 THE WARBLERS. 



Bombay as the true Tailor Bird. As a tailor, ladies 

 say it is not such a neat worker. 



Another species which is everywhere in Bombay is 

 the one which Jerdon calls the Common Wren 

 Warbler (Drymoipus inornatus). Its scientific name 

 is a happy one. " Inornate " describes the bird in a 

 word. It is a typical member of the group, a tiny, 

 dingy, homely, long-tailed bird, with nothing striking 

 about it. Jefferies' account of the song fits it exactly. 

 It is not a tailor, but it constructs a very ingenious 

 and beautiful nest, woven of fine grass and worked 

 into three or four high reeds, or stems of upright 

 shrubs. The nest is always well concealed by foliage, 

 but after the monsoon, when the leaves have fallen, it 

 comes into view. Old nests of this kind are often to 

 be seen in Bombay. There are few prettier eggs 

 than those of tHis unornamented bird. They are of a 

 pale blue-green colour, thickly marked at the larger 

 end with spots and blotches and fine lines of chocolate- 

 brown. There are four or five of them. 



The Tree Warblers differ from the Wren Warblers 

 in this, that they pass their lives in trees and not 

 among grass and low bushes. There are other differ- 

 ences too. The Wren Warbler is flimsy and feeble, 

 loose-jointed and fluffy-feathered, encumbered with a 

 long pendulous tail and fitted with little wings that 

 just serve to carry it in a jerky way from bush to bush. 

 The Tree Warbler is a shapely bird, slim but firm, 

 wiry, athletic, with a well-proportioned tail and wings 

 that will, when the season arrives, take it from 

 continent to continent. For all our Tree Warblers 

 are foreigners. One of the commonest makes its 

 nest in Sind, but others go to the Himalayas or 



