230 BIRDS' NESTS 



these Fantails display more skill in this tent-making 

 process than others. One of the most famous is the 

 South European species Cisticola cursitans ; another, 

 the Ground Fantail (C. terrestvis) of Mashonaland. 

 These birds make beautiful nests of vegetable down 

 and spiders' webs, forming them into bag- or pocket- 

 like structures attached at the sides to tall stems of 

 grass, which latter are eventually drawn together by 

 a series of knotted fibres into a sheltering roof. The 

 Grey-backed Fantail (C.subrujicapilla), smother Masho- 

 naland species, is said to breed amongst small bushes 

 growing on termite heaps, and to make a domed and 

 slightly-porched nest of grass and webs, lining it with 

 white cotton down. The extraordinary variation in 

 the eggs of some of these Fantails is not the least 

 interesting portion of their nidification. There are 

 several very distinct types in the eggs of the European 

 species — white or blue, spotted with rufous, and some- 

 times blue or white, without any markings at all. 

 Some of the species in more or less closely 

 allied genera, such as the Australian Chthonicola, 

 Sphen^eacus, Dasyornis, and the more aberrant 

 Malurus, also build domed nests, but the limits of 

 my space prevent more detailed allusion to them 

 here. 



So far as is known, none of the typical Thrushes 

 (Turdin^) builds a domed nest, but the aberrant 

 Dippers (Cinclidae) are famous for this type of archi- 

 tecture. The Dippers, although a small group, are 



