58 NATURAL HISTORY. 



pea-rows, and the like, with a loud reiterated call ; and picking various insects, chiefly ants, cicadellso, 

 and various small larvae, off the bark and leaves, and not unfrequently seeking them on the ground. 

 It has the habit of raising its tail whilst feeding and hopping about, and at times, especially when, 

 calling, it raises the feathers and displays the concealed black stripe on its neck. The ordinary note 

 of the Tailor is to-wee-to-wee-to-wee ; or as syllabised by Layard pretty-pretty-pretty ; when alarmed or 

 angry, it has a different call. It is a familiar bird, venturing close to houses, but when aware that it 

 is being watched it becomes wary and shy. Mr. Hume gives a very full account of the nests, from 

 which the Tailor-bird derives its well-known name. " In India the breeding season lasts from May 

 to August, both months included ; but in the plains more nests are to be found in July, and in the 

 hills more, I think, in June, than during the other months. The nest has been often described and 

 figured, and, as is well known, is a deep soft cup enclosed in leaves, which the bird sews together to 

 form a receptacle for it. It is placed at all elevations, and I have as often found it high upon a Mango 

 tree as low down amongst the leaves of the edible egg plant (Solarum esculent-urn). The nests vary 

 much in appearance, according to the number and description of leaves which the bird employs, and 

 the manner in which it employs them ; but the nest itself is usually chiefly composed of fine cotton 

 wool, with a few horsehairs, and, at times, a few very fine grass stems as a lining, apparently to keep 

 the wool in its place, and enable the cavity to retain permanently its shape. I have found the nests 

 with three leaves fastened, at equal distances from each other, into the sides of the nest, and not 

 joined to each other at all. I have found them between two leaves, the one forming a high back, 

 and turned up at the end to support the bottom of the nest, the other hiding the nest in front, and 

 hanging down well below it, the tip only of the first leaf being sewn to the middle of the second. I 

 have found them with four leaves sewn together to form a canopy and sides, from which the bottom 

 of the nest depended bare ; and I have found them between two long leaves, whose sides, from the 

 very tips to near the peduncles, were closely and neatly sewn together. For sewing they generally 

 use cobwebs, but silk from cocoons, thread, wool, and vegetable fibres are also used. The eggs vary 

 from three to four in number ; but I find that out of twenty-seven nests containing more or les.7 

 incubated eggs, of which I have notes, that exactly two-thirds contained only three, and one-third 

 four eggs. About the colour of the eggs there has been some dispute, but this is owing to the birds 

 laying two distinct types of eggs, which will be described below. Hutton's and Jerdon's descriptions 

 of the eggs, tvhite spotted, with rufous or reddish-brown, are quite correct ; but so are those of other 

 writers, who call them bluish-green, similarly marked. Tickell, who gives them as ' pale greenish- 

 blue, with irregular patches, especially towards the larger end, resembling dried stains of blood, and 

 irregular and broken lines scratched round, forming a zone near the larger end,' had of course got hold 

 of the eggs of a Drymoipus. I have taken hundreds of both types, and I note that, as in the case of 

 Buekanga albirietus, eggs of the two types are never found in the same nest. All the eggs in each 

 nest always belong to one or the other type. The parent birds that lay these very different-looking 

 eggs certainly do not differ ; that I have positively satisfied myself. I quote an exact description of 

 a nest which I took at Bareilly, and which was recorded on the spot. Three of the long ovato- 

 lanceolate leaves of the mango, whose peduncles sprang from the same point, had been neatly drawn 

 together with gossamer threads run through the sides of the leaves, and knotted outside, so as to form 

 a cavity like the end of a netted purse, with a wide slit on the side nearest the trunk, beginning near 

 the bottom, and widening upwards. Inside this, the real nest, nearly three inches deep, and about 

 two inches in diameter, was neatly constructed of wool and fine vegetable fibres, the bottom being 

 thinly lined with horsehair. In this lay three tiny delicate bluish-white eggs, with a few pale 

 reddish-brown blotches at the large ends, and just a very few spots and specks of the same colour 

 elsewhere." The male Tailor-bird measures six and a half inches in length, and has the two centre 

 tail feathers lengthened, and measuring three and a half inches, whereas in the female these long 

 feathers are not found, and the tail measures only two inches. The general colour is olive-greenish, 

 the wings being brown edged with green ; the crown of the head is rufous, inclining to grey on the 

 nape ; the tail is narrow, light brown, with a green tinge, the outer feathers narrowly tipped with 

 white ; Tinder surface of body white, with a concealed black spot on each side of the throat formed by 

 the bases of some of the feathers, and seen only at times ; bill horny, the lower mandible pale fleshy ; 

 the legs flesh colour ; eyes reddish-yellow. 



