9386 Notices of Books. 



tree growing close by, as I have seen, within a few miles of Calcutta, 

 on the banks of the canal. Very often a tree overhanging a river or 

 tank, or even a large well, is chosen, especially, as Tickell says, if it 

 have spreading branches and scanty foliage. In India I have never 

 seen the baya suspend its nest 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 nest^ 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 labours towards the end of April, and in Au- 

 gust, 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 dwel- 

 lings ; 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 unfreqnently of strips 

 from the leaves of the dale-palm, or cocoa-nut ; 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. The 

 nest varies much in the length both of the upper part or support, and 

 the lower tube or entrance, and the support is generally solid, from the 

 point whence it is hung, for two or three inches, but varies much both 

 in length and strength. When the structure has advanced to the spot 

 where the birds have determined the egg-compartment to be, a strong 

 transverse loop is formed, not in the exact centre, but a little at one 

 side. If then taken from the tree and reversed, the nest has the ap- 

 pearance of a basket with its handle, but less so in this than in the 

 next two species, which have seldom any length of support above. 

 Various authors have described this loop or bar as peculiar to the 

 male nest, or sitting-nest, Tvhereas it exists primarily in all, and is 

 simply the point of separation between the real nest and the tubular 

 entrance, and, being used as a perch both by the old birds and the 

 young (when grown sufficiently), requires to be very strong. Up to 

 this time both sexes have worked together indiscriminately ; but when 

 this loop is completed the female takes up her seat on it, leaving the 

 cock bird to fetch more fibre and work from the outside of the nest, 

 whilst she works on the inside, drawing in the fibres pushed through 



