82G The Zoologist— July, 18G7. 



or bush. At all times, but especially when feeding, it lias the habit of jerking up its 

 tail by successive efforts, so as almost to overshadow its head. The male has a very 

 sweet little song, which it warbles forth from the top of a wall or low tree, and it is 

 occasionally caged. It builds among rocks, or in holes in houses or mud-walls ; also low 

 down on the stem of palm-trees, where the broken stalk of the frond juts out from the 

 trunk: Burgess says, " under tussocks of grass." On one occasion a pair built their 

 nest, at Jalnah, among a heap of stones raised from a well. It was being deepened, 

 and they made their nest during the time the rock was being blasted, and continued 

 their incubation until the young ones were hatched, when it was accidentally destroyed. 

 The nest is made with grass, roots and hairs ; and the eggs, four or five in number, 

 are bluish white, spotted wilh purplish brown. — ' Birds of India,' vol. i. p. 121. 



Indian Tailor-Bird (Oithotomus longicauda). — The well-known tailor-bird is 

 found throughout all India, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin and Ceylon, and 

 extending into the Burmese countries. It is most common in well-wooded districts, 

 frequenting gardens, hedge-rows, orchards, low jungle, and even now and ihen the 

 more open parts of high tree jungles. It is usually in pairs, at times in small flocks, 

 incessantly hopping about the branches of trees, shrubs, pea-rows and the like, with a 

 long reiterated call, and picking various insects, chiefly ants, Cicadellse and various 

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

 It has the habit of feeding and raising its tail while hopping about, and at times, 

 especially when calling, it raises its feathers and displays the concealed black stripe 

 on its neck. The ordinary note of the tailor-bird is " to-wee-to-wee-to-wee," or, as syl- 

 labized by Layard, " pretty-pretty-pretty;" when alarmed or angry it has a differeut 

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

 watched it becomes wary and s-hy. The tailor-bird makes its nest with cotton-wool 

 and various other soft materials, sometimes also lined with hair, and draws together 

 one leaf or more, generally two leaves, on each side of the nest, and stitches them 

 together with cotton, either woven by itself or cotton-thread picked up; and after 

 passing the thread through the leaf it makes a knot at the end to fix it. I have seen 

 a tailor-bird at Saugor watch till the dirzee (native tailor) had left the verandah 

 where he had been working, fly in, seize some pieces of thread that were laying about, 

 and go off in triumph with them ; this was repeated in my presence several days 

 running. I have known many different trees selected to build in ; in gardens very 

 often a Guava-tree. The nest is generally built at from two to four feet above the 

 ground. The eggs are two, three or four in number, and in every case which I have 

 seen were white, spotted with reddish brown, and chiefly at the large end. Colonel 

 Sykes says that the eggs are crimson, but he has probably mistaken the eggs of Prinia 

 socialis, which last are sometimes brick-red throughout. — Id., vol. i. p. 166. 



Magpie with Yellow Beak. — In the ' Zoologist' for May (S. S. 757) I see that both 

 you and Professor Newton incline to the belief that the magpie mentioned by Mr. 

 Brown as having been seen by him near Falkirk was the American species, Picus 

 Nuttalli of Audubon, and, though it may seem to be the height of presumption in me 

 to differ from two such good authorities, yet I must say I think it far more likely to 

 have been a common magpie (P. caudata) which bad been indulging in a feast of eggs. 

 Audubon does not say much about the American bird, but if it bears any resemblance 

 to our magpie, how could it cross the Atlantic ? for our species is a bird possessed of very 

 limited powers of flight indeed, and in order to have arrived in Scotland the bird seen 



