NOTES ON A NEW SPECIES OF WREN. 321 



The nest was placed on a pile of dead leaves, bracken and branches 

 which filled up the hollow below the fallen tree, and it was supported 

 on either side by a broken branch. The major part of the materials 

 consisted of skeleton leaves bound together with dark, coarse 

 fern-roots, a few bents, and also one or two fine elastic twigs ; the 

 outermost part of the nest was of dead leaves of all kinds, very loosely 

 bound together and contrasting with the inner part which was very 

 compactly lined with skeleton leaves alone. In shape the nest is a 

 deep cup with the back-wall much prolonged, though not enough so 

 to form a roof or porch. The measurements of the nest are as 

 follows: Outside, not including the looser twigs and leaves, the 

 broadest part is 3'3" ; the height of the back -wall, 5 '4" ; of the front- 

 wall, 2 '44"; depth of the interior, from level of top of front-wall, 

 1'^" ; diameter as nearly as possible •2". 



The nest when first taken was soaked through more than half-way, 

 the lining of skeleton leaves alone being dry. It was beautifully 

 hidden amongst the dead branches and ferns, and I don't think I 

 should have ever found it myself. The ground on which it was 

 found had some eight or ten years previously been cleared for 

 cultivation, and was again overgrown with fairly thick scrub jungle, 

 but there were no trees about, except dead ones, and moat of these 

 had long fallen to the ground and were all covered with a dense 

 mass of tree-ferns, moss and orchids. A road ran within some ten 

 feet of where the nest was found, and the Naga boy, who found it 

 told me he saw the male bird taking food to the female as she sat on 

 the nest. 



The eggs, of which, as I have already said, there were three, were 

 very large in proportion to the size of the bird, measuring respectively 

 •67" X -50", -66" X -50", and -65" X -51". One egg appears to be 

 quite pure white, unless it is very closely and carefully examined, 

 when a few excessively minute, pale reddish marks may be discovered 

 about the larger end ; another eg^ has these marks quite distinct, 

 though still very few in number and very tiny ; the third has the 

 marks somewhat more numerous, decidedly larger, so much so that 

 some of them indeed might almost be designated blotches. They 

 are of the same pale reddish-brown as in the other eggs, and 

 they form a very ill-defined ring at the very extremity of the 



