10 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



unusually small. The hemispherical, or deep, cup-shaped nests are 

 almost invariably smaller than the oval- shaped ones. In all, the mate- 

 rials used are much the same, the staple article being skeleton 

 leaves more or less mixed with shreds of grass, the inner bark of some 

 tree, resembling tow ia texture, and a few bamboo leaves. The nest 

 is always very neat and very compactly made, and is fastened by in- 

 numerable threads of bark and cobwebs to the leaf, these threads being 

 so fastened as to bring the nest itself into actual contact with the leaf 

 except at the entrance. The lining is generally of skeleton leaves, 

 rarelf of soft grass. 



The number of eggs laid is either two or three, far more often the 

 former than the latter. 



The colour is wonderfully variable, but a brief description of all the 

 clutches in my collection will show nearly all the types I have met 

 with : 



1 . A pale greenish-grey, faintly and very indistinctly stippled 



witii slate or purplish-grey, these marks being confined 

 to a ring round the larger end, but in another clutch, of 

 the same ground-colour, these stipplings are quite absent. 

 1 have only seen two clutches of this colour. 



2. Dull purple-brown or purple-grey, stippled with darker- 



coloured specks of the same colour, all ill-defined and 

 blurred, sometimes in a ring, sometimes over the whole 

 larger end, more rarely still over the whole surface. 



3. A rather rich olive-brown, quite unmarked. 



4. Ground a yellow-brown or yellow-grey stone-colour densely 



covered with inky-grey marks, quite indefinable, but 

 apparently made up of freckles and small blotches. These 

 generally form a ring about the larger end. 



Every intermediate colour may be met with, and hardly any two 

 clutches are alike. The shape seems to be very constant ; all my eggs 

 are rather regular ovals, very little compressed towards the smaller 

 end and all blunt ; some eggs show very little difi^erence indeed 

 between the two ends. I have only got the measurements of fifteen 

 eggs, though I must have taken close on 30 ; these fifteen average 

 •83" X -63". The length varies between '79" and 1-07", and the 



