148 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. {N.S., XIX. 
neatness and compact finish which some people generally 
associate with the handiwork of this species and about which 
Hume was so positive. Though the characteristic ingenuity is 
there, both the nests lack finish and are rather clumsy. 
e first nest was discovered on the 9th March with three 
newly- Saihed chicks. Taking into consideration the period of 
incubation and the time taken to construct the nest, we may 
safely presume that the building operations commenced very 
‘likely in the middle of February and other preliminaries, e.g. 
courtship ete. took _ earlier still. 
1e second nest which I brought away on the 30th, was 
found to contain, on the 2 27th, three fledgelings. The eggs of 
this nest must have been laid in the first week of March ai the 
nest building — etc. must have taken place towards 
the end of Febru 
In the [bis of 1894, p. 46, we have a contribution from P. W. 
Munn. “On the Birds of the Caleutta District ’’, in which he 
speaks of having “shot a young of O. melanocephalus on 
April 13th,” but : as to the bird’s breeding season he writes— 
‘** They usually have eggs at the beginning of May and June.” 
These cases of mine, therefore, would be the earliest wounds of 
the breeding of O. 1. luteolus 
I paid occasional visits to Debandipur to take photo- 
graphs of the above noted first nest. During such a visit on 
the 23rd I found that one chick had disappeared and the other 
two had left the nest, which I brought away with the young 
ones. This nest was placed in the fork of a branch of a mango 
ground. It was 
small pieces of (mango) bark. Fine strips of bark, cotton and 
fibres woven Nien: formed the exterior walls. There was no 
cobweb anywher 
e second ni from Natagore, was also placed in a 
mango tree, but was at a height of about eight feet only from 
the ground. This nest was more solidly built than the last, 
cotton having been freely used to fix the nest firmly to the 
branches. In addition to the materials of the last nest, it 
contained scalings from bamboo and one or two spider's egg- 
bags but there was no cobweb. 
The following are the measurements of the two nests :-— 
Greatest diameter including the 4! 7¢8?- 2nd nest. 
Hs 
wa . 41 inches 43 inches 
Diameter of the nest cavity oe eee i 34 9 
Height top to a ba 
Depth of the nest cup oe. 3, ee 
Thickness of the surrounding walls $ inch 1 inch. 
