132 
Pace. 
GROS BE A K. 
from the noftrils fprings a dull green ftripe, which paffes through 
the eye and beyond it, where it is broader: the hind part of the 
head and neck, the back, rump, and wing coverts, the fame: the 
quills black, edged with green: the belly deep grey: the vent 
of a rufous red: the tail and legs black. 
This fpecies is found at Madagafcar, and fabricates a neft of 
a curious conftruétion, compofed of ftraw and reeds interwoven 
in fhape of a bag, the opening beneath. It is faftened above to 
a twig of fome tree; moftly to thofe growing on the borders of 
ftreams. One one fide of this, within, is the true neft. The bird 
does not form a new neft every year, but faftens a new one to the 
end of the laft *; and often as far as five in number, one hanging 
from another. Thefe build in fociety, like Rooks; often five or 
fix hundred being feen on one tree. They have three young at 
each hatch +. 
* Perhaps one of the nefts in Will. orn. pl. 77. may be meant to reprefent: 
this circumftance. 
+ Kaempfer mentions a bird fimilar to this, if not the fame, which makes the 
neft, near Siam, on a tree with narrow leaves and fpreading branches, the fize of 
an apple-tree: the neft in the fhape of a purfe, with a long neck, made of dry 
grafs and other materials, and fufpended at the ends of the branches $ the open- 
ing always to the north-weft. He counted fifty on one tree only and defcribes. 
the bird itfelf as being like a Canary-bird, of a dark yellow, and chirps like a. 
Sparrow.——Hif of Fapan, P- 35. 
Fryer alfo talks of the ingenuity of the Today Bird, making a neft ** like a 
“« fteeple, with winding meanders,” and tying it by a flender thread to the bough 
ofatree. ‘* Hundreds of thefe pendulous nefts may be feen on thefe trees.’? 
They are faid alfo to build on the tree called Brabh. —— Account of India andi 
Perfia, 1698, p. 76. 
Loxia. 
