DRYMOICIKS. 167 



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 arc 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. Col. Sykes says 

 that the eggs are crimson, but he has probably mistaken the nest 

 and eggs of Prinia socialis, which last are sometimes brick-red 

 throughout. 



Hodgson suspects that there are two species confounded under 

 one name, as he has on several occasions got unspotted blue eggs 

 from a Tailor-bird's nest. These were probably those of Prinia 

 gracilis, the eggs of which are blue. Layard describes one nest 

 made of cocoanut fibre entirely, with a dozen leaves of Oleander 

 drawn and stretched together. I cannot call to recollection ever 

 having seen a nest made with more than two leaves. The bird 

 and its nest are very well figured in Guerin, Magasin de Zoologie, 

 for 1839. 



Pennant, in his Indian Zoology, gives the earliest, though some- 

 what erroneous, account of the nest of the Tailor-bird. He says. 

 " The bird picks up a dead leaf, and, surprising to relate, sews it to 

 the side of a living one." Hutton gave the first authentic account 

 of the bird and nest in the J. A. S., II., 504. The Tailor-bird 

 described and figured by Forbes, in his Oriental Memoirs, appears 

 to be a species of Nectarinia. Nicholson's supposed new species 

 (P. Z. S., 1851), 0. agilis, which, he says, often selects the 

 Brinjal (Solatium esculeutum) to build in, is of course the same 

 as our bird. 



A very closely allied species exists in the 0. phyllorapheus of 

 Swinhoe from China. This species is said to drop its lengthened 

 central tail feathers at the autumnal moult, when they are suc- 

 ceeded by others of the usual length. 



