

places were perfectly inaccessible to the attacks of the serpents and lizards which abound there. 

 The nests are at first very neat and compact, long straws and fibres being attached to the extremity 

 of the drooping bough ; and on these the bag is woven. When finished a few loose leaves and 

 straggling straws are loosely fastened all round to elude observation and remove the appearance 

 of art. I kept three young birds for ten days in a box, and fed them with bunches of the blossom 

 of a jasmine and convolvulus. The hen bird lingered always in the neighbourhood of the tent, 

 attracted doubtless by their cries ; and when we were about to leave I turned out the two surviving 

 captives, and was glad to see the parent take to them at once, and attend to them in an adjoining 

 tree. 



Canon Tristram has kindly forwarded to me the nest and eggs of this bird, as well as his fine 

 series of skins. This nest, which contained three fresh eggs, was collected by him on the 23rd 

 of May, in a small valley running up from the plains of Gennesaret. It was suspended from the 

 end of one of the under boughs of a bush about five feet from the ground. Its form is a long 

 oval, with the entrance-hole at one side near the top, and is composed of the seed-down of plants, 

 a few feathers, shreds of grass, and coarse pieces of weeds carefully interwoven, and fastened 

 together, to some extent, with spiders' webs, which material is largely used to fasten the structure 

 securely to the bough. The coarser materials form the outer portion of the nest ; and here and 

 there the seed-pods of the castor-oil plant are interwoven in the fabric, from the bottom of which 

 some of the rougher materials hang down and give it the appearance of rubbish cast together by 

 accident, although in reality it forms a carefully constructed nest, solidly built, and softly lined. 

 The eggs are of a lengthened form, white, minutely freckled with ashy olive, which freckles are 

 so numerous towards the thicker end that they form a zone or cap of that colour. Five specimens 

 before me measure — breadth 0-4 inch, length - 6 to - 7. 



The specimens figured and described are the adult male and female collected at Jericho on 

 the 4th of January, and the young bird on the 25th of May 1864, by Canon Tristram, and are in 

 his collection. 



