502 On the nest of the Tailor Bird. [Ocr. 
which brought us in little more than three hours to Gummi, effectually 
did away with the cause of complaint. 
Whether the mountain just described, or its namesake on Pulo 
Percha or Sumatra, called by Malays Gunong Passaman, or the Ophir of 
Bruce in Sofala on the Mozambique coast, or Jamison’s Ophir on the 
S. E. coast of Africa, be the Ophir of Scripture, or not, must still re- 
main matter of doubt. 
To the admirers of the marvellous I would recommend the careful 
perusal of San Maumep’s wonderful adventures, in his ascent to the 
summit of the mountain to entreat the hand of the enchanted princess 
of the rock for his master, MaAumMzEp SutTan of Malacca, as contained 
in the Malayan historical work the Silldlet-us-Salatin, and the Malay 
Annals. 
Nore.—In justice to the mountain I have visited, suffice it here to quote two 
passages from Dr. Ropinson’s Theological Dictionary, Art. “‘ Ophir.’”’ ‘ Josephus 
says, that the country of Ophir is in the Indies, and is called the golden country. It 
is thought he means Chersonesus Aurea, known by the name of Malacca, a pe- 
ninsula opposite to Sumatra.”’” Lucas HousTenius after many inquiries thinks, 
** we must fix on India in general, or the city of Supar in the Celebes : again Lipx- 
Nivs, who has composed a treatise concerning the country of Ophir, places it be- 
yond the Ganges at Malacca, Java, Sumatra, Siam, Bengal, Pegu, &c.”’ 
I1.—On the nest of the Tailor Bird. By Lieut. T. Hutton, 37th Regt. N. I. 
In Professor Renniz’s work on the Architecture of Birds, he gives 
two accounts of the manner in which the Tailor Bird constructs its 
nest, and as neither of these appear exactly to coincide with facts 
which have lately fallen under my observation, I have been induced to 
offer the following remarks for insertion in the Journat of the As. Soc. 
At page 258, the professor says: 
“The most celebrated bird of this division is the one which in the East is par 
excellence named the Tailor bird (Sylvia Sutoria, Laru.) the description of whose 
performances we would be apt to suspect for an Oriental fiction, if we had not a 
number of the actual specimens to prove their rigid authenticity. We do suspect 
however that these very specimens have misled European naturalists a step be- 
yond the truth in their accounts of its proceedings. ‘The Tailor Bird,’ says 
Darwin, ‘ will not trust its nest to the extremity of a slender twig, but makes one 
more advance in safety by fixing it to the leaf itself. It picks up a dead leaf 
and sews it to the side of aliving one; its slender bill being its needle and its 
thread some fine fibres: the lining of the nest consists of feathers, gossamer and 
down; its eggs are white; the colour of the bird light yellow; its length three 
inches ; its weight 3; of an ounce, so that the materials of the nest and the weight 
