232 STLTIIDiE. 



It is placed at all elevations, and I have as often found it high 

 upon a mango-tree as low down amongst the leaves pf the edible 

 egg-plant (Solanurn esculentum). 



The nests vary much in appearance, according to the number 

 and description of leaves which the bird employs and the manner 

 in which it employs them ; but the nest itself is usually chiefly com- 

 posed of fine cotton-wool, with a few horsehairs and, at times, a 

 few very fine grass-stems as a lining, apparently to keep the wool 

 in its place and enable the cavity to retain permanently its shape. 



I have found the nests with three leaves fastened, at equal 

 distances from each other, into the sides of the nest, and not joined 

 to each other at all. 



I have found them between two leaves, the one forming a high 

 back and turned up at the end to support the bottom of the nest, 

 the other hiding the nest in front and hanging down well below it, 

 the tip only of the first leaf being sewn to the middle of the second. 

 I have found them with four leaves sewn together to form a canopy 

 and sides, from which the bottom of the nest depended bare ; and 

 I have found them between two long leaves, whose sides from the 

 very tips to near the peduncles were closely and neatly sewn to- 

 gether. For sewing they generally use cobweb ; but silk from 

 cocoons, thread, wool, and vegetable fibres are also used. 



The eggs vary from three to four in number ; but I find that out 

 of twenty-seven nests containing more or less incubated eggs, of 

 which I have notes, exactly two thirds contained only three, and 

 one third four eggs. 



About the colour of the eggs there has been some dispute, but 

 this is owing to the birds laying two distinct types of eggs, which 

 will be described below. Hutton's and Jerdon's descriptions of 

 the eggs, white spotted with rufous or reddish brown, are quite 

 correct, but so are those of other writers, who call them bluish 

 green, similarly marked. Tickell, who gives them as " pale greenish 

 blue, with irregular patches, especially towards the larger end, 

 resembling dried stains of blood, and irregular and broken lines 

 scratched round, forming a zone near the larger end," had of course 

 got hold of the eggs of a FranMinia. I have taken hundreds of 

 both types, and I note that, as in the case of Dierurus ater, eggs of 

 the two types are never found in the same nest. All the eggs in 

 each nest always belong to one or the other type. 



The parent birds that lay these very different looking eggs cer- 

 tainly do not differ ; that I have positively satisfied myself. 



I quote an exact description of a nest which I took at Bareilly, 

 and which was recorded on the spot : — 



" Three of the long ovato-lanceolate leaves of the mango, whose 

 peduncles sprang from the same point, had been neatly drawn 

 together with gossamer threads run through the sides of the leaves 

 and knotted outside, so as to form a cavity like the end of a netted 

 purse, with a wide slit on the side nearest the trunk beginning 

 near the bottom and widening upwards. Inside this, the real 

 nest, nearly 3 inches deep and about 2 inches in diameter, was 



