CISTICOLA. 237 



low country, and never ascending the mountains to any great 

 elevation. 



The breeding-season lasts, according to locality, from April to 

 October, but it never breeds with us in dry weather, always laying 

 during rainy months. Very likely at the Nicobars, where it rains 

 pretty well all the year round, March being the only fairly dry 

 month, it may breed at all seasons. 



I have myself taken several, and have had a great many nests 

 sent to me. With rare exceptions all belonged to one type. The 

 bird selects a patch of dense fine-stemmed grass, from 18 inches 

 to 2 feet in height, and, as a rule, standing in a moist place ; in 

 this, at the height of from 6 to 8 inches from the ground, the nest 

 is constructed ; the sides are formed by the blades and stems of 

 the grass, in situ, closely tacked and caught together with cobwebs 

 and very fine silky vegetable fibre. This is done for a length of 

 from 2 to nearly 3 inches, and, as it were, a narrow tube, from 1 

 to l - 5 in diameter, formed in the grass. To this a bottom, from 

 4 to 6 inches above the surface of the ground, is added, a few of 

 the blades of the grass being bent across, tacked and woven together 

 with cobwebs and fine vegetable fibre. The whole interior is then 

 closely felted with silky down, in Upper India usually that of the 

 mudar {Calotropis hamiltoni). The nest thus constructed forms a 

 deep and narrow purse, about 3 inches in depth, an inch in dia- 

 meter at top, and 1'5 at the broadest part below. The tacking 

 together of the stems of the grass is commonly continued a good 

 deal higher up on one side than on the other, and it is through or 

 between the untacked stems opposite to this that the tiny entrance 

 exists. Of course above the nest the stems and blades of the grass, 

 meeting together, completely hide it. The dimensions above given 

 are those of the interior of the nest ; its exterior dimensions can- 

 not be given. The bird tacks together not merely the few stems 

 absolutely necessary to form a side to the nest, but most of the 

 stems all round, decreasing the extent of attachment as they recede 

 from the nest-cavity. It does this, too, very irregularly ; on one 

 side of the nest perhaps no stem more than an inch distant from 

 the interior surface of the nest will be found in any way bound up 

 in the fabric, while on the opposite side perhaps stems fully 3 

 inches distant, together with all the intermediate ones, will be 

 found more or less webbed together. Occasionally, but rarely, I 

 have found a nest of a different type. Of these one was built 

 amongst the stems of a common prickly labiate marsh-plant which 

 has white and mauve flowers. There was a straggling framework 

 of fine grass, firmly netted together with cobwebs, and a very 

 scanty lining of down. The nest was egg-shaped, and the aperture 

 on one side near the top. Mr. Brooks, I believe, once obtained a 

 similar one ; but the vast majority of the others that any of us 

 have ever got have been of the type first described, which corre- 

 sponds closely with Passler's account. 



Five is the usual complement of eggs ; at any rate I have notes 

 of more than a dozen nests that contained this number, and in 



