298 STLYIID.E. 



together had actually commenced to wither, and in the course of a 

 few days later the whole structure came down bodily. 



" This is the only Prinia to be found at Futtehgurh, and they 

 are one of our most common garden-birds. Their beautiful brick- 

 red eggs and neatly- sewn nests are too well known to require de- 

 scription. 



" Four generally, and five frequently, is the number of eggs they 

 lay. I have one record of six on the 17th August, 1873 ; in this 

 case one egg was laid daily, the first having been laid on the 12th, 

 and the sixth on the 17th." 



Captain Hutton remarks : — " This is a true Tailor-bird in respect 

 to the construction of the nest, which is composed of one leaf as a 

 supporting base stitched to two others meeting it perpendicularly, 

 the apices of all three being neatly sewn together with threads 

 roughly spun from the cottony clown of seeds. Between or within 

 these leaves is placed the nest, very slightly and loosely constructed 

 of fine roots, grass-stalks, and seed-down, the latter material being 

 interwoven to hold the coarser fibres of the nest together. There 

 is no finer lining within, and the edges of the exterior leaves are 

 drawn together round the nest and held there partly by roughly- 

 spun threads of down, and partly by the ends of the stiff fibres 

 being thrust through them. The whole forms a very light and 

 graceful fabric. "Within this nest were four beautiful and highly 

 polished eggs of a deep brick-red colour, darkest at the larger end, 

 faint specks and blotches of a deeper colour being indistinctly dis- 

 cernible beneath the surface of the shell, which shines as if it had 

 been varnished. The nest is not closed above, but is open and 

 deeply cup-shaped. This was taken in the Dhoon on the 30tb 

 May." 



Major C. T. Bingham says : — " Breeds at Allahabad in June, 

 July, and August. At Delhi I have not yet found its nest. I 

 once found in July three nests all attached together in a sort of 

 triangle, but whether built by separate pairs of birds I cannot say. 

 Only one nest contained eggs." 



Colonel Gr. F. L. Marshall writes : — "A nest found in July in the 

 Cawnpoor district was built of grass, a deep oblong domed nest 

 with the entrance at the side near the top. It was placed close to 

 the ground in a tuft of surkerry grass sloping rather backwards. 

 The position is, I believe, unusual. The old birds were still putting 

 finishing touches to the building when I found it." 



The eggs are ovals, as a rule, neither very broad nor much elon- 

 gated. Pyriform examples occur, but a somewhat perfect oval is 

 the usual type, and the examination of a large series shows that 

 the tendency is to vary to a globular and not to an elongated shape. 

 The eggs are brilliantly glossy, and, though considerably smaller, 

 strongly resemble, as is well known, those of the little short-tailed 

 Cetti's Warbler. 



In colour they are brick-red, some, however, being paler and 

 yellower, others deeper and more mahogany-coloured. There is a 

 strong tendency to exhibit an ill-defined cloudy cap or zone, of far 



