222 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRpS 



taking the nursery for a ball of rubbish. Grasses, 

 fibres, fine roots, tendrils, fragments of bark, moss, 

 lichen, petals or sepals of flowers, in short, anything 

 that looks old and untidy is utihsed as building 

 material. 



In Birds of the Plains I mentioned the sunbirds' 

 nest that was literally covered with the white paper 

 shavings that are used to pack tight the biscuits in 

 Huntley and Palmer's tins. 



" It is curious," writes Mr. R. M. Adam, " how 

 fond these birds are of tacking on pieces of paper 

 and here and there a bright-coloured feather from a 

 paroquet or a roller on the outside of their nests. 

 When in Agra a bird of this species buUt a nest on a 

 loose piece of thatch laid in my verandah^ and on the 

 side of the nest, stuck on like a signboard, was a piece 

 of a tom-up letter with ' My dear Adam ' on it.'* 



Mr. R. W. Morgan describes a yet more extraordinary 

 nest that was built by sunbirds in an acacia tree in 

 front of his office at Kurnool : " It was ornamented 

 with bits of blotting-paper, twine, and old service 

 stamps that had been left Is^ng about. The whole 

 structure was most compactly bound together with 

 cobwebs, and had a long string of caterpillar excre- 

 ment wound round it. This excrement had most, 

 probably fallen on to a cobweb and had stuck to it, 

 and the cobweb had afterwards been transported in 

 strips to the nest." 



The completed nest is a pear-shaped structure, 

 with an opening at one side near the top. Over the 

 entrance hole a little porch projects, which serves 



