A LITTLE NURSERY AND ITS 
OCCUPANTS 
PAIR of white-browed fantail flycatchers 
(Rhipidura albifrontata) were considerate 
enough to build a nest within a hundred 
yards of the house in which I spent a 
month’s leave at Coonoor. The nest in question was 
placed on a forked branch, the lowest in the tree, and 
at a height of about ten feet from the ground. I use 
the past tense advisedly, for the nest is no longer in the 
tree. 
After it had been vacated by the birds I had it 
removed, and it is now the property of the Bombay 
Natural History Society. The tree in which the nest 
was built grows on the slope of a steep hill, so that one 
had only to ascend a couple of paces in order to look 
right down into the nest. This latter is a work of art. 
If you would make an imitation of it, and, no matter 
how deft your fingers be, the imitation would, I fear, 
fall far short of the genuine article, you had best 
purchase a small bunch of violets. The bunch should 
be of the description sold by flower-girls for button- 
holes. It should be well put together, the stalks being 
tightly bound up with any fibrous material. 
57 
