iVmta inornata, Sykes, Proc. Comm. Sci. and Corr. Zool. Soc. 1832. 



„ Blyth, Journ. of the Asiat. Soc. Beng. p. 376, 1844. 



This is another of the species of Tailor-birds, and, like the Prinia socialis and Orthotomus 

 Bennettii, manifests great ingenuity in the construction of its nest. The drawing of the bird is 

 accompanied by a nest, formed from the broad leaf of the Lettsomia nervosa: the edges are 

 brought together and kept in position by means of several separate filaments of cotton or thread, 

 which the bird, using its bill as a needle, has carried through the edges of the leaf; and it will 

 be seen that the ends of the filaments have knots or knobs to prevent the filament or thread 

 passing through the leaf. It is difficult to understand how these knots were tied, unless they 

 resulted from the thread unravelling in being drawn through. The art of the bird, however, is 

 not confined to sewing the edges of the leaf together, for the stalk-end of the leaf is bent so as 

 to form a hood or roof over the aperture into the nest, protecting it equally from the rain and the 

 sun: the interior of the nest is formed like that of the Prinia socialis, and the eggs are red. 

 The note of the bird and its general habits are those of the Prinia socialis. 



The plant represents a species of Menispermum from Dekhan, called by the natives " Gool 

 Wail" copied from Col. Sykes' drawing ; but the leaf in which the nest is constructed is that of 

 a Lettsomia nervosa. 



Habitat, Dekhan. 



The whole of the plumage above is pale grey-brown ; superciliary stripe and body beneath, 

 white, saturated with rufus on the flanks; tail, tipped with white, and indistinctly fasciated 

 throughout its whole length. Irides, hazel ; bill, brown, except at the base of the lower mandible, 

 where it is yellow. The bird has very much the physical conformation of Prinia socialis ; but the 

 lobes of the liver are without fissures, which are discoverable in the liver of the Prinia socialis : 

 the digastric muscle also is only one-twentieth of an inch in thickness, indicating that hard food is 

 less suited to it than to the former. The length of the intestinal canal varied from four inches 

 to four inches seven- tenths ; the colon was only three-tenths of an inch long ; and the caeca barely 

 discoverable. In two males and two females the testes and ova were well developed : com- 

 minuted flies, soft insects, and a caterpillar were found in the stomachs. 



Total length of bird five inches and two-tenths, including tail two inches and two-tenths. 



Two of the bird's eggs are shown in the neighbourhood of the nest. 



