328 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
It extends through Chittagong and Tipperah to the hill-tracts of Eastern 
Bengal and Assam^ and is also found abundantly in Sikhim and Nipal. 
The habits of this species appear to be similar to those of the next. The 
nest has been found by Mr. Gammie in Sikhim ; and a full account of the 
nidification by that gentleman is contained in Capt. Shelley^s monograph. 
The nest is an open cup-shaped structure, composed of vegetable fibres 
felted together, externally mingled with skeleton leaves and lined with 
grass. The nest/^ writes Mr. Gammie, " is suspended from about the 
middle of the under surface of a plantain tree by numerous threads (two 
hundred or so) of plantain-stem fibre, attached to rather more than half 
the rim of the cup, put through the blade of the leaf and knotted on the 
upper side."' The eggs, usually three in number, are brown, speckled 
with deep purple. 
310. AEACHNOTHERA AURATA. 
BLYTH'S SPIDER-HUNTER. 
Arachnothera aurata, Bl. J. A. S. B. xxiv. p. 478 ; Hume, S. F. iii, p. 85 ; Bl. ^ 
Wald. B. Burm. p. 140 ; Shelley, Mon. Ned. p. 351, pi. 112 ; Hume 8f Dav. 
S. F. vi. p. 174 ; Hume, 8. F. viii. p. 89 ; Oates, S. F. x. p. 197. 
Description. — Male and female. Like A. magna, but smaller and with 
the striations both above and below narrower, and almost obsolete on the 
lower back. 
Bill black ; the margins of the lower mandible yellow ; mouth yellow ; 
iris brown ; eyelids plumbeous ; legs orange-yellow ; claws yellow. 
Length 6*5 inches, tail 1*8, wing 3*4, tarsus '8, bill from gape TG. The 
female is smaller. » 
Bly th^s Spider-hunter is abundant over many portions of Pegu. I found 
it numerous in the evergreen forests of the Pegu hills in the northern 
portion of the Division ; and it extends down the western side of the 
Sittang valley as far as Kadote on the Tonghoo road, where the dense 
forest begins to give place to the grassy plains. It appears to be abun- 
dant in the neighbourhood of Tonghoo, for Mr. de Wet sent me numerous 
specimens from that district. Further east Capt. Wardlaw Ramsay got it 
on the Karin hills at an elevation of 2,500 feet. In the Irrawaddy valley 
I observed it at Thayetmyo, but nowhere else. Mr. Davison states that 
he did not find it in any part of Tenasserim ; but Capt. Beavan procured it 
at Kyodan, on the Salween river, in that Division. It is not yet known 
to occur elsewhere in Burmah. 
This Spider-hunter is chiefly an inhabitant of forest, but occasionally 
it may be seen in gardens. It is very partial to spots in the jungle which 
