ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN ORNITHOLOGY 
By E. BLYTH, 
Curator of tlic Museum of Asiatic Society of Calcutta. 
IV.— PHYLLOItNIS JERDONI, Blyth. 
Plate XCI. 
For the interesting nest and eggs of Phyllornis jerdoni, Blyth, we 
arc indebted to our kind friend and correspondent, E. L. Layard, 
Esq., magistrate of the district of Point Pedro (the northernmost 
extremity of Ceylon), in which district we understand it to have 
been procured. A large groove along the under side of the nest 
indicates it to have been placed upon a branch, probably as re- 
presented in our figure. The general form is somewhat flat, and 
it is composed of very soft materials, chiefly dry grass and silky 
vegetable fibres, rather compactly interwoven with some pieces of 
dead leaf and bark on the outside, over which a good deal of 
spider’s web has been w r orked. It contains four eggs, white, ab- 
ruptly speckled over with dark bister, mingled with some ashy 
spots. 
This species of Phyllornis (figured by Mr. Jerdon in the 43d 
Plate of his Illustrations of Indian Ornithology) inhabits all the 
peninsula of India and Ceylon. We found it plentiful in the jungles 
of the Midnapur district (west of Lower Bengal), and think* we 
have also seen it from the Rajmorc Hills in Bengal, but certainly 
never from Upper India. Its only congener in southern India and 
in Ceylon is the Phyllornis malabaricus (or aurifrons of Jordon’s 
Catalogue). The latter we did not observe in the Midnapur dis- 
trict; but a few of Phyllornis aurifrons , a species which extends 
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