standing st 11 In think jungle, jumping to and fro about the twigs and dead 
leaves, and stretching out their heads while they utter their shrill little 
rattle. 
NIDIFICATION 
The breeding season In the North of the Island lasts from March till Au¬ 
gust. Mr Parker writes me that In the seven Korales they breed mostly In 
May. The nest is generally placed in a bramble or strggllng piece of under- 
growth* often in a prominent position near a jungle path, at a height or 
from two to four feet from the ground. It is.almost Invariably made of dry 
leaves placed horizontally or in layers one over the other, the top being 
supported by the intermixture of a few twigs, and the opening being a wide 
unfinished orifice, almost on a'level with the bottom of the interior, which 
is composed of the same materials as the outside. 
The structure thus formed is a shapeless globular mass, sometimes of at 
least a foot in diameter, and from its large size and generally exposed sit¬ 
uation is one of the first nests which meets the eye in the Ceylon jungles. 
The birds construct these nests with great rapidity, picking up the lea¬ 
ves one after the other just beneath the spot where they are building. I 
have seen them, from a place of concealment, sticking the leaves into the 
structure at the rate of two or three a minute. From the number of these 
leaf nests that one finds in the forests of Ceylon it would appear that pro¬ 
bably several are constructed by the same bird before the eggs are deposited 
in the one finally chosen by the little architect. They are used as a roo¬ 
sting place by the young brood, who resort to them at nights after they are 
full grown and are abroad with their parents. 
The eggs are invariably two in number, stumpy ovals in shape, and or 
smooth texture. The ground colour is a clear fleshy white, spotted openly 
all over, or in some, chiefly at the large end, •••ith rounded spots of dull 
red and brownish red underlaid by a few speck's of bluish grey. 
They measure . 74 to .75 inches by.55 to .56 inches. 
In the drawing are found; two examples of this species, the upper one rrom 
Newera Fllia, shewing the olivaceous character of the hill bird, the other 
from the low country, exhibiting the rusty coloured tints which characterise 
the lowland form. 
