(With its Nest.) 
Prinia inorncda, Sykes, Proc. Comm. Sci. and Con-. 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 social'is and Orthotomus 
Bennett,i. manifests great ingenuity in the constrnction of its nest. The drawing of the tad . 
accompanied by a nest, formed from the broad leaf of the Lettsama nervosa: the edges are 
brought together and kept in position by means of several separate filaments of cotton or lea 
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 ram and the 
sun: the interior of the nest is formed like that of the Prinia socialis, and the eggs aie led. 
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 cseca 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. 
