142 CEATEROKXDIDjE.

ishing the mere weight of.the parent bird does not bring it to the
ground, and yet within it three young ones will often safely out-
ride a gale that will bring the weightier nests of Jays and Thrushes
to the ground.

" Of seven nests now before me four are composed externally of
little bits of green moss, cotton, and seed-down, and the silk of the
wild mulberry-moth torn from the cocoons, with which last
material, however, the others appear to be bound together within.
The lining of two is of the long hairs of the yak's tail, two of which
died on the estate where these nests were found, and a third is
lined with black human hair. The other three are formed of
somewhat different materials, two being externally composed of
fine grass-stalks, seed-down, and shreds of bark so fine as to
resemble tow; one is lined with seed-down and black fibrous
lichens resembling hair, a second is lined with fine grass, and a
third with a thick coating of pure white silky seed-down. In all
the seven, the materials of the two sides are wound round the twigs,
between which, they are suspended like a cradle, and the shape is
an ovate cup, about the size of half a hen's egg split longitudinally.
The diameter and depth are respectively 2 inches and 1| inch by
three-fourths of an inch. The eggs are usually three in number.'7

Mr. Erooks, writing from Almorah, says :—" This morning, 28th
April, I found a nest of Zosterops palpebrosa containing two fresh
eggs. Yesterday I found one of the same bird containing three
half-fledged young ones. Near the Tonse River, in the Allahabad
District, I found these birds in July nesting high in a mango-tree,
the nest suspended like an Oriole's to several leaves ; now I find it in
low bushes, at heights of from 3 to 5 feet from the ground. The
eggs, as before, skim-milk blue, without markings of any kind."

Prom Gurhwal Mr. E. Thompson says :—" A small cup-shaped
elegant nest is built by this bird suspended by fastenings from the
fork of a low branch. The nest is about 2| inches in diameter and
three-fourths of an inch in depth, composed of cobwebs, fine roots,
hairs, &c., neatly interwoven and lined internally with vegetable
down. The eggs, two, three, or four in number, are of a pale
whitish-blue, oval, and somewhat larger than those of ArachnecJithra
asiatica. The birds select all kinds of trees, but the nest is always
suspended. The breeding-season is about March and April, and
the brood is quickly hatched and fledged.

" A nest found by me on the 22nd April, and containing four
eggs, was built most ingeniously in a creeper that hung from a
small tree.' The birds had arranged it so that the long down-
bearing tendril of the creeper blended with the nest, which in the
main was composed of the material surrounding it.

" Another nest found on the 26th contained three young ones.
It was built in a low branch of a large mango-tree, and might
have been 12 feet from the ground. It was a neat compact
structure, deeply hollow, and made up of cobwebs, fine straw, and
hair, and lined with vegetable dovin, closely and neatly interwoven.

'* The parent birds were evidently feeding the young on the ripe