232 SYLYIID7E.

It is placed at all elevations, and I have as often found it high
upon a inango-tree as low down amongst the leaves of the edible
egg-plant (Solanum esculent-urn).

The nests vary much, in appearance, according to the number
and description of leaves which the bird employs and the manner
in which it employs them; but the nest itself is usually chiefly com-
posed of fine cotton-wool, with a few horsehairs and, at times, a
few very fine grass-stems as a lining, apparently to keep the wool
in its place and enable the cavity to retain permanently its shape.

I have found the nests with three leaves fastened, at ^equal
distances from each other, into the sides of the nest, and not joined
to each other at all.

I have found them between two leaves, the one forming a high
back and turned up at the end to support the bottom of the nest,
the other hiding the nest in front and hanging down well below it,
the tip only of the first leaf being sewn to the middle of the second.
I have found them with four leaves sewn together to form a canopy
and sides, from which the bottom of the nest depended bare ; and
I have found them between two long leaves, whose sides from the
very tips to near the peduncles were closely and neatly sewn to-
gether. For sewing they generally use cobweb; but silk from
cocoons, thread, wool, and vegetable fibres are also used.

The eggs vary from three to four in number; but I find that out
of twenty-seven nests containing more or less incubated eggs, of
which I have notes, exactly two thirds contained only three, and
one third four eggs.

About the colour of the eggs there has been some dispute, but
this is owing to the birds laying two distinct types of eggs, which
will be described below. Hutton's and Jerdon's descriptions of
the eggs, white spotted with rufous or reddish brown, are quite
correct, but so are those of other writers, who call them lluisJi
green, similarly marked. Tickell, who gives them as " pale greenish
blue, with irregular patches, especially towards the larger end,
resembling dried stains of blood, and irregular and broken lines
scratched round, forming a zone near the larger end," had of course
got hold of the eggs of a Franldinia. I have taken hundreds of
both types, and I note that, as in the case of Dicrurus ater, eggs of
the two types are never found in the same nest. All the eggs in
each nest always belong to one or the other type.

The parent birds that lay these very different looking eggs cer-
tainly do not differ ; that I have positively satisfied myself.

I quote an exact description of a nest which I took at Bareilly,
and which was recorded on the spot:—

" Three of the long ovato-lanceolate leaves of the mango, whose
peduncles sprang from the same point, had been neatly drawn
together with gossamer threads run through the sides of the leaves
and knotted outside, so as to form a cavity like the end of a netted
purse, with a wide slit on the side nearest the trunk beginning
near the bottom and widening upwards. Inside this, the real
nest, nearly 3 inches deep and about 2 inches in diameter, was