295

that can be said is that as a body they are slightly larger, and pos-
sibly, as a whole, the least shade less dark. In length they vary from
0-52 to 0-72, and in breadth from 0-45 to 0-52; but the average of
twenty-one eggs measured is 0*64 by rather more than 0*47*.

Prinia steiuarti.

Stewart's Wren-Warbler is one of those forms in regard to
which at present great difference of opinion prevails as to whether
or no they merit specific separation. P. stewarti from the N.W.
Provinces and P. socialis from the JSfilghiris differ only in size ;
the latter is somewhat more robust, and probably weighs one fifth
more than the former. But then in the Central Provinces you
meet with intermediate sizes, and I have plenty of birds which
might be assigned indifferently to either race as a rather small
example of the one or rather large one of the other. 1 myself
consider all to belong to one species, but as this is not the general
view I have kept my notes on their nidification separate.

This species or race breeds almost throughout the plains of
Upper India and in the Sub-Himalayan ranges to an elevation of
3000 or 4000 feet. In the plains the breeding-season extends
from the first downfall of rain in June (I have never found them
earlier) to quite the end of August. In the moist Sub-Himalayan
region, the Terais, Doons, Bhaburs, and the low hills, they com-
mence laying nearly a month earlier.

This species often constructs as neatly sewn a nest as does the
Orfhotomus; in fact, many of the nests built by these two species
so closely resemble each other that it would be difficult to distin-
guish them were there not very generally a difference in the
lining. With few exceptions all the innumerable nests of 0. suto-
rius that I have seen were lined with some soft substance—
cotton-wool, the silky clown of the cotton-tree (Bamboos lieptapliyl-
lum\ grass-down, soft horsehair, or even human hair, while the
nests of P. stewarti are almost without exception lined with fine
grass-roots.

Our present bird does not, however, invariably construct a
" tailored " nest. When it does, like 0. sutorius, it sews two,
three, four, or five leaves together, as may be most convenient,
filling the intervening space with down, fine grass, vegetable fibre,
or wool, held firmly into its place by cross-threads, sometimes com-
posed of cobwebs, sometimes made by the bird itself of cotton, and
sometimes apparently derived from unravelled rags. It also, how-
ever, often makes a nest entirely composed of fine vegetable fibre,
cotton, and grass-down, and lined as usual with fine grass-roots.
Sometimes these nests are long and purse-like, and sometimes
globular, either attached to, or pendent from, two or more twigs.
One nest before me, a sort of deep watch-pocket, suspended from

* As a matter of convenience I keep the notes on P. socialis and P. stewarti
separate, as is done in the ' Eongh Draft'; but there is no doubt whatever now
that the two birds are the same species.—ED.