298 SYLVIIDJE.

together had actually com inenced to with&r, and in the course of a
few days later the whole structure came down bodily.

" This is the only Prinia to be found at Puttehg'urh, and they
are one of our most common garden-birds. Their beautiful brick-
red eggs and neatly-sewn nests are too well known to require de-
scription.

" Four generally, and five frequently, is the number of eggs they
lay. I have one record of six on the 17th August, 1873; in this
case one egg was laid daily, the first having been laid on the 12th,
and the sixth on the 17th."

Captain Hutton remarks :—:: This is a true Tailor-bird in respect
to the construction of the nest, which is composed of one leaf as a
supporting base stitched to t\vo others meeting it perpendicularly,
the apices of all three being neatly sewn together with threads
roughly spun from the cottony down of seeds. Between or within
these leaves is placed the nest, very slightly and loosely constructed
of fine roots, grass-stalks, and seed-down, the latter material being
interwoven to hold the coarser fibres of the nest together. There
is no finer lining within, and the edges of the exterior leaves are
drawn together round the nest and held there partly by roughly-
spun threads of down, and partly by the ends of the stiff fibres
being thrust through them. The whole forms a very light and
graceful fabric. "Within this nest were four beautiful and highly
polished eggs of a deep brick-red colour, darkest at the larger end,
faint specks and blotches of a deeper colour being indistinctly dis-
cernible beneath the surface of the shell, which shines as if it had
been varnished. The nest is not closed above, but is open and
deeply cup-shaped. This was taken in the Dhoon on the 30th
May."

Major C. T. Bingharn says:—" Breeds at Allahabad in June,
July, and August. At Delhi I have not yet found its nest. I
once found in July three nests all attached together in a sort of
triangle, but whether built by separate pairs of birds I cannot say.
Only one nest contained eggs."

Colonel Gr. F. L. Marshall writes :—" A nest found in July in the
Cawnpoor district was built of grass, a deep oblong domed nest
with the entrance at the side near the top. It was placed close to
the ground in a tuft of surkerry grass sloping rather backwards.
The position is, I believe, unusual. The old birds were still putting
finishing touches to the building when T found it."

The eggs are ovals, as a rule, neither very broad nor much elon-
gated. Pyriform examples occur, but a somewhat perfect oval is
the usual type, and the examination of a large series shows that
the tendency is to vary to a globular and not to an elongated shape.
The eggs are brilliantly glossy, and, though considerably smaller,
strongly resemble, as is well known, those of the little short-tailed
Cetti's Warbler. .

In colour they are brick-red, "some, however, being paler and
yellower, others deeper and more mahogany-coloured. There is a
strong tendency to exhibit an ill-defined cloudy cap or zone, of far