and moss-roots, and above, that is to say the
surface where the eggs repose, of excessively fine grass-roots.

Dr. Jerdon says:--"A nest was once brought me which was declared to
belong to this species; it was a very small neat fabric, of ordinary
shape, made with moss and grass, and contained three small pure
white eggs. The rarity of the bird makes me doubt if the nest really
belonged to it."

The eggs are tiny little elongated ovals, pure white, and absolutely
glossless.

Two sent me by Mr. Gammie measure 0.58 by 0.42 and 0.57 by 0.43.

226. Zosterops palpebrosa (Temm.). _The Indian White-eye_.

Zosterops palpebrosus (_Temm.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 265; _Hume,
Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 631.

The Indian White-eye, or White-eyed Tit as Jerdon terms it, breeds
almost throughout the Indian Empire, sparingly in the hotter and more
arid plains, abundantly in the Nilghiris and other ranges of the
Peninsula to their very summits, and in the Himalayas to an elevation
of 5000 or 6000 feet.

The breeding-season extends in different localities from January to
September, but I think that everywhere April is the month in which
most eggs are to be met with.

Sometimes they have two broods; whether this is always the case I do
not know.

The nest is placed almost indifferently at any elevation. I have taken
one from amongst the topmost twigs of a huge mohwa tree (_Bassia
latifolia_) fully 60 feet high, and I have found them in a tiny bush
not a foot off the soil. Still I think that perhaps the majority build
at low elevations, say between 2 and 6 feet from the ground.

The nest is always a soft, delicate little cup, sometimes very
shallow, sometimes very deep, as a rule suspended between two twigs
like a miniature Oriole's nest, but on rare occasions propped in a
fork. The nest varies much in size and in the materials with which it
is composed.

Pine grass and roots, tow, and a variety of vegetable fibres, thread,
floss silk, and cobwebs are all made use of to bind the little nest
together and attach it to the twigs whence it depends. Grass again,
moss, vegetable fibre, seed-down, silk, cotton, lichen, roots and the
like are used in the body of the nest, which is lined with silky down,
hair, moss, and fern-roots, or even silk, while at times tiny silvery
cocoons or scraps of rich-coloured lichen are affixed as ornaments to
the exterior.

One nest before me is a very perfect and deep cup, hung between two
twigs of a