Feathers,'
1877, vol. v, p. 428) recorded my inability to distinguish as
distinct species _Ae. tiphia_ and _Ae. zeylonica_. I am quite open to
conviction; but believing them, so far as my present investigations
go, to be inseparable, I propose to treat them as a single species in
the present notice.

The Common Iora (the genus, though possibly nearly allied, is too
distinct from _Chloropsis_ to allow me to adopt, as Jerdon does, one
common trivial name for both) breeds in different localities from May
to September. I have taken nests and eggs of typical examples of both
supposed species, and have had them sent me with the parent birds by
many correspondents; and though both vary a good deal, I am convinced
that all the variations which occur in the nests and eggs of one
race occur also in those of the other. If one gets only two or three
clutches of the eggs of each, great differences, naturally attributed
to difference of species (see Captain Cock's remarks, _infra_), may
be detected; but I have seen more than fifty, and, so far as I am
concerned, I have no hesitation in asserting that, as in the case of
the birds so in that of their nests and eggs, no constant differences
can be detected if only sufficiently large series are compared.

The birds build usually on the upper surface of a horizontal bough, at
a height of from 10 to 25 feet from the ground. Sometimes, when the
bough is more or less slanting, the nest assumes somewhat more of a
pocket-shape. Occasionally it is built between three or four slender
twigs, forming an upright fork; but this is quite exceptional.

As a rule nests of the Iora very closely resemble those of
_Leucocerca_, so much so that when I sent a beautiful photograph of a
nest, which I had myself watched building, of the latter species to
Mr. Blyth, he unhesitatingly pronounced it to be a nest of the former.
There is, however, a certain amount of difference; the Iora's nests
are looser and somewhat less compact and firm. My experience does not
confirm Mr. Brooks's remarks (_vide infra_) that they are usually
shallower; on the contrary all those now before me are, as indeed all
the many I can remember to have seen were, deep, thin-walled cups,
which had been placed on more or less horizontal branches, not
uncommonly where some upright-growing twig afforded the nest
additional security. The egg-cavity averages about 2 inches in
diameter, and varies from an inch to 11/4 inch in depth; the walls