escribed and figured, and, as is well known,
is a deep soft cup enclosed in leaves, which the bird sews together to
form a receptacle for it.

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

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 composed 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 together. 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 _bluish 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
_Franklinia_. I have taken hundreds of both types, and I note that, as
in the case of _Dicrurus ater_, eggs of the two types