, and never ascending the mountains to any great elevation.

The breeding-season lasts, according to locality, from April to
October, but it never breeds with us in dry weather, always laying
during rainy months. Very likely at the Nicobars, where it rains
pretty well all the year round, March being the only fairly dry month,
it may breed at all seasons.

I have myself taken several, and have had a great many nests sent to
me. With rare exceptions all belonged to one type. The bird selects a
patch of dense fine-stemmed grass, from 18 inches to 2 feet in height,
and, as a rule, standing in a moist place; in this, at the height of
from 6 to 8 inches from the ground, the nest is constructed; the sides
are formed by the blades and stems of the grass, _in situ_, closely
tacked and caught together with cobwebs and very fine silky vegetable
fibre. This is done for a length of from 2 to nearly 3 inches, and,
as it were, a narrow tube, from 1 to 1.5 in diameter, formed in the
grass. To this a bottom, from 4 to 6 inches above the surface of the
ground, is added, a few of the blades of the grass being bent across,
tacked and woven together with cobwebs and fine vegetable fibre. The
whole interior is then closely felted with silky down, in Upper India
usually that of the mudar (_Calotropis hamiltoni_). The nest thus
constructed forms a deep and narrow purse, about 3 inches in depth,
an inch in diameter at top, and 1.5 at the broadest part below. The
tacking together of the stems of the grass is commonly continued a
good deal higher up on one side than on the other, and it is through
or between the untacked stems opposite to this that the tiny entrance
exists. Of course above the nest the stems and blades of the grass,
meeting together, completely hide it. The dimensions above given are
those of the interior of the nest; its exterior dimensions cannot be
given. The bird tacks together not merely the few stems absolutely
necessary to form a side to the nest, but most of the stems all
round, decreasing the extent of attachment as they recede from the
nest-cavity. It does this, too, very irregularly; on one side of the
nest perhaps no stem more than an inch distant from the interior
surface of the nest will be found in any way bound up in the fabric,
while on the opposite side perhaps stems fully 3 inches distant,
together with all the intermediate ones, will be found more or less
webbed together. Occasionally, but rarely, I have foun