round
the Timber Depot at Kemandine, and in the low-lying land between the
town proper and Monkey Point, they are very numerous."

The eggs are of the well-known _Prinia_ type--broad regular ovals, of
a nearly uniform mahogany-red, and very glossy. To judge from the
few specimens I have seen, they average a good deal smaller, and are
somewhat less deeply coloured, than those of _P. socialis_. They vary
from 0.52 to 0.6 in length, and from 0.43 to 0.48 in breadth.

464. Prinia socialis, Sykes. _The Ashy Wren-Warbler_.

Prinia socialis, _Sykes, Jerd. B. Ind._ ii. p. 170: _Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E._ no. 534.
Prinia stewarti, _Blyth, Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 171; _Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E._ no. 535.

_Prinia socialis_.

The Ashy Wren-Warbler breeds throughout the southern portion of the
Peninsula and Ceylon, alike in the low country and in the hills, up to
all elevation of nearly 7000 feet.

The breeding-season extends from March to September, but I am
uncertain whether they have more than one brood.

Dr. Jerdon says:--"Colonel Sykes remarks that this species has the
same ingenious nest as _O. longicauda_. I have found the nest on
several occasions, and verified Colonel Sykes's observations; but it
is not so neatly sewn together as the nest of the true Tailor-bird,
and there is generally more grass and other vegetable fibres used in
the construction. The eggs are usually reddish white, with numerous
darker red dots at the large end often coalescing, and sometimes the
eggs are uniform brick-red throughout."

Now, first, as regards the eggs, it is clearly wrong to say that the
eggs are usually reddish white; that such eggs, as exceptions, may
have occurred I do not doubt, but I have seen more than fifty eggs
of this bird taken by Miss Cockburn, Messrs. Carter, Davison, Wait,
Theobald, and others, and all were without exception mahogany- or
brick-red, at times mottled, somewhat paler and darker here and there,
but making no approach, even the most distant, to what Dr. Jerdon says
is the _usual_ type. Moreover, I have taken _many hundreds_ of the
eggs of _stewarti_ (the northern, rather smaller form), which is not
only _most_ closely allied but really _very_ doubtfully distinct, and
yet I never met with one single egg of this type. At the same time
Mr. Swinhoe ('Ibis,' 1860, p. 50) tells us that _P. sonitans_ also at
times exhibits a reddish-white egg; so I do not for a moment question
that Dr. Jerdon had seen such eg