gs, only it must be understood that,
so far from constituting the _usual type_, it is in reality a most
abnormal and rare variety. Out of eight correspondents who have
collected for me in Southern India, I cannot learn that any one has
ever yet even seen an egg of this type.

As regards the nest, this species often constructs a Tailor-bird nest,
the true nest being filled in between two or more leaves carefully
stitched together to the nest; but it also, like that species, often
builds a very different structure.

A nest now before me, sent from Conoor, is a loosely-made cup--a very
slight fabric of grass-stems, matted with a quantity of the downy seed
of some flowering grass and with a lining of fine grass-roots. It is
an irregular cup about 21/2 inches in diameter and 2 inches in depth.

Four seems to be the regular number of the eggs.

From Kotagherry Miss Cockburn writes that "the Ashy Wren-Warbler
builds a neat little hanging nest very much in the Tailor-bird style,
for it draws the leaves of the branch on which the nest is constructed
close together, and sews them so tightly as sometimes to make them
nearly touch each other, while a small quantity of fine grass, wool,
and the down of seed-pods is used as a lining and also placed between
the leaves. These nests are built very low, and contain three
_beautiful_ little bright red eggs, a shade darker at the thick end.
They are easily discovered; for the birds get so agitated if any one
approaches the bush on which they have built that they invariably
attract one to the very spot they most wish to conceal. They build in
the months of June and July."

Mr. Davison says:--"This bird breeds on the Nilghiris in March, April,
and May, and sometimes as late as the earlier part of June. The nest
is generally placed low down near the roots of a bush or tuft of
grass. It is made of grass beautifully and closely woven, domed, and
with the entrance near the top. The eggs, three or four in number,
are of a deep brick-red, darker at the larger end, where there is
generally a zone, and are very glossy. I once obtained a nest made
of grass and bits of cotton, but instead of being built as above
described it was placed between, and sewn to, two leaves of the
_Datura stramonium_. It contained three eggs of a deep brick-red; in
fact, precisely like those described above."

Mr. Wait tells us that "in September I found two nests, the one deeply
cup-shaped, the other domed, both con