o a sort
of hood overhanging the greater portion of the aperture. It contained
four eggs of the usual deep red colour.

"_August 8th_.--At Bichpoori found a number of nests, and some of them
of a strangely different type. One was inside a tiny hut on the line,
about 3 feet above the head of the chaprassie's bed. It had no leaves
about it, and was composed of thread, wool, and a few very fine
grass-stems, and lined thinly with fine grass-stems and a little black
horsehair. It was about two thirds of a sphere, the external diameter
of which was about 31/4 inches, and the internal 21/2 inches. The bird was
on the nest, so that there could be no mistake, otherwise it would
have been impossible to believe that it belonged to _P. stewarti_,
of which we have taken so many sewn in leaves. A little further on
another nest of the same species, built in the ragged eaves of a
thatch, externally composed almost entirely of cotton-wool, with a
little tow-fibre binding the structure together, internally as usual
lined with very fine grass-roots with a few horsehairs. Another nest
of the _Prinia_ was in one respect even more remarkable. It was
built in the usual situation in a low herbaceous plant, sewn to and
suspended from two leaves, and two or three others worked into its
sides. It was constructed almost entirely of fine grass-roots and
fibres, with a few tiny tufts of cotton-wool, and the leaves as usual
firmly tacked on with threads and cobweb fibres. It would seem that,
after constructing the nest, but before laying, a large female spider
took possession of the bottom of the nest, and shut herself in by
constructing a diaphragm of web horizontally across the nest, thus
occupying the whole of the cavity of the nest. The little bird
accepted this change of circumstances, built the nest a little higher
at the sides, and over the spider's web placed a false bottom of
fine grass-roots, on which she laid her four eggs, and there she was
sitting when the nest was taken, the spider, alive and apparently
happy in the cell below, plainly visible through the interstices of
the grass, with a huge sac of eggs which she was incubating. Her
chamber is fully one half of the nest."

I may add that this latter nest, with the _now_ dead spider, _in
situ_, is still in our museum.

In number the eggs are sometimes four, sometimes five, and I have
_heard_ of six being found.

They rear usually two broods; if their eggs are taken they will lay
t