hree or four sets; sometimes they use the same nest twice; sometimes,
directly the first brood is at all able to shift for themselves, the
parents leave them in the old nest, and commence building a new one at
no great distance.

The late Mr. A. Anderson remarked:--"Owing to the inclemency of the
weather (August) the geranium-pots in the garden were placed in the
verandah of the house I am at present living in, and, strange to say,
a pair of these Warblers commenced building in the leaves of one of
the plants immediately under my window.

"When the nest was about half-finished the birds' forsook it without
apparently any reason, as they were never molested in any way. On
examining the nest, however, the cause was evident, and afforded a
remarkable instance of instinct on the part of the little architects.
The leaves that had been pierced and sewn together had actually
commenced to _wither_, and in the course of a few days later the whole
structure came down bodily.

"This is the only _Prinia_ to be found at Futtehgurh, and they are one
of our most common garden-birds. Their beautiful brick-red eggs and
neatly-sewn nests are too well known to require description.

"Four generally, and five frequently, is the number of eggs they lay.
I have _one_ record of _six_ on the 17th August, 1873; in this case
one egg was laid daily, the first having been laid on the 12th, and
the sixth on the 17th."

Captain Hutton remarks:--"This is a true Tailor-bird in respect to
the construction of the nest, which is composed of one leaf as a
supporting base stitched to two others meeting it perpendicularly, the
apices of all three being neatly sewn together with threads roughly
spun from the cottony down of seeds. Between or within these leaves is
placed the nest, very slightly and loosely constructed of fine roots,
grass-stalks, and seed-down, the latter material being interwoven to
hold the coarser fibres of the nest together. There is no finer lining
within, and the edges of the exterior leaves are drawn together round
the nest and held there partly by roughly-spun threads of down, and
partly by the ends of the stiff fibres being thrust through them. The
whole forms a very light and graceful fabric. Within this nest were
four beautiful and highly polished eggs of a deep brick-red colour,
darkest at the larger end, faint specks and blotches of a deeper
colour being indistinctly discernible beneath the surface of the
shell, which shine