ilding a fresh one even
if you only rob without injuring the first. I think they have only one
brood in the year, but, like _Orthotomus_ and _Prinia_, one or two
nests are generally deserted or destroyed by some accident before they
succeed in rearing a brood."

Major C.T. Bingham informs us that this Wren-Warbler is a common
breeder both at Allahabad and at Delhi from March to September. Builds
a neat bottle-shaped nest in clumps of surpat grass, of fine strips of
the grass itself, which I have repeatedly watched the birds tearing
off. The eggs are lovely little oval fragile shells of a deep blue,
blotched and speckled and covered with fine hair-like lines, chiefly
at the large end, of a deep chocolate-brown.

The eggs are a moderately long, and generally a pretty perfect, oval,
often pointed towards one end, sometimes globular, seldom, if ever,
much elongated. The shell is fine and glossy, and comparatively thick
and strong. The ground-colour is normally a beautiful pale greenish
blue, most richly marked with various shades of deep chocolate and
reddish brown. Nothing can exceed the beauty or variety of the
markings, which are a combination of bold blotches, clouds, and spots,
with delicate, intricately interwoven lines, recalling somewhat,
but more elaborate and, I think, finer than, those of our early
favourite--the Yellow Ammer. The markings are invariably most
conspicuous at the large end, where there is very commonly a
conspicuous confluent cap, and the delicate lines are almost without
exception confined to the broader half of the egg.

Very commonly the smaller end of the egg is entirely spotless, and I
have a beautiful specimen now before me in which the only markings
consist of a ring of delicate lines round the large end. Some idea of
the delicacy and intricacy of these lines may be formed when I mention
that this zone is barely one tenth of an inch broad, and yet in a good
light between twenty and thirty interlaced lines making up this zone
may be counted.

The intricacy of the pattern is in some cases almost incredible, and,
what with the remarkable character of the patterns and the rich and
varying shades of their colours, these little eggs are, I think,
amongst the most beautiful known.

Occasionally the ground-colour of the eggs, instead of being a bright
greenish blue, is a pale, rather dull, olive-green, and still more
rarely it is a clear pinkish white. These latter eggs are so rare that
I hav