s
and Birds. For this purpose the Bulbul is taken from the nest as soon as
the sex is distinguishable by the tufted crown; and secured by a string,
is taught to fly from hand to hand of its keeper. When pitted against an
antagonist, such is the obstinate courage of this little creature that
it will sink from exhaustion rather than release its hold. This
propensity, and the ordinary character of its notes, render it
impossible that the Bulbul of India could be identical with the Bulbul
of Iran, the "Bird of a Thousand Songs,"[2] of which, poets say that its
delicate passion for the rose gives a plaintive character to its note.

[Footnote 1: Pycnonotus haemorrhous, _Gmel_.]

[Footnote 2: "Hazardasitaum" the Persian name for the bulbul. "The
Persians," according to Zakary ben Mohamed al Caswini, "say the bulbul
has a passion for the rose, and laments and cries when he sees it
pulled."--OUSELEY'S _Oriental Collections_, vol. i. p. 16. According to
Pallas it is the true nightingale of Europe, Sylvia luscinia, which the
Armenians call _boulboul_, and the Crim-Tartars _byl-byl-i_.]

_Tailor-Bird_.--_The Weaver-Bird_.--The tailor-bird[1] having completed
her nest, sewing together leaves by passing through them a cotton thread
twisted by herself, leaps from branch to branch to testify her happiness
by a clear and merry note; and the Indian weaver[2], a still more
ingenious artist, hangs its pendulous dwelling from a projecting bough;
twisting it with grass into a form somewhat resembling a bottle with a
prolonged neck, the entrance being inverted, so as to baffle the
approaches of its enemies, the tree snakes and other reptiles. The
natives assert that the male bird carries fire flies to the nest, and
fastens them to its sides by a particle of soft mud;--Mr. Layard assures
me that although he has never succeeded in finding the fire fly, the
nest of the male bird (for the female occupies another during
incubation) invariably contains a patch of mud on each side of the
perch. Grass is apparently the most convenient material for the purposes
of the Weaver-bird when constructing its nest, but other substances are
often substituted, and some nests which I brought from Ceylon proved to
be formed with delicate strips from the fronds of the dwarf date-palm,
_Phoenix paludosa_, which happened to grow near the breeding place.

[Footnote 1: Orthotomus longicauda, _Gmel_.]

[Footnote 2: Ploceus baya, _Blyth_.; P. Philippinus, _Auct_.]