of the same month the nest contained three small eggs hard-set.  I subsequently took a second from a similar bush, and several from the drooping branches of oak-trees, to the twigs of which they were fastened.  It is not placed on a branch, but is suspended between two thin twigs, to which it is fastened by floss silk torn from the cocoons of Bombyx Huttoni, Westw., and by a few slender fibres of the bark of trees or hair according to circumstances.

“So slight and so fragile is the little oval cup that it is astonishing the mere weight of the parent bird does not bring it to the ground, and yet within it three young ones will often safely outride a gale that will bring the weightier nests of Jays and Thrushes to the ground.

“Of seven nests now before me four are composed externally of little bits of green moss, cotton, and seed-down, and the silk of the wild mulberry-moth torn from the cocoons, with which last material, however, the others appear to be bound together within.  The lining of two is of the long hairs of the yak’s tail, two of which died on the estate where these nests were found, and a third is lined with black human hair.  The other three are formed of somewhat different materials, two being externally composed of fine grass-stalks, seed-down, and shreds of bark so fine as to resemble tow; one is lined with seed-down and black fibrous lichens resembling hair, a second is lined with fine grass, and a third with a thick coating of pure white silky seed-down.  In all the seven, the materials of the two sides are wound round the twigs, between which they are suspended like a cradle, and the shape is an ovate cup, about the size of half a hen’s egg split longitudinally.  The diameter and depth are respectively 2 inches and 11/2 inch by three-fourths of an inch.  The eggs are usually three in number.”

Mr. Brooks, writing from Almorah, says:—­“This morning, 28th April, I found a nest of Zosterops palpebrosa containing two fresh eggs.  Yesterday I found one of the same bird containing three half-fledged young ones.  Near the Tonse River, in the Allahabad District, I found these birds in July nesting high in a mango-tree, the nest suspended like an Oriole’s to several leaves; now I find it in low bushes, at heights of from 3 to 5 feet from the ground.  The eggs, as before, skim-milk blue, without markings of any kind.”

From Gurhwal Mr. R. Thompson says:—­“A small cup-shaped elegant nest is built by this bird suspended by fastenings from the fork of a low branch.  The nest is about 21/2 inches in diameter and three-fourths of an inch in depth, composed of cobwebs, fine roots, hairs, &c., neatly interwoven and lined internally with vegetable down.  The eggs, two, three, or four in number, are of a pale whitish-blue, oval, and somewhat larger than those of Arachnechthra asiatica.  The birds select all kinds of trees, but the nest is always suspended.  The breeding-season is about March and April, and the brood is quickly hatched and fledged.