He subsequently sent me the following note:—­“This species is common in the Darjeeling district up to 4000 feet or so.  It rather affects the neighbourhood of bungalows, and is a very lively neighbour, especially in the mornings and evenings.  These birds are continually quarrelling among themselves, sallying after insects, or making their best attempts at singing.  They are dead on Kites, Crows, and such-like depredators.  For several days an Owl (Bulaca newarensis) was flying about near the Cinchona Bungalow at Mongpho, and being a stupid creature at the best, and doubly so during daylight when it had no business to be abroad, was evidently considered fair game by the Long-tailed Drongo and Swallow-Shrikes, and so awfully ‘sat upon’ by them, that its life must have become a burden to it until it left the place in despair of ever getting either peace or comfort about Mongpho.

“They lay in April and May, and have but one brood in the year.  The nest is generally either built against a tall bamboo, well up, supported on the branch of twigs at a node, or near the extremity of a branch of a tree, sometimes on quite slender branches of young trees, which get so tremendously wafted about by the wind as to make the retention of the eggs or young in the nest appear almost miraculous.  When anyone meddles with the nest, the owners make bold dashes at the head of the robber.  The Darjeeling birds are not so knowing as their fellows of Murree, the females of whom are said to sit on the nests with their tails along the boughs so as to entirely conceal themselves.  I have seen dozens of the nests here, and never once saw the female in this position, but always with her tail across the bough.  The nest is a compact shallow cup, measuring externally 4.5 inches across by 1.75 in height, while the cavity is 3 inches in diameter by about 1.2 in depth.  It is made of twigs bound up with cobwebs, among which a few lichens are intermingled.  The lining is a mixture of straw-coloured root-fibres and fine branchlets of the same coloured grass-panicles.”

Mr. Mandelli sent me nests of this species, which were taken, at Ging, near Darjeeling, on the 26th April and on the 22nd May, the one contained one fresh egg, the other three.  They were both placed on branches of large trees at heights of about 20 feet from the ground.  They are broad shallow cups, from 4 to 5 inches in diameter, about 2 in height, compactly composed of fine twigs and grass-stems, bound together with cobwebs and with many pieces of lichen and some tiny dry leaves worked in on the outer surface.  Interiorly, they are lined with very fine hair-like grass-stems.  The saucer-like cavities are about 3 inches in diameter and about 11/4 in depth.

Dr. Jerdon says:—­“I found its nest on one occasion, in April, in Lower Malabar.  It was shallow and loosely made with roots, and lined with hair, about 20 feet from the ground, on the fork of a tree; and it contained three eggs of a pinkish-white colour, with some longish rusty or brick-red spots.”