Now, first, as regards the eggs, it is clearly wrong to say that the eggs are usually reddish white; that such eggs, as exceptions, may have occurred I do not doubt, but I have seen more than fifty eggs of this bird taken by Miss Cockburn, Messrs. Carter, Davison, Wait, Theobald, and others, and all were without exception mahogany- or brick-red, at times mottled, somewhat paler and darker here and there, but making no approach, even the most distant, to what Dr. Jerdon says is the usual type.  Moreover, I have taken many hundreds of the eggs of stewarti (the northern, rather smaller form), which is not only most closely allied but really very doubtfully distinct, and yet I never met with one single egg of this type.  At the same time Mr. Swinhoe (’Ibis,’ 1860, p. 50) tells us that P. sonitans also at times exhibits a reddish-white egg; so I do not for a moment question that Dr. Jerdon had seen such eggs, only it must be understood that, so far from constituting the usual type, it is in reality a most abnormal and rare variety.  Out of eight correspondents who have collected for me in Southern India, I cannot learn that any one has ever yet even seen an egg of this type.

As regards the nest, this species often constructs a Tailor-bird nest, the true nest being filled in between two or more leaves carefully stitched together to the nest; but it also, like that species, often builds a very different structure.

A nest now before me, sent from Conoor, is a loosely-made cup—­a very slight fabric of grass-stems, matted with a quantity of the downy seed of some flowering grass and with a lining of fine grass-roots.  It is an irregular cup about 21/2 inches in diameter and 2 inches in depth.

Four seems to be the regular number of the eggs.

From Kotagherry Miss Cockburn writes that “the Ashy Wren-Warbler builds a neat little hanging nest very much in the Tailor-bird style, for it draws the leaves of the branch on which the nest is constructed close together, and sews them so tightly as sometimes to make them nearly touch each other, while a small quantity of fine grass, wool, and the down of seed-pods is used as a lining and also placed between the leaves.  These nests are built very low, and contain three beautiful little bright red eggs, a shade darker at the thick end.  They are easily discovered; for the birds get so agitated if any one approaches the bush on which they have built that they invariably attract one to the very spot they most wish to conceal.  They build in the months of June and July.”

Mr. Davison says:—­“This bird breeds on the Nilghiris in March, April, and May, and sometimes as late as the earlier part of June.  The nest is generally placed low down near the roots of a bush or tuft of grass.  It is made of grass beautifully and closely woven, domed, and with the entrance near the top.  The eggs, three or four in number, are of a deep brick-red, darker at the larger end, where there is generally a zone, and are very glossy.  I once obtained a nest made of grass and bits of cotton, but instead of being built as above described it was placed between, and sewn to, two leaves of the Datura stramonium.  It contained three eggs of a deep brick-red; in fact, precisely like those described above.”