“July 30th.—­A beautiful nest between three twigs, several of the leaves of each of which had been tacked on to the outside of the nest.  The nest itself was firmly put together with fine grass-roots, and was nearly globular in shape, with one side continued upwards into a sort of hood overhanging the greater portion of the aperture.  It contained four eggs of the usual deep red colour.

“August 8th.—­At Bichpoori found a number of nests, and some of them of a strangely different type.  One was inside a tiny hut on the line, about 3 feet above the head of the chaprassie’s bed.  It had no leaves about it, and was composed of thread, wool, and a few very fine grass-stems, and lined thinly with fine grass-stems and a little black horsehair.  It was about two thirds of a sphere, the external diameter of which was about 31/4 inches, and the internal 21/2 inches.  The bird was on the nest, so that there could be no mistake, otherwise it would have been impossible to believe that it belonged to P. stewarti, of which we have taken so many sewn in leaves.  A little further on another nest of the same species, built in the ragged eaves of a thatch, externally composed almost entirely of cotton-wool, with a little tow-fibre binding the structure together, internally as usual lined with very fine grass-roots with a few horsehairs.  Another nest of the Prinia was in one respect even more remarkable.  It was built in the usual situation in a low herbaceous plant, sewn to and suspended from two leaves, and two or three others worked into its sides.  It was constructed almost entirely of fine grass-roots and fibres, with a few tiny tufts of cotton-wool, and the leaves as usual firmly tacked on with threads and cobweb fibres.  It would seem that, after constructing the nest, but before laying, a large female spider took possession of the bottom of the nest, and shut herself in by constructing a diaphragm of web horizontally across the nest, thus occupying the whole of the cavity of the nest.  The little bird accepted this change of circumstances, built the nest a little higher at the sides, and over the spider’s web placed a false bottom of fine grass-roots, on which she laid her four eggs, and there she was sitting when the nest was taken, the spider, alive and apparently happy in the cell below, plainly visible through the interstices of the grass, with a huge sac of eggs which she was incubating.  Her chamber is fully one half of the nest.”

I may add that this latter nest, with the now dead spider, in situ, is still in our museum.

In number the eggs are sometimes four, sometimes five, and I have heard of six being found.

They rear usually two broods; if their eggs are taken they will lay three or four sets; sometimes they use the same nest twice; sometimes, directly the first brood is at all able to shift for themselves, the parents leave them in the old nest, and commence building a new one at no great distance.