The late Mr. A. Anderson remarked:—­“Owing to the inclemency of the weather (August) the geranium-pots in the garden were placed in the verandah of the house I am at present living in, and, strange to say, a pair of these Warblers commenced building in the leaves of one of the plants immediately under my window.

“When the nest was about half-finished the birds’ forsook it without apparently any reason, as they were never molested in any way.  On examining the nest, however, the cause was evident, and afforded a remarkable instance of instinct on the part of the little architects.  The leaves that had been pierced and sewn together had actually commenced to wither, and in the course of a few days later the whole structure came down bodily.

“This is the only Prinia to be found at Futtehgurh, and they are one of our most common garden-birds.  Their beautiful brick-red eggs and neatly-sewn nests are too well known to require description.

“Four generally, and five frequently, is the number of eggs they lay.  I have one record of six on the 17th August, 1873; in this case one egg was laid daily, the first having been laid on the 12th, and the sixth on the 17th.”

Captain Hutton remarks:—­“This is a true Tailor-bird in respect to the construction of the nest, which is composed of one leaf as a supporting base stitched to two others meeting it perpendicularly, the apices of all three being neatly sewn together with threads roughly spun from the cottony down of seeds.  Between or within these leaves is placed the nest, very slightly and loosely constructed of fine roots, grass-stalks, and seed-down, the latter material being interwoven to hold the coarser fibres of the nest together.  There is no finer lining within, and the edges of the exterior leaves are drawn together round the nest and held there partly by roughly-spun threads of down, and partly by the ends of the stiff fibres being thrust through them.  The whole forms a very light and graceful fabric.  Within this nest were four beautiful and highly polished eggs of a deep brick-red colour, darkest at the larger end, faint specks and blotches of a deeper colour being indistinctly discernible beneath the surface of the shell, which shines as if it had been varnished.  The nest is not closed above, but is open and deeply cup-shaped.  This was taken in the Dhoon on the 30th May.”

Major C.T.  Bingham says:—­“Breeds at Allahabad in June, July, and August.  At Delhi I have not yet found its nest.  I once found in July three nests all attached together in a sort of triangle, but whether built by separate pairs of birds I cannot say.  Only one nest contained eggs.”

Colonel G.F.L.  Marshall writes:—­“A nest found in July in the Cawnpoor district was built of grass, a deep oblong domed nest with the entrance at the side near the top.  It was placed close to the ground in a tuft of surkerry grass sloping rather backwards.  The position is, I believe, unusual.  The old birds were still putting finishing touches to the building when I found it.”