Major C.T.  Bingham writes to me:—­“Although this bird is common enough both at Allahabad and at Delhi, I have found it difficult to find its nest, from the fact that it is placed at the very extreme tip of leafy branches.  However, with careful watching and patience, I managed to find one nest at Allahabad and five at Delhi.  The first I found on the 3rd July at Chupree near Allahabad.  It contained two well-fledged young ones, that hopped out as soon as the nest was touched.  Out of the five at Delhi I managed to get six eggs; three of the nests when found being empty, were afterwards deserted by the birds.  Of the two nests with eggs, one contained four and the other two.  The nests are tiny little cups, made of very fine grass, and coated externally with cobwebs, to which are attached bits of bark and dry leaves.  The eggs are a greenish stone-colour, thickly speckled with light purple and brownish red.  The earliest nest I have found was on the 21st March, on the banks of the canal at Delhi, so that the bird occasionally, at Delhi at least, lays in spring.  The average of eggs I have is 0.68 in length, and 0.55 in breadth.”

Colonel E.A.  Butler furnishes us with the following interesting note:—­“Found a nest at Belgaum, containing two fresh eggs, on the 3rd September, 1879.  It was situated in the fork of one of the small outer top branches of a tall mango-tree, and was on the whole about the prettiest nest I have seen in India.  It consisted of a tiny cup about 11/4 x 2 inches measured interiorly, and 1-7/8 x 21/2 inches exteriorly.  Depth inside 1 inch, outside 11/2 inches from rim to proper base, excluding about an inch of lichen continued down one side of the bough below the fork in which the nest was built.  It was composed, so far as I could judge after a very minute examination, almost entirely of the white lichen which grows so freely on the bark of every tree during the rains, with a few cobwebs incorporated and wound round the outside to keep it together, assimilating so perfectly with the branch upon which it was placed, which was also overgrown with the same kind of lichen, that without watching the old birds closely it never could have been discovered.

“It contained no regular lining, though a few coarse dry leaf-stems of a dark colour were encircled within.  I observed the birds building first on the 21st August, and the nest from below looked then almost finished.  The cock and hen worked together, flying to and fro very busily with bits of lichen picked off the branches of another tree adjoining.  On the 25th I watched the nest for some time, but the birds only came to it once, and then the hen bird went on and smeared some cobwebs round the outside, at least that is what she seemed to me to be doing.  On the 28th I watched it again, and although both birds were in the adjoining tree, I did not see them go to the nest.  On the 31st, about 10 A.M., I found the hen on the nest, and she remained on till about