10.30, when she flew off and joined the cock, who was sitting pluming himself on a branch of the next tree the whole time she was on the nest.  Immediately she joined him, he commenced catching flies and feeding her, as if she were a young bird, and eventually they both flew away together.  Arriving at the conclusion that she only went on the nest to lay, I decided on taking the nest three days later, and accordingly returned for that purpose with a small boy on the 3rd Sept., and found, as I expected, the hen sitting and the cock in another tree close by.

“I sent the boy up the tree, and as he approached the nest, which was some 30 or 35 feet from the ground, the hen bird became very uneasy, moving her head from side to side, and looking down to see what was going on below.  When the boy was within about 10 feet of the nest she flew off and joined the cock, after which I saw her no more.  The eggs were then secured with difficulty, as the branches surrounding the nest were very thin and blown about a good deal by the wind.

“After breaking off the bough, nest and all, the boy descended.  One branch of the fork in which the nest was placed was rotten, and broke off at the junction at the base of the nest as the boy was descending the tree; but the nest, which was firmly bound to it with cobwebs, remained in its place and was not injured, and I had the nest and bough beautifully painted for me by a lady friend the same day.  The eggs were pale bluish green, speckled and spotted, most densely at the large end, with two shades of dusky purple, the markings of the lighter shade appearing to underlie those of the darker.  On the 6th Sept., the same pair of birds commenced a new nest on another mango-tree about 20 yards off.  This time it was placed in a fork of one of the small outside lateral branches about 25 feet from the ground, and resembled in every respect the first nest.  On the 15th Sept., the hen bird began to sit, and on the 18th I sent a boy up the tree by means of a ladder, and secured two more fresh, eggs, similar to those already described.  On this occasion the two old birds evinced signs of the greatest anxiety, the hen remaining on the nest till the boy was close to her, and, joined by the cock immediately she left it, the pair kept flying from bough to bough in the greatest possible state of excitement the whole time the nest was being taken, the hen actually once or twice going on to the nest again after she had left it, when the boy was within 3 feet of her.  On examining the nest I found that one of the branches of the fork consisted of a small rotten stump, similar to the one described in the first nest, and in the bottom of both nests there were three or four small black downy feathers, intermingled with the dead leaf-stems that constituted the lining.”

In his recent “Notes on Birds’-nesting in Rajpootana,” Lieut.  H.E.  Barnes writes, “The Small Minivet breeds during July and August.”