The nest is, I think, most commonly placed in low stunted hill-oak bushes, either suspended between several twigs, to all of which it is more or less attached, or wedged into a fork. I have found the nest in a deodar tree, laid on a horizontal bough.  I have seen them in tufts of grass, in banks and other unusual situations; but the great bulk build in low bushes, and of these the hill-oak is, I think, their favourite.

The nests closely resemble those of the Long-tailed Tit (Acredula rosea).  They are large ovoidal masses of moss, lichen, and moss-roots, often tacked together a good deal outside with cotton-wool, down of different descriptions, and cobwebs.  They average about 41/2 inches in height or length, and about 31/2 inches in diameter.  The aperture is on one side near the top.  The egg-cavity, which may average about 21/4 inches in diameter and about the same in depth below the lower edge of the aperture, is densely lined with very soft down or feathers.

They lay from six to eight eggs, but I once found only four eggs in a nest, and these fully incubated.

From Murree, Colonel C.H.T.  Marshall notes that this species “builds a globular nest of moss and hair and feathers in thorny bushes.  The eggs we found were pinkish white, with a ring of obsolete brown spots at the larger end.  Size 0.55 by 0.43.  Lays in May.”

Captain Hutton tells us that the Red-cap Tit is “common at Mussoorie and in the hills generally, throughout the year.  It breeds in April and May.  The situation chosen is various, as one taken in the former month at Mussoorie, at 7000 feet elevation, was placed on the side of a bank among overhanging coarse grass, while another taken in the latter month, at 5000 feet, was built among some ivy twining round a tree, and at least 14 feet from the ground.  The nest is in shape a round ball with a small lateral entrance, and is composed of green mosses warmly lined with feathers.  The eggs are five in number, white with a pinkish tinge, and sparingly sprinkled with lilac spots or specks, and having a well-defined lilac ring at the larger end.”

From Nynee Tal, Colonel G.F.L.  Marshall writes:—­“This species makes a beautifully neat nest of fine moss and lichens, globular, with side entrance, and thickly lined with soft feathers.  A nest found on Cheena, above Nynee Tal, on the 24th May, 1873, at an elevation of about 7000 feet, was wedged into a fork at the end of a bough of a cypress tree, about 10 feet from the ground, the entrance turned inwards towards the trunk of the tree.  It contained one tiny egg, white, with a dark cloudy zone round the larger end.

“About the 10th of May, at Naini Tal, I was watching one of these little birds, which kept hanging about a small rhododendron stump about 2 feet high, with very few leaves on it, but I could see no nest.  A few days later I saw the bird carry a big caterpillar to the same stump and come away shortly without it; so I looked more closely and found the nest, containing nearly full-fledged young, so beautifully wedged into the stump that it appeared to be part of it, and nothing but the tiny circular entrance revealed that the nest was there.  It was the best-concealed nest for that style of position that I have ever seen.”