"The nest was about 4 feet from the ground, firmly attached to and supported by the branches. It was of a deep cup shape, 3·6 in diameter and 4·9 in height, composed of coarser and finer grasses firmly interwoven, and contained four fresh eggs. In the same locality we secured a second similarly situated nest, about 2½ feet from the ground, and it contained a single fresh egg. It was rather more neatly and massively made than the former. It was about 4 inches in diameter and 5 inches in height, and the egg-cavity was nearly 3 inches deep. The lining is of fine grass-stalks well interwoven. The exterior is composed of coarse grass mixed with a little greyish-white fibre.
"Subsequently several other similar and similarly situated nests were found."
Colonel E.A. Butler writes:—"The Jungle Wren-Warbler breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa in the months of July, August, and September. The following are the dates upon which I found nests this year (1876):—
"July 28. A nest containing 4 young birds.
" 29. " 5 fresh eggs.
Aug. 1. " 4 "
" 5. " 5 "
Aug. 13. " 5 "
" 16. " 4 young birds fledged.
" 17. " 5 "
" " " 3 "
" 19. " 4 "
" " " 5 "
" 30. " 5 "
Sept. 3. " 5 "
"In addition to the above, I found nests in the same neighbourhood in 1875. One on the 14th August containing four young birds almost ready to leave the nest. It was placed in the middle of a tussock of coarse grass on the side of a nullah on a bank overgrown with grass and bushes, and my attention was attracted first of all to the spot by the incessant chattering and uneasiness of the two old birds, one of which had a large grasshopper in its mouth. After hiding behind a bush for a few minutes, I saw the hen bird fly to the nest, which led to its discovery. The nest was dome-shaped, with an entrance upon one side, composed exteriorly of blades of rather coarse dry grass (green, however, as a rule when the nest is first built), and interiorly of similar, but finer, material. It is an easy nest to find when once the locality in which the birds breed is discovered, as it is a conspicuous ball of grass, smeared over, often more or less, exteriorly with a silky white vegetable-down or cobweb, and many of the blades of the tussock in which it is placed are often drawn down and woven into the nest, which at once attracts attention. Then, again, the cock bird is almost always to be found on the top of some low tree near the nest, uttering his peculiar ventriloquistic note 'tissip, tissip, tissip,' etc. All the above nests were exactly alike and in similar situations, viz. fixed in the centre of a tussock of coarse grass on the banks of some deep nullahs running through a large grass 'Beerh.' The eggs remind me more of the English Robin's eggs than those of any other species I know. The ground-colour is dull white, sometimes tinted with pale green, and the markings reddish fawn. In some cases the eggs are peppered all over with a conspicuous zone at the large end, sometimes a dense cap instead of a zone. In other cases the markings, though always present, are almost invisible, as also the zone or cap. They are about the size of the eggs of the Spotted Flycatcher. I found a few other nests besides those I have mentioned during July and August 1875."
Captain Cock informed me that this species is "common in the jungles around Seetapore. Nest is largish, dome-shaped, and placed low down in a thorny bush. The bird lays in August five eggs, the fac-simile of the eggs of Pratincola ferrea, perhaps of a more elongated type than the eggs of that bird."
Mr. H. Parker, writing on the birds of North-west Ceylon, refers to this bird under the titles D. jerdoni and D. valida, and informs us that it breeds from January to May.
The eggs of this species are somewhat elongated ovals. The ground-colour is a greenish or greyish stone-colour, and they are finely and often rather sparsely freckled all over with very faint reddish brown, or brownish pink in most eggs; these frecklings are gathered together into a more or less dense zone round the large end, forming a conspicuous ring there much darker-coloured than the frecklings over the rest of the surface. The eggs have a faint gloss.
In length they vary from 0·68 to 0·75, and in breadth from 0·49 to 0·52, but the average appears to be 0·7 by 0·5.
466. Prinia inornata, Sykes. The Indian Wren-Warbler.