Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/95

Rh dainty little cup of fine grass or fibres, compacted and draped with cobwebs. The whole thing, when finished, is not much bigger than an egg-cup, and as the bird sits on her three ring-spotted eggs, her head projects on one side and her tail stretches away on the other. But the site is so well chosen, with just a few leaves to come in the way of the prying eye, that you may look long before you find that nest.

Of the plain Flycatchers (plain in form, I mean, not in colour), there are many species in India, and some of them are very brightly attired. Blue is the most fashionable colour, and one common kind has a red breast, like a robin. Jerdon calls it Tickell's Blue Redbreast (Cyornis tickelli). I should not be surprised to meet with this or some of the others in Bombay, but the only species of which I can say that it is found in our island is the Southern Brown Flycatcher (Alseonax latirostris). It is just "a tiny brownie bird," and no description of it would be of much assistance in identifying it at a distance. But just as you may recognise a man by his figure and walk when you cannot see his features, so you may know a bird without the help of its colour. And the Brown Flycatcher has more character than most. Its very way of sitting, bolt upright, on the undertwigs of a tree, and the ceaseless, nervous movement of its little tail, and the nimble little sallies after flies, all declare it, and, at closer quarters, its great black eyes, too big for its little head, are unmistakeable. It is a creature of habit, frequenting the same corner of the garden day after day, and sitting on the same twig. But it comes to us for the cold season only, like M, P.'s and Commissions.