her nest, sewing together the leaves by passing through them a cotton
thread twisted by the creature herself, leaps from branch to branch to
testify her happiness by a clear and merry note; and the Indian
weaver[2], a still more ingenious artist, having woven its dwelling with
grass something into the form of a bottle, with a prolonged neck, hangs
it from a projecting branch with its entrance inverted so as to baffle
the approaches of its enemies, the tree snakes and other reptiles. The
natives assert that the male bird carries fire flies to the nest,
fastening them to its sides by a particle of soft mud, and Mr. Layard
assures me that although he has never succeeded in finding the fire fly,
the nest of the male bird (for the female occupies another during
incubation) invariably contains a patch of mud on each side of the
perch.

[Footnote 1: Orthotomus longicauda, _Gmel_.]

[Footnote 2: Ploceus baya, _Blyth_; P. Philippinus, _Auct_.]

_Crows_.--Of all the Ceylon birds of this order the most familiar and
notorious is the small glossy crow, whose shining black plumage shot
with blue has obtained for him the title of _Corvus splendens_.[1] They
frequent the towns in companies, and domesticate themselves in the close
vicinity of every house; and it may possibly serve to account for the
familiarity and audacity which they exhibit in their intercourse with
men, that the Dutch during their sovereignty in Ceylon enforced severe
penalties against any one killing a crow, under the belief that they are
instrumental in extending the growth of cinnamon by feeding on the
fruit, and thus disseminating the undigested seed.[2]

[Footnote 1: There is another species, the _C. culminatus_, so called