Among the varieties of Birds'-nests are some very curious homes, of which we have but space to notice a few. The pendulous nest of the Indian Baya-bird is usually formed of the fibres of the palmyra, the cocoa-nut palm, and wild date of India, sometimes mixed with grass, neatly interlaced, and very strongly made. It consists of only one circular chamber, with a long tubular passage leading to it, and is suspended from a tree, preferred if overhanging water. The natives of India say the Baya lights up its nest with fire-flies. The bird lays from four to six white eggs. Bayas are of a very social disposition: numbers build on the same tree, or neighbouring trees, and singing in concert during the breeding season. The Baya is very docile, and taught to fly off the finger and return again; to dart after a ring or small coin, dropped into a deep well, and catch it before it reaches the water; to fetch and carry, and perform similar tricks. The nest of the brilliant Golden-banded Oriole is a hammock of twisted fibrous substances, and is suspended in a low shrub, so as to swing to the breeze. The twine-like fibres of which it is woven are the filaments of the gigantic palm. The threads break away from the leaf, and hang like fringe to the magnificent foliage. The Tailor-birds are the best nest-builders of all the feathered tribes. They interweave their nests between the twigs and branches of shrubs, or suspend the nests from them; and some of these birds have exercised arts from the creation which man has found of the greatest benefit to him since he discovered them. These birds, indeed, may be called the inventors of the several arts of the weaver, the sempstress, and the tailor; whence some of them have been denominated Weaver and Tailor Birds. The nests of the latter are, however, most remarkable. India produces several species of Tailor-birds that sew together leaves for the protection of their eggs and nestlings from the voracity of serpents and apes. They generally select the end of a branch or twig, and sew with cotton, thread, and fibres. Colonel Sykes has seen some in which the thread was literally knotted at the end. The inside of these nests is lined usually with down and cotton.