This is an Indian bird, and is thus described by Mr. Latham." This little bird (called baya, in Hindu; berbera, in Sanscrit; babui, in the dialect of Bengal; cibu, in Persian; and tenauwit, in Arabic, from its remarkably pendent nest) is rather larger than a sparrow, with yellow brown plumage, a yellowish head and feet, a light coloured breast, and a conic beak, very thick in proportion to his body. This bird is exceedingly common in Hindostan;. he is astonishingly sensible, faithful, and docile, never voluntarily deserting the place where his young were hatched, but not averse, like most other birds, to the society of mankind, and easily taught to perch on the hand of his master. In a state of nature, he generally builds his nest on the highest tree that he can find, especially on the palmyra, or on the Indian fig-tree, and he prefers that which happens to overhang a well or rivulet: he makes it of grass, which he weaves like cloth, and shapes like a large bottle, suspending it firmly on the branches, but so as to rock with the wind, and placing it with its entrance downwards, to secure it from birds of prey. His nest usually consists of two or three chambers: and it is the popular belief that he lights them with fire-flies, which he catches alive at night, and confines with moist clay or cow-dung. That such flies are often found in his nest, where pieces of' cow-dung are also stuck, is indubitable: but as their light could be of little use to him, it seems probable that he only feeds on them. He may be taught with ease to fetch any small thing that his master points out to him: it is an attested fact, that if a ring be dropped into a deep well, and a signal be given to him, he will fly down with amazing celerity, catch the ring before it touches the water, and bring it up with apparent exultation; and it is asserted, that if a house or any other place be shown to him once or twice, he will carry a note thither immediately on a proper signal.

"One instance of his docility, I can myself mention with confidence, having often been an eye-witness of it. The young Hindoo women at Benares, and in other places, wear very thin plates of gold, called ticas, slightly fixed by way of ornament between their eye-brows; and when they pass through the streets, it is not uncommon for the youthful libertines, who amuse themselves with training bayas, to give them a signal, which they understand, and send them to pluck the pieces of gold from the foreheads of their mistresses, which they bring in triumph to the lovers. The baya feeds naturally on grasshoppers and other insects, but will subsist, when tame, on pulse macerated in water: his flesh is warm and drying, and easy of digestion. The female lays many beautiful eggs, resembling large pearls; the white of them, when boiled, is transparent, and the flavour is exquisitely delicate. When many bayas are assembled on a high tree, they make a lively din, but it is rather chirping than singing; their want of musical talents is, however, amply supplied by their wonderful sagacity, in which they are not excelled by any feathered inhabitant of the forest."