This species was not known to Jerdon, nor was it known to occur in
Burma at the time that I issued my Catalogue. Mr. Oates, writing
of the breeding of this bird in Southern Pegu, where it is common,
says:--"Breeding-operations commence in the middle of May; on the 28th
of this month I found two nests, one containing four eggs slightly
incubated, and the other two, quite fresh.
"The nest is a small bag about 4 inches in height and 2 or 3 in
diameter, with an opening about an inch in diameter near the top. The
general shape of the nest is oval. It is composed entirely of the
white feathery flowers of the thatch-grass. The walls of the nest
are very thin but strong. The nest is placed about one foot from the
ground in a bunch of grass, and, in the two instances where I found
it, against a weed, with one or two leaves of which the materials of
the nest were slightly bound.
"The eggs are very glossy pale blue, spotted all over with large and
small blotches of rusty brown. I have no eggs of _C. cursitans_ which
match them, in that species the spots being always minute and thickly
scattered over the shell, whereas in _O. volitans_ the marks are large
and fewer in number. Six eggs measured in length from ·54 to ·57, and
in breadth from ·42 to ·43."