This paper addresses high-gain observer design for nonlinear systems with time delays. In the previous work of Lei and Khalil, a high-gain observer is designed for a time-delay nonlinear system taking advantage of time delay so that a constraint on lower bound occurs to high-gain-observer parameter E (besides there is an upper bound on E). Unlike the previous work, in this paper the time delays are totally ignored in high-gain-observer construction. It is demonstrated that the output feedback using this high-gain observer will still semiglobally stabilise the system. In return, the E is required to be sufficiently small without restriction on its lower bound (except zero and besides there is also an upper bound on E). Meanwhile, the nominal and the uncertain time delays are required sufficiently small. To pursue the essence of the distinction between these two high-gain observer design schemes, an insight is given into the theoretical analysis. Moreover, simulations are conducted in order to distinguish the specifics of features of these two schemes, which relates to the theoretical reasons.