Chapter 19

Mr. Gammie says:--"I have only as yet found a single nest of this species, and this was one of the most artfully concealed that I have ever seen. I found it in forest in the Chinchona reserves, at an elevation of about 5000 feet, on the 14th May. It was a rather deep cup, composed of moss and fine root-fibres and thickly lined with the latter, and was suspended at a height of about six feet amongst the natural moss, hanging from a horizontal branch of a small tree, in which it was entirely enveloped. A more beautiful or more completely invisible nest it is impossible to conceive. It contained three fresh eggs. The cup itself was exteriorly 3·7 inches in diameter and 1·9 in depth, while the cavity was 2·5 in diameter and 1·5 in depth."

The Yellow-naped Ixulus breeds, according to Mr. Hodgson's notes, in the central region of Nepal and the neighbourhood of Darjeeling, laying during the months of May and June. It builds on the ground in tufts of grass, constructing its nest of moss and moss-roots, sometimes open and cup-like and sometimes globular, and lining it with sheep's wool. Mr. Hodgson figures one nest suspended from a branch, and although neither the English nor the vernacular notes confirm this, it is supported to a certain extent by Mr. Gammie's experience. At the same time, though the situation and surroundings of both seem to have been similar, Mr. Hodgson figures his nest, not cup-shaped, but egg-shaped, and with the longer diameter horizontal. Seven nests are recorded as having been taken, and all on the ground. One, cup-shaped, taken on the 7th June, 1846, which is also figured, in amongst grass and leaves on the ground, measured externally 3·5 inches in diameter, 2·5 in height, and internally 2 inches both in diameter and depth.

The full complement of eggs is said to be four. Two types of eggs are figured, both rather broad ovals, measuring about 0·75 by 0·6. The one has a buffy-white ground and is thinly speckled and streaked, except quite at the broad end, where the markings are nearly confluent, with pale dingy yellowish brown; the other has a pale earthy-brown ground, and is spotted similarly to the one just described, but with red and purple. This latter egg appears on the same plate with the suspended nest, and is, I think, doubtful.

Several nests of this species, which I owe to Captain Masson of Darjeeling, are very beautiful structures, moderately shallow and rather massive cups, externally composed of moss, and lined thickly with fine black moss-roots. The cavity of the nests may have been about 1¾ inch in diameter by less than 1½ inch in depth, but the sides of the nests are from one inch to 2 inches in thickness, constructed of firmly compacted moss.

Other nests of this species that have since been sent me show that the bird very commonly suspends its nest to one or two twigs, not unfrequently making it a complete cylinder or egg in shape, with the entrance at one side, but always using moss, in some cases fine, in some coarse, according to the nature of the moss growing where the nest is placed, as the sole material, and lining the cavity thickly with fine black moss and fern-roots.

Dr. Jerdon tells us that at Darjeeling he has repeatedly had the nest brought to him. "It is large, made of leaves of bamboos carelessly and loosely put together, and generally placed in a clump of bamboos. The eggs are three to five in number, of a somewhat fleshy-white, with a few rusty spots."

I cannot but think that in this case wrong nests had been brought to Dr. Jerdon. The eggs that I possess are all of one type--rather elongated ovals with scarcely any gloss, and strongly recalling in shape, size, and appearance densely marked varieties of the eggs of _Hirundo rustica_, but with the markings rather browner and slightly more smudgy.

The eggs are typically rather elongated ovals, often slightly compressed towards the small end, sometimes rather broader and slightly pyriform. The shell is extremely fine and compact, but has scarcely any gloss; the ground-colour is sometimes pure white, sometimes has a faint brownish-reddish or creamy tinge. The markings are invariably most dense about the large end, where they form a zone or cap, regular, well defined and confluent in some specimens, irregular, ill-defined and blotchy in others. As a rule these markings, which consist of specks, spots, and tiny blotches, are comparatively thinly scattered over the rest of the egg, but occasionally they are pretty thickly scattered everywhere, though nowhere anything like so densely as at the large end. The colour of the markings is rather variable. It is a brown of varying shades, varying not only in different eggs, but there being often two shades on the same egg. Normally it is I think an umber-brown, yellower in some spots, but varying slightly in tinge, leaning to burnt umber, sienna, and raw sienna.

Other eggs subsequently obtained by Mr. Gammie are of much the same character as those already described, but one is a good deal shorter and broader, and the markings are more decided red than are some of the yellowish-brown spots observable in the eggs first obtained.

In length the eggs seem to vary from 0·76 to 0·8, and in breadth from 0·54 to 0·58.

Subfamily LIOTRICHINAE.

235. Liothrix lutea (Scop.). _The Red-billed Liothrix_.

Leiothrix luteus (_Scop._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 250. Leiothrix callipyga (_Hodgs._), _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 614.

The Red-billed Liothrix breeds from April to August; at elevations of from 3000 to 6000 feet, throughout the Himalayas south, as a rule, of the first snowy range and eastward of the Sutlej; west of the Sutlej I have not heard of its occurrence. It also doubtless breeds throughout the hill-ranges running down from Assam to Burmah.

Mostly the birds lay in May, affecting well-watered and jungle-clad valleys and ravines. They place their nests in thick bushes, at heights of from 2 to 8 feet from the ground, and either wedge them into some fork, tack them into three or four upright shoots between which they hang, or else suspend them like an Oriole's or White-eye's nest.

The nest varies from a rather shallow to a very deep cup, and is composed of dry leaves, moss, and lichen in varying proportions, bamboo-leaves being great favourites, bound together with slender creepers, grass-roots, fibres, &c., and lined with black horse- or buffalo-hair, or hair-like moss-roots. The nests differ much in appearance: I have seen one composed almost entirely of moss, and another of nothing but dry bamboo-sheaths, with a scrap or two of moss. They are always pretty substantial, but sometimes they are very massive for the size of the bird.

Three is certainly the usual complement of eggs.

According to Mr. Hodgson's notes, this species breeds in the central mountainous region of Nepal, and lays from April to August. The nest, which is somewhat purse-shaped, is placed in some upright fork between three or four slender branches, to all of which it is more or less attached. It is composed of moss, dry leaves, often of the bamboo, and the bark of trees, and is compactly bound together with moss-roots and fibres of different kinds; it is lined with horse-hair and moss-roots, and contains generally three or four eggs.

The following note I quote _verbatim_:--"_Central Hills, August 12th_.--Male, female, and nest. Nest in a low leafy tree 5 cubits from the ground in the Shewpoori forest; partly suspended and partly rested on the fork of the branch; suspension effected by twisting part of the material round the prongs of the fork; made of moss and lichens and dry leaves, well compacted into a deep saucer-shaped cavity; 3·62 high, 4·5 wide outside, and inside 2·25 deep and 3 inches wide; eggs pale verditer, spotted brown, and ready for hatching. The bird found in small flocks of ten to twelve, except at breeding-season."

A nest sent to me last year by Mr. Gammie was found by him on the 24th April, at an elevation of about 5000 feet, in the neighbourhood of Rungbee. It was built by the side of a stream in a small bush, at a height of about 3 feet from the ground, and contained three eggs. The nest is a deep and, for the size of the bird, very massive cup, exteriorly composed entirely of broad flag-like grass-leaves, with which, however, a few slender stems of creepers are intermingled, internally of grass-roots; the egg-cavity being thinly lined with coarse, black buffalo-hair. Externally the nest is more than 5 inches in diameter and nearly 4 inches high; but the egg-cavity, which is very regularly shaped, is 2½ inches in diameter and 2 inches in depth.

This year Mr. Gammie writes to me:--"I have taken many nests of the Red-billed Liothrix here in our Chinchona reserves, at all elevations from 3500 to 5000 feet. They breed in May and June, amongst dense scrub, placing their nests in shrubs, at heights of from 3 to 5 feet from the ground, and either suspending them from horizontal branches, or hanging them between several upright stems, to which they firmly attach them. The nest itself is cup-shaped and composed principally of dry bamboo-leaves held together by a few fibres, and a few strings of green moss wound round the outside. The lining consists of a few black hairs, and the usual number of eggs is three. A nest I recently measured was externally 4 inches in diameter and 2·7 in height, while the cavity was 2·6 across by 1·9 in depth."

Mr. Gammie subsequently found a nest on the very late date of 17th October at Rishap, Darjeeling. It contained three eggs, two of which were addled.

Dr. Jerdon says that at Darjeeling he "got the nest and eggs repeatedly; the nest made chiefly of grass, with roots and fibres, and fragments of moss, and usually containing three or four eggs, bluish, white, with a few purple and red blotches. It is generally placed in a leafy bush at no great height from the ground. Gould, quoting from Mr. Shore's notes, says that the eggs are black spotted with yellow: this is of course erroneous. I have taken the nest myself on several occasions, and killed the bird, and in every case the eggs were coloured as above."

I wish to add here, as I have abused him occasionally, that Mr. Shore was, I understand, a most excellent man, and that I have now come to the conclusion that the extraordinary fictions that he recorded about the eggs of birds can only have been due to colour-blindness of a peculiarly aggravated nature. It is not that he mistook eggs, but that he describes _impossible_ eggs--Kingfishers' eggs variegated black and white, and here in this case black eggs spotted with yellow! Why, there _are_ no such eggs in the whole world, I believe. On the other hand, his whole life proves that he could not have deliberately set to work to invent falsehoods. To return.

The eggs vary a good deal in shade and size, but are more or less long ovals, slightly pointed towards the lesser end. The ground-colour is a delicate very pale green or greenish blue, in one, not very common type, almost pure white, and they are pretty boldly blotched or spotted and speckled as the case may be, and clouded, most thickly towards the large end, and very often almost exclusively in a zone or cap round this latter, with various shades of red or purple and brown. Some blotches in some eggs are almost carmine-red, but the majority are brownish red or reddish brown, varying much in depth and intensity of colour. There is something Shrike-like in the markings of many eggs; and where the markings are most numerous, namely at the large end, they are commonly intermingled with streaks and clouds of pale lilac. The smaller end of the egg is often entirely free from markings. I should mention that all the eggs have a faint gloss, and that some are decidedly glossy.

They vary in length from 0·76 to 0·95, and in breadth from 0·59 to 0·66; but the average of thirty-four eggs is 0·85 by 0·62.

237. Pteruthius erythropterus (Vig.). _The Red-winged Shrike-Tit_.

Pteruthius erythropterus (_Vig.) Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 245; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 609.

Writing from Murree, Colonel C.H.T. Marshall says:--"There is no record about the nidification of this species. Its nest is exceedingly difficult to find, and it was only by long and careful watching through field-glasses that Captain Cock discovered that there was a nest at the top of a very high chestnut-tree, to and from which the birds kept flying with building-materials in their beaks. The nest is most skilfully concealed, being at the top of the tree, with bunches of leaves both above and below. The nest, like that of the Oriole, is built pendent in a fork. It is somewhat roughly made of moss and hair. The eggs are pinky white, blotched with red, forming in some a ring round the larger end. They average 0·9 in length and 0·65 in breadth. We were fortunate enough to secure two nests; both were more than 60 feet from the ground. Breeds in the end of May, at an elevation of 7000 feet."

Captain Cock says:--"I first found this bird building its nest on the top of a high chestnut-tree at Murree in the month of May. When the nest was ready I took my friend Captain C.H.T. Marshall to be present at the taking of it, as it had never, I think, been taken before. We took the nest on the 30th May.

"It was an open flattish cup, like the nest of _O. kundoo_ in structure, only shallower. It contained three eggs, pinky white, covered with a shower of claret spots that at the larger end formed a cap of dark claret colour. Another nest, which I took in June from the top of an oak, contained two eggs."

To Colonel Marshall and Captain Cock I am indebted for a nest and egg of this species.

The nest is a moderately deep cup, suspended between two prongs of a horizontal fork. Externally it is about 4 inches in diameter and about 3 inches in depth. The egg-cavity is nearly hemispherical, 3 inches in diameter and 1·5 in depth. It is a very loosely made structure, composed internally of not very fine roots and externally coated with green moss. Along the lines of suspension a good deal of wool is incorporated in the structure, and it is chiefly by this wool that the nest is suspended. The fork is a slender one, the prongs being from 0·3 to 0·4 in diameter.

The egg is a broad oval, a good deal pointed towards the small end. The shell is very fine and compact, and has a fine gloss. The ground-colour is white or pinky white, and is pretty thickly speckled and finely spotted all over with brownish red and a little pale inky purple. Just towards the large end the markings are very dense, and form, more or less of a confluent cap of mingled brownish red and pale lilac, the latter everywhere appearing to underlie the former.

The egg was taken on the 10th June, and measures 0·9 by 0·68.

239. Pteruthius melanotis, Hodgs. _The Chestnut-throated Shrike-Tit_.

Allotrius oenobarbus, _Temm. apud Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 246. Allotrius melanotis, _Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 611.

According to Mr. Hodgson's notes and figures, the Chestnut-throated Shrike-Tit breeds in Sikhim and Nepal up to an elevation of 6000 or 7000 feet. The nest is placed at a height of 6 to 10 feet from the ground, between some slender, leafy, horizontal fork, between which it is suspended like that of an Oriole or White-eye. It is composed of moss and moss-roots and vegetable fibres, beautifully and compactly woven into a shallow cup some 4 inches in diameter, and with a cavity some 2·5 in diameter and less than 1 in depth. Interiorly the nest is lined with hair-like fibres and moss-roots; exteriorly it is adorned with pieces of lichen. The eggs are two or three in number, very regular ovals, about 0·77 in length by 0·49 in width. The ground-colour is a delicate pinky lilac, and they are speckled and spotted with violet or violet-purple, the markings being most numerous towards the large end, where they have a tendency to form a mottled zone.

243. Aegithine tiphia (Linn.). _The Common Iora_.

Iora zeylonica (Gm.) _et_ I. typhia (_Linn.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, pp. 101, 103. Aegithine tiphia (_Linn.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ nos. 467, 468.

I have already on several occasions (see especially 'Stray Feathers,' 1877, vol. v, p. 428) recorded my inability to distinguish as distinct species _Ae. tiphia_ and _Ae. zeylonica_. I am quite open to conviction; but believing them, so far as my present investigations go, to be inseparable, I propose to treat them as a single species in the present notice.

The Common Iora (the genus, though possibly nearly allied, is too distinct from _Chloropsis_ to allow me to adopt, as Jerdon does, one common trivial name for both) breeds in different localities from May to September. I have taken nests and eggs of typical examples of both supposed species, and have had them sent me with the parent birds by many correspondents; and though both vary a good deal, I am convinced that all the variations which occur in the nests and eggs of one race occur also in those of the other. If one gets only two or three clutches of the eggs of each, great differences, naturally attributed to difference of species (see Captain Cock's remarks, _infrà_), may be detected; but I have seen more than fifty, and, so far as I am concerned, I have no hesitation in asserting that, as in the case of the birds so in that of their nests and eggs, no constant differences can be detected if only sufficiently large series are compared.

The birds build usually on the upper surface of a horizontal bough, at a height of from 10 to 25 feet from the ground. Sometimes, when the bough is more or less slanting, the nest assumes somewhat more of a pocket-shape. Occasionally it is built between three or four slender twigs, forming an upright fork; but this is quite exceptional.

As a rule nests of the Iora very closely resemble those of _Leucocerca_, so much so that when I sent a beautiful photograph of a nest, which I had myself watched building, of the latter species to Mr. Blyth, he unhesitatingly pronounced it to be a nest of the former. There is, however, a certain amount of difference; the Iora's nests are looser and somewhat less compact and firm. My experience does not confirm Mr. Brooks's remarks (_vide infrà_) that they are usually shallower; on the contrary all those now before me are, as indeed all the many I can remember to have seen were, deep, thin-walled cups, which had been placed on more or less horizontal branches, not uncommonly where some upright-growing twig afforded the nest additional security. The egg-cavity averages about 2 inches in diameter, and varies from an inch to 1¼ inch in depth; the walls, composed of vegetable fibres, and varying in different specimens from only one eighth to three eighths of an inch in thickness, are everywhere thickly coated externally with cobwebs, by which also the nest is firmly attached to the branch on which it is seated, as well as, where such adjoin the nest, to any little twig springing from that branch. Interiorly they are more or less neatly lined with very fine grass-stems. The bottom of the nest in its thinnest part is rarely above one eighth of an inch in thickness, but running, as it so often does, down the curving sides of the branch, it becomes a good deal thicker, and where placed on a small branch, say not exceeding an inch in diameter, the lateral portions of the bottom of the nest are sometimes more than half an inch in thickness.

One nest which I obtained recently in the Botanical Gardens at Calcutta was built in an upright fork of four slender twigs; and in this case the bottom of the nest was obtusely conical, and at its deepest point may have been nearly an inch in depth. I have never seen a similar nest.

The eggs are normally three in number, but I have at times found only two, and these more or less incubated.

Mr. Brooks, writing of a nest he took in the Mirzapoor District, says:--"Did you ever get particulars of the nest of _Iora zeylonica_ on the forked branch of a mango-tree 12 or 14 feet from the ground? Nest composed of the same materials as that of _Leucocerca albifrontata_, but not quite so neat and much more shallow; eggs salmon-coloured and spotted with pale reddish brown, intermixed with a few larger dashes of purple-grey. The bird lays in July; three eggs. This is the only nest I have not taken since I came to India the second time."

From Raipoor, Mr. F.R. Blewitt remarks:--"The Iora breeds from July to September, and certainly _not_, as Dr. Jerdon supposes, twice a year. Both birds assist in the building of the nests, and there evidently appears to be no choice of any particular kind of tree on which to build. I have found them indiscriminately on the mango, mowah, neem, and other trees. The nest is invariably made either just above or between the fork of two outshooting slender horizontal branches. It is very neatly made, deeply cup-shaped, of grass and fibres, with spider's web on the exterior. The maximum number of eggs is three; they are of a pale whitish colour, marked generally, chiefly at the broad end, with brownish spots. The brown spots vary in size on different eggs. I secured the first eggs on the 12th July, and the last on the 2nd September. A pair of birds were on this last date just completing their nest, which unfortunately was destroyed by the heavy rains."

Captain Cock says:--"_Iora tiphia_ is tolerably common at Seetapoor (Oudh), and I have several times taken their nests and eggs. I may here mention that I have taken eggs of _Iora zeylonica_ at Etawah, and that knowing the birds well, I can say that it is quite a distinct bird; although in the marking of its eggs there is a slight resemblance, yet the nests of the two species are quite different. On the 13th May I observed a nest of _I. tiphia_ on a young mango-tree, at the edge of a croquet-ground in our garden. I shot both male and female and took the eggs; the nest was placed on the upperside of a sloping bough, was covered outside with cobweb, and lined with thin dry grass. It contained two fresh eggs of a delicate pink colour, with broad irregularly-shaped dashes of light brown down the sides of the shell, not tending to coalesce in any way at either apex. Another pair also built their nest on the edge of the same ground in another tree; but unfortunately in a weak moment I pointed out the nest to a lady friend, and as thereafter no one ever played croquet on the ground without staring at the nest, the birds got disgusted and soon deserted it."

To this I need merely add that _of course_ typical _Ae. tiphia_ and typical _Ae. zeylonica_ are very distinct, but that as every intermediate form occurs, they are not, according to my views of what constitutes a species, entitled to specific separation, and that as regards nest and eggs, according to my experience, every variety in the one is to be found in the other.

Dr. Jerdon, speaking of Southern India, remarks:--"I have seen the nest and eggs on several occasions. The nest is deep, cup-shaped, very neatly made with grass, various fibres, hairs, and spiders' webs; and the eggs, two or three in number, are reddish white, with numerous darker red spots, chiefly at the thicker end. It breeds in the south of India in August and September; perhaps, however, twice a year."

Writing from South Wynaad, Mr. J. Darling (Junior) says:--"I found the nest, which with the eggs and both parents I have now sent you, in the Teriat Hills on the 24th May, at an elevation of about 2300 feet. It was placed on, and near the extremity of, a bough, at a height of about 10 feet from the ground. It is round, about 2 inches in height and the same in diameter, and the cavity was about an inch or a trifle more in depth. It is built of grass and reed-bamboo-fibres, and is coated with spider's web. It only contained two eggs."