Chapter 24

"Their nests are constructed very much like those of the common Bulbuls, except that, instead of being placed in the forked branches of trees, they are suspended between two twigs, and fastened to them by cobwebs, the inside being neatly lined with fine grass. Two nests of this bird were found, each containing two fresh eggs, of a pretty pinkish salmon colour, with a dark ring at the thick end; but another nest had three nearly _white_ eggs! The whole structure of the nests was slight and thin, and the eggs could be plainly seen through. The notes of the Yellow-browed Bulbul are loud and repeated often."

Writing on the birds of Ceylon, Colonel Legge remarks:--"I once found the nest of this bird in the Pasdun-Korale forests in August; little or nothing, however, is known of its breeding-habits in Ceylon, so that it most likely commences earlier than that month to rear its brood. My nest was placed in the fork of a thin sapling about 8 feet from the ground. It was of large size for such a bird, the foundation being bulky and composed of small twigs, moss, and dead leaves, supporting a cup of about 2½ inches in diameter, which was constructed of moss, lined with fine roots; the upper edge of the body of the nest was woven round the supporting branches.... The bottom of the nest was in the fork."

The eggs of this species sent to me by Mr. Wait from Coonoor are totally unlike any other egg of this family with which I am acquainted. They remind one more of the eggs of _Stoparola melanops_ or one of the _Niltavas_ than anything else. The eggs are moderately long and rather perfect ovals, almost devoid of gloss, and with a dull white or pinkish-white ground, speckled more or less thickly over the whole surface with rather pale brownish red or pink. The specklings becoming confluent at the large end, where they form a dull irregular mottled cap. Other specimens received from Miss Cockburn from Kotagherry exhibit the same general characters; but the majority of them are considerably elongated eggs, approaching, so far as shape is concerned, the _Hypsipetes_ type. In some eggs only the faintest trace of pale pinkish mottling towards the large end is observable; in others, the whole surface of the egg is thickly freckled and mottled all over, but most densely at the large end, with salmon-pink or pale pinkish brown.

In length the eggs vary from 0·9 to 1·03, and in breadth from 0·64 to 0·7.[A]

[Footnote A: PYCNONOTUS ANALIS (Horsf.). _The Yellow-vented Bulbul_.

Otocompsa analis (_Horsf._), _Hume, cat._ no. 452 sex.

Mr. J. Darling, Junior, writes:--"I found the nest of this Bulbul at Salang in the Malay peninsula, on the 14th February. The nest was built in a bush in secondary jungle, with a few trees scattered about. It was in a fork 6 feet from the ground. The foundation was of dried leaves, then fine twigs, and lined with fine grass-bents. There was a good deal of cobweb in the construction. It was an exact facsimile of many nests of _Otocompsa fuscicaudata_ from the Nilgherry Hills. The egg-cavity was 3 inches in diameter and 2½ inches deep; the walls were ½ inch thick, the bottom 1 inch."

The eggs are of the usual variable Bulbul type, some broader and more regular, some more elongated, some more or less pyriform. The shell as in others, and apparently rarely showing any very perceptible gloss. The ground-colour pinky white to a warm pink; the markings, specks, and spots, or, when three or four of these latter have coalesced, occasionally small blotches of a rich maroon-red intermixed with spots and specks and clouds of pale purple. The markings always apparently pretty thickly set everywhere, but almost invariably most densely in a zone about the larger end, where they become at times more or less confluent. Of course as in others of the genus, in some eggs all the markings are very fine and speckly, while in others they are somewhat bolder. In some the red greatly predominates; in others, again, the grey underlying clouds are very widely extended, and form by far the most conspicuous part of the markings, giving a grey tinge to the entire egg. The eggs vary from 0·82 to 0·91 in length and from 0·61 to 0·65 in breadth.]

299. Pycnonotus finlaysoni, Strickl. _Finlayson's Stripe-throated Bulbul_.

Ixus finlaysoni (_Strickl.), Hume, cat._ no. 452 ter.

Major C.T. Bingham says:--"On the 22nd May, 1877, while wandering about collecting in the jungles below the Circuit-house at Maulmain, I came across a neat, though thinly made, cup-shaped nest in the fork of a tall sapling, some 12 feet above the ground. Coming closer, I perceived it contained eggs, which were plainly visible through the frail structure of the sides. On looking about to find the owner, I saw a couple of _Pycnonotus finlaysoni_ flitting about uneasily in a tree close at hand; so I hid myself a few yards off, and was almost immediately rewarded by seeing one of them (it turned out to be the female) fly down on to the nest, and seat herself on the eggs. Approaching cautiously, I managed to shoot her as she slipped off; but, on taking down the nest, I found I had fired too soon, as one of the eggs (there were but two) was smashed by a pellet of shot. The nest was rather a deep cup, and, notwithstanding its flimsy sides, strongly made of grass-roots, lined with very fine black roots of fern. The one unbroken egg was rather roundish in shape, of a dull whitish and claret colour, mixed and spotted and clouded with deeper vinous red, chiefly at the larger end."

Mr. J. Darling, Junior, found the nest of this Bulbul on more than one occasion at Taroar in the Malay peninsula. He writes:--"I shot this bird off a nest with two eggs on the 8th February; the nest was in a bush 5 feet from the ground; the foundation was of leaves and fine grass, lined with fine grass and a few cocoanut fibres. The nest was 3 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep. The eggs were too hard-set to blow.

"On the 10th February I took another nest of _Pycnonotus finlaysoni_ at Taroar. The nest was built in a small shrub 3 feet from the ground, in a fork; foundation of dead leaves, built of fine twigs and fibrous bark; lined with fine grass-bents and moss-roots. Egg-cavity 2¾ inches in diameter, 1¾ deep; walls ¼ inch thick, bottom ¾ inch.

"Found a nest of _Pycnonotus finlaysoni_, with two fresh eggs, on the 16th March. The nest was built in a thin small sapling, 5½ feet from ground, on the top of a thinly wooded hill; the nest was of the ordinary Bulbul type, but better put together and neater. The foundation was of broad fibrous bark and twigs, lined with fine grass-stalks."

The eggs vary in shape from broad ovals a good deal pointed towards one end, to pyriform and elongated shaped, very obtuse even at the small end. The shell is fine and compact, in some has a fine gloss, in others it is rather dull. The ground-colour is a beautiful pink, sometimes with a creamy tinge, and the markings are bold blotches, spots, and streaks of a maroon of varying degrees in richness, and of a subsurface-looking purple, varying to almost inky grey. In some eggs the maroon, in some the purple or grey seems to predominate; in some eggs the markings seem pretty equally distributed over the egg; in others they form a more or less conspicuous zone about the larger end. The eggs measure from 0·85 to 0·92 in length by 0·6 to 0·7 in breadth.

300. Pycnonotus davisoni (Hume). _Davison's Stripe-throated Bulbul_.

Ixus davisoni, _Hume; Hume, cat._ no. 452 quat.

Mr. Oates writes from Kyeikpadein in Pegu:--"A nest of this bird was found on the 1st June, and another on 6th of the same month, each containing two fresh eggs. The females, which were shot off the nest, showed, however, no signs on dissection of being about to lay more.

"The nest is a flimsy structure, built of the stems of small weeds and lined with grass. A few fine black tree-roots are twisted round the inside of the egg-chamber. The outside and inside diameters measure 4 and 3 inches, and the depths are similarly 3 and 1·25. Both nests were placed low down about 4 feet from the ground--one in a bush, and the other in a creeper.

"The eggs vary much in size. One pair measure ·92 and ·88 by ·60 and ·65, and the other ·83 and ·82 by ·65 and ·61 respectively; the ground-colour of all is a pinkish white. In one pair the shell-blotches of washed-out purple are spread over the whole egg, and the surface-spots and clashes of carneous red are also equally spread over the whole shell. In the other pair the shell-marks are grouped round the larger end to form a broad ring, and the whole egg is thickly speckled and spotted with bright reddish. The eggs are very slightly glossy."

301. Pycnonotus melanicterus (Gm.)._The Black-capped Bulbul_.

Rubigula melanictera (_Gm.), Hume, cat._ no. 455 bis.

Colonel Legge writes:--"In April 1873 I received from a friend in Ceylon three eggs of this bird; but I was unable to identify them until lately, when I had an opportunity of comparing them with a clutch taken last year in the Western Province, and about which there was no doubt. In the latter case the nest was fixed on the top of a small stump, and was a loose structure of grass and bents; in shape rather a deep cup; and contained two eggs of a reddish-white ground-colour, profusely speckled with reddish brown (in one example confluent round the obtuse end, in the other distributed over the whole surface) over freckles of bluish grey. Dimensions: 0·79 by 0·58, 0·78 by 0·57. The other nest was made of grass on a foundation of dry leaves and herbaceous stalks, loosely lined with fine hair-like tendrils of creepers. The eggs were of a reddish-white ground, thickly covered throughout with brownish-red and dusky red spots, becoming somewhat confluent round the obtuse end. In form they are regular ovals, and measure 0·78 by 0·6, 0·79 by 0·58."

305. Pycnonotus luteolus (Less.). _The White-browed Bulbul_.

Ixos luteolus (_Less.) Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 84; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 452.

Common as is the White-browed Bulbul in Midnapoor, throughout the Tributary Mehals, along the Eastern Ghâts, and again, it appears, in Bombay, only two of my correspondents appear as yet to have procured the nest or eggs.

Mr. Benjamin Aitken, writing from Bombay under date the 11th June, says:--"I now send you a nest of _Pycnonotus luteolus_ with two eggs. I took it this morning from, a thickly foliaged tree in a garden. It was placed on the top of the main stem of the tree, which had been abruptly cut off about 5 feet from the ground, where the stem was about 3 inches thick. The nest was begun this day week, Thursday, and the first egg was laid the day before yesterday (Tuesday). The bird is a very common one in gardens in Bombay, though I never saw it in Berar nor even in Poona. They build in situations similar to, but perhaps rather more sheltered than, those chosen by the Common Bulbul; but I remember finding one nest placed at a height of only 2 feet from the ground.

"This present nest was begun, as already mentioned, last Thursday, just two days after the first severe thunder-shower preliminary to the monsoon, now fairly on us.

"I draw your attention to the manner in which the nest has been tied at _one_ place to a twig to prevent its being blown off its very (apparently) insecure site. I was obliged to take the nest, as I was leaving at once, otherwise one or perhaps two more eggs would have been laid."

The nest is a rather loose straggling structure, exteriorly composed of fine twigs. The cavity, hemispherical in shape, is carefully lined with fine grass-stems. Outside it is very irregularly shaped, and many of the twigs used are much too long and hang down several inches from the nest; but on one side the outer framework has been firmly tied with wool and a little cobweb to a live twig to which the leaves, now withered, are still attached. No roots or hair have entered into the composition of this nest.

Mr. E. Aitken writes:--"I once found a nest in Bombay, not many feet above the level of the sea of course.

"The first egg was laid on 14th September. The nest was built in a bush on the edge of an inundated field, but in our garden. It was fixed to a thin waving branch underneath the bush, which completely overshadowed it. It was only 2 feet from the ground, a cup just large enough to hold the body of the bird, whose head and tail always projected over the edge; and it was made of thin twigs and neatly lined with _coir_. The bird laid two eggs and then deserted the nest. One of these, which I took, was thicker and rounder than a Bulbul's, and thickly spotted with claret-coloured spots, which gathered into a ring at the larger end.

"The eggs were laid on successive days. I think the birds had already had one brood (in another nest), for I saw apparently the same pair followed by a young one not long before."

Dr. Jerdon says:--"I found the nest in my garden at Nellore. It was rather loosely made with roots, grass, and hair, placed in a hedge, and the eggs, four in number, were reddish white, with darker lake-red spots, exceedingly like those of the Common Bulbul."

Colonel Legge, in his 'Birds of Ceylon,' tells us that this Bulbul breeds in the west and south-west of Ceylon from December to June, the months of April and May, however, appearing to be the favourite time. On the eastern side of the island it breeds during the north-east rains.

The eggs answer well enough to Dr. Jerdon's description, but to an oologist's eye they are excessively _un-like_ those of the Common Bulbul; shape, tone of colour, and character of markings alike differ.

In shape they are decidedly elongated ovals. The shell is very fine and smooth, and moderately glossy. The ground is reddish white, and this is profusely speckled and blotched (the blotches being chiefly confined, however, to a broad irregular zone round the broader end) with a deep but certainly, I should say, _not_ lake-red, but much nearer what one would get by mixing brown with vermilion. Besides these red markings sundry clouds and spots of a pale greyish lilac are intermingled in a zone, and one or two spots of the same colour may be traced elsewhere.

The eggs measure 0·92 by 0·62, and 0·97 by 0·63.

300. Pycnonotus blanfordi (Jerd.). _Blanford's Bulbul_.

Ixus blanfordi (_Jerd.), Hume, cat._ no. 452 quint.

Mr. Oates writes from Pegu:--"Nest in a small tree, well concealed by leaves, about 7 feet from the ground, near Pegu. A very neat cup measuring 3 inches diameter externally and 2·25 internally. The depth 1·75 inch outside and 1·25 inside. The sides of the nest, though very strongly woven, can be seen through. The materials consist of small fine branchlets of weeds, and the inside is neatly lined with grass. One or two dead leaves, or rather fragments, are used in the exterior walling.

"The nest was found on the 25th May, and contained three eggs slightly incubated. The ground-colour is a fresh pink, but with little gloss. The whole egg is covered with a profusion of dark purplish-red spots, more thickly disposed at the thick end, but everywhere frequent. In addition there are some underlying and much paler smears. The three eggs measured respectively ·75, ·78, and ·77 in length, by ·63, ·62, and ·61 in breadth.

"Subsequently I found five other nests, from the 1st April to the 20th June, all similar to the one described. Eggs invariably three. Average size of twelve eggs ·82 by ·6."

The nests of this species that I have seen have been very slight flimsy structures, nearly hemispherical cups, composed of fine twigs and the leaf-stalks of pennated leaves a little bound together with cobwebs and thinly lined with fine hair-like grass. In some cases a leaf or two has been attached to the outer surface to aid the concealment of the nest. The nest is very loosely woven just like a sieve, as a rule nowhere more than 0·25 inch thick, and with a truly hemispherical cavity, diameter about 2·5, depth about 1·25.

The eggs are of the ordinary Bulbul type, but not amongst the more richly-coloured examples of these; in shape and size they vary a good deal, but typically they seem to be moderately broad ovals slightly compressed towards the small end. The shell is fine and smooth, but has scarcely any appreciable gloss; the ground is pale pink or pinky white. At the large end the markings are dense, forming in some eggs an almost confluent zone, in others a mottled cap; they consist of irregular-shaped spots and specks of deep red and pale subsurface-looking greyish purple; over the rest of the surface of the egg outside the zone or cap the markings are much smaller in size and much more thinly scattered, and it is observable that the secondary purple markings are to a great extent confined to the zone or cap, as the case may be, and its immediate neighbourhood.

Occasionally the markings, which seem always to be small and speckly, are very sparsely set, leaving comparatively large portions of the surface unmarked; and occasionally eggs are met with in which the primary markings are wholly wanting, and there is nothing but a pale reddish-purple cloudy mottling over the greater portion of the surface of the egg.[A]

[Footnote A: PYCNONOTUS PLUMOSUS, Bl. _The Large Olive Bulbul_.

Ixus plumosus (_Bl.), Hume, cat._ no. 452 sept.

Mr. W. Davison writes:--"I found one nest of this Bulbul at Kossoom: it was of the ordinary Bulbul type and placed in a small but dense clump of cane, about 18 inches from the ground. The parent birds were very vociferous when the nest was approached."

The eggs of all these Bulbuls, though they are separable when individually compared, follow so closely the same type of colouring that, it is almost impossible to make their distinctions apparent by any verbal descriptions.

The eggs of the present species are like those of so many others, moderately broad ovals, obtuse at the large end, somewhat compressed towards the small end, at times slightly pyriform. The shell very fine, smooth and thin, but strong, and generally with an appreciable though not at all conspicuous gloss.

The ground-colour is pink or pinky white, and they are very thickly speckled and spotted everywhere, but extremely densely so, and there blotched also in a broad irregular zone, round the large end with rich reddish maroon and dull greyish or inky purple--the rich colour predominating in some eggs, the dull colour in others; and in some the markings being all extremely fine and speckly, while in others they are rather bolder. Two eggs measure 0·9 by 0·66.

PYCNONOTUS SIMPLEX, Less. _Moore's Olive Bulbul_.

Ixus brunneus (_Bl.), Hume, cat._ no. 452 oct.

Mr. W. Davison says:--"I took a nest of _P. simplex_ in some rather thick jungle at Klang. The nest, of the ordinary Bulbul type (in fact it might easily have passed for a nest of _Olocompsa_), was placed in the fork of a small sapling about 6 feet from the ground. The nest contained two eggs. The female was shot from the nest."

The eggs are moderately elongated, rather regular ovals, some specimens having a slight pyriform tendency. The shell is fine and compact, and seems to have generally an appreciable but not striking gloss. The ground-colour appears to have been creamy pink, and it is very thickly freckled and speckled all over with a rich maroon, in amongst which tiny clouds of pale purple may be faintly discerned; dense as are the markings everywhere, they are generally most so in a zone round the large end. Very possibly this species will be found to exhibit somewhat different types of coloration, as the eggs of all Bulbuls vary very much; but certainly typically the markings of this species are much more speckly than in most of the others, forming a universal stippling over the entire surface. The two eggs measure 0·9 and 0·88 in length by 0·62 in breadth.]

Family SITTIDAE.

315. Sitta himalayensis, Jard. & Selby. _The White-tailed Nuthatch_.

Sitta himalayensis, _J. & S., Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 385; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 248.

According to Mr. Hodgson's notes and drawings this species begins to lay in April, constructing a shallow saucer-like nest of moss lined with moss-roots, in holes of trees at no great elevation from the ground. One such nest, the measurements of which are recorded, was 3.25 inches in diameter and 2 in height externally; the cavity was 2·25 inches in diameter and 1·25 inch in depth. They lay three or four pure white eggs slightly speckled with red, which measure about 0·72 inch in length by 0·55 inch in width. They breed once a year, and both sexes assist in incubating the eggs and rearing the young.

Mr. R. Thompson says:--"In Kumaon the White-tailed Nuthatch breeds in May and June, laying five or six eggs, in holes in trees, especially in oaks."

Colonel G.F.L. Marshall writes:--"This bird is an early breeder in Naini Tal; a nest found on the 25th April contained half-fledged young. It was in a natural hollow of a tree about 10 feet from the ground in a thick trunk; the hole was closed up with a kind of stiff gummy substance, leaving only a circular entrance about an inch in diameter, just as I have seen in nests of _Sitta europaea_. The old birds were busily engaged in feeding the young. Another nest containing young was found on the 28th April in an oak tree at about 7000 feet elevation; both birds were feeding the young, and the nest was similar to the last except that in this case it was so low down in the trunk that, sitting on the ground, I could put my ear against the hole. From a third nest, found on the 2nd May, the young had apparently just fled. My experience bears out Mr. Hodgson's observations: I have often been up here in May and June searching closely and never found a nest; this year I came up for the first time in April, and within a few days find three nests with young. I may add that after the 10th May all the Nuthatches I have seen were in small parties, apparently parents with their young."

316. Sitta cinnamomeiventris, Blyth. _The Cinnamon-bellied Nuthatch_.

Sitta cinnamomeoventris, _Bl., Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 387.

Writing from Sikhim, Mr. Gammie says:--"I lately took the nest of _Sitta cinnamomeiventris_ at 2000 feet. It was 20 feet from the ground in a soft decaying bamboo on the edge of large jungle. The birds had made a small hole just below an internode, and from the next internode below had filled up the hollow of the bamboo with alternate layers of green moss and pieces of tree-bark of about an inch or more square to within a few inches of the entrance-hole. Each layer of moss was about an inch thick, but the bark layer not more than a quarter of an inch, the thickness of the bark itself. On the top of this pile, which was a foot high, was a pad three inches wide by two in depth, of fine moss, fur, a feather or two, and a few insects' wings intermixed, for the eggs to rest on. The fur looks like that of a rat. There were four hard-set eggs, which, unfortunately, got broken in the taking. One of them only was measurable, and it was 0·65 inch by 0·5. I send the shell-fragments to show the coloration."

317. Sitta neglecta, Walden. _The Burmese Nuthatch_.

Sitta neglecta, _Wald., Hume, cat._ no. 250 bis.