Chapter 31

Mr. Oates, who found the nest of this Warbler in Pegu, says:--"June 29th. Found a nest sewn into a broad soft leaf of a weed in forest about 2 feet from the ground. The edges of the leaf are drawn together and fastened by white vegetable fibres. The nest is composed entirely of fine grass, no other material entering into its composition. For further security the nest is stitched to the leaves in a few places; the depth of the nest is about 3 inches, and internal diameter all the way down about 1½. Eggs three, very glossy, pale blue, with specks and dashes of pale reddish brown, chiefly at the larger end, where they form a cap. Size ·58, ·62, ·61, by ·47."

Mr. Mandelli sends me a regular Tailor-bird's nest as that of this species. It was found below Yendong in Native Sikhim on the 1st May, and contained three fresh eggs. The nest itself is a beautiful little cup, composed of silky vegetable down and excessively fine grass-stems, and a very little black hair firmly felted together, and is placed between two living leaves of a sapling neatly sewn together at the margins with bright yellow silk.

The eggs are rather elongated, very regular ovals. The shell stout for the size of the egg, but very fine and compact, and with a moderate gloss. The ground-colour is a very delicate pale greenish blue. At or round the larger end there is very generally a mottled cap or zone (more commonly the latter) of duller or brighter brownish red, while irregular blotches, streaks, spots, and specks of the same colour, but usually a slightly paler shade, are more or less sparsely scattered over the rest of the surface of the egg, sometimes they are almost wholly wanting. Occasionally the zone is at the small end.

The eggs measure from 0·60 to 0·62 in length, by 0·43 to 0·48 in breadth; but the average of six eggs is 0·61 by 0·45.

384. Franklinia buchanani (Blyth). _The Rufous-fronted Wren-Warbler_.

Franklinia buchanani (_Blyth), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 186; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 551.

The Rufous-fronted Wren-Warbler breeds throughout Central India, the Central Provinces, the North-western Provinces, the Punjab, and Rajpootana. It affects chiefly the drier and warmer tracts, and, though said to have been obtained in the Nepal Terai, has never been met with by _me_ either there or in any very moist, swampy locality. The breeding-season extends from the end of May until the beginning of September.

The nests, according to my experience, are always placed at heights of from a foot to 4 feet from the ground, in low scrub-jungle or bushes. They vary greatly in size and shape, according to position. Some are oblate spheroids with the aperture near the top, some are purse-like and suspended, and some are regular cups. One of the former description measured externally 5 inches in diameter one way by 3¼ inches the other. One of the suspended nests was 7 inches long by 3 wide, and one of the cup-shaped nests was nearly 4 inches in diameter and stood, perhaps, at most 2½ inches high. The egg-cavity in the different nests varies from 1¾ to 2¼ inches in diameter, and from less than 2 to fully 3 inches in depth. Externally the nest is very loosely and, generally, raggedly constructed of very fine grass-stems and tow-like vegetable fibre used in different proportions in different nests; those in which grass is chiefly used being most ragged and straggling, and those in which most vegetable fibre has been made use of being neatest and most compact. In all the nests that I have seen the egg-cavity has been lined with something very soft. In many of the nests the lining is composed of small felt-like pieces of some dull salmon-coloured fungus, with which the whole interior is closely plastered; in others there is a dense lining of soft silky vegetable down; and in others the down and fungus are mingled. They lay from four to five eggs, never more than this latter number according to my experience.

"At the end of June 1867," writes Mr. Brooks, "I took two nests of this bird at Chunar in low ber bushes about 2 feet from the ground. They were little spheres of fine grass with a hole at the side. One contained four eggs; these were of a greyish-white ground or nearly pure white, finely speckled over with reddish brown, some of the eggs exhibiting a tendency to form a zone round the large end, and others with a complete zone."

"At Sambhur," Mr. Adam says, "this Wren-Warbler is always found wherever there are low bushes. It breeds just before the rains, but I have not recorded the date. I had a nest with the bird and five eggs sent to me. The eggs are pale bluish white, with reddish-brown spots and freckles all over them."

"During July, August, and the early part of September," remarks Mr. W. Blewitt, "I found a great number of the nests and eggs of this bird in the jungle-preserves of Hansie and its neighbourhood. The nests, of which I have already sent you several, were mostly in ber (_Zizyphus jujuba_) and hinse (_Capparis aphylla_) bushes, at heights of from 3 to 4 feet from the ground. Five was the largest number of eggs that I found in any one nest."

Major C.T. Bingham remarks:--"I found several nests of this bird in the beginning of October at Delhi in the jherberry bushes so plentiful on the Ridge. Both nests and eggs are very like those of _Cisticola cursitans_ before described; the only difference I could find was that the entrance in the nest of _C. cursitans_ that I found was at the top, and in all the nests of _F. buchanani_ at the side rather low down; the nests of the latter are also firmer and more globular in shape. The eggs are, to my eye, identical in colour and form."

Mr. G. Reid informs us that at Lucknow it is fairly common and a permanent resident. It makes an oblong, loosely constructed nest with the aperture near the top, and lays three or four white eggs minutely spotted with dingy red.

Mr. J. Davidson writes that in Western Khandeish this Warbler is the commonest bird, breeding about Dhulia in July, August, and September.

Colonel E.A. Butler writes:--"I found a nest of the Rufous-fronted Wren-Warbler at Deesa on the 27th July, 1875. It was in a grass beerh, and placed in a heap of dead thorns overgrown with grass and about a foot from the ground. It was composed externally of dry grass-stems, with lumps of silky white vegetable down (_Calotropis_) scattered sparingly over the whole nest. The lining consisted of very fine dry grass neatly put together and felted with silky down, and a considerable amount of the dull salmon-coloured fungus or lichen referred to in the 'Rough Draft of Nests and Eggs,' p. 359. In shape the nest is nearly spherical, being slightly oval however, with a small aperture near the top. The entrance was 1½ inches in diameter, and the nest itself roughly measured from the outside 4½ inches in length and 4 in width. The eggs, usually four in number, are white, closely speckled over with pale rusty red, intermingled with a few pale washed-out inky markings, in some cases at the large end, which is surrounded by a zone clear and well-marked in some instances, less distinct in others. I found other nests in the same neighbourhood as below:--

"Aug. 24, 1875. A nest containing 4 fresh eggs. July 20, 1876. " " 4 " " July 28, " " " 4 young birds. Aug. 4, " " " 4 fresh eggs. Aug. 5, " " " 4 " " Aug. 5, " " " 4 " " Aug. 5, " " " 5 " " Aug. 8, " " " 5 " " Aug. 14, " " " 5 " "

"In every one of the above instances the nest was exactly similar to the one I have described, and built in the same kind of situation, i.e. in heaps of dead thorns overgrown with long grass. The eggs are all much the same, the spots being larger in some than in others and more numerous in some cases than in others. In one set I have the ground is very pale bluish white (skimmed milk) instead of being pure white. As a rule the eggs are almost exactly like the eggs of _C. cursitans_, and if mixed I doubt very much if any person could separate them. On examining the salmon-coloured fungus-lining it appears to me to be nothing more nor less than small pieces of dried ber leaves, and I have never examined a nest without finding some of this material at the bottom of it."

"The Rufous-fronted Wren-Warbler," writes Lieut. Barnes, "breeds in Rajpootana during July, August, and the early part of September. The nest, composed of grass, is loosely constructed, and placed in low bushes or scrub."

The eggs vary somewhat in size and shape; a moderately broad oval, slightly compressed towards the larger end, being, however, the commonest type. Examining a large series, it appears that variations from this type are more commonly of an elongated than a spherical form. The eggs are of the same character as those of _Cisticola cursitans_ (p. 236), but yet differ somewhat. The eggs are many of them fairly glossy, the shells very delicate and fragile; the ground-colour white, usually slightly greyish, but in some specimens faintly tinged with very pale green or pink. Typically they are very thickly and very finely speckled all over with somewhat dingy red or purplish red. In three out of four eggs the markings are densest and largest towards the large end; and, to judge from the large series before me, at least one in four exhibits a more or less well-defined mottled zone or cap at this end, formed by the partial confluence of multitudinous specks.

In some specimens the markings are pale inky purple, and in some slightly purplish brown, but these are abnormal varieties. In one or two eggs fairly-sized spots and blotches are intermingled with the minute specklings, but this also is rare. Of course in different specimens the density of the speckling varies greatly: in some eggs not a fifth of the surface is covered with the markings, while in some it appears as if there were more of these than of the ground-colour.

In length the eggs vary from 0·55 to 0·66, and in breadth from 0·43 to 0·52; but the average of eighty-seven eggs is 0·62 by 0·48.

385. Franklinia cinereicapilla (Hodgs.). _Hodgson's Wren-Warbler_.

Prinia cinereocapilla, _Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 172; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 537.

Captain Hutton says[A]:--"In this species the structure of the nest is somewhat coarser than in _P. stewarti_, and it is more loosely put together, but like that species it is also a true Tailor-bird.

[Footnote A: I reproduce this note as it appeared in the 'Rough Draft,' but I have no faith in the identification of this rare bird by Capt Hutton. Mr. Hume is apparently of the same opinion, as he does not quote the Dhoon as one of the localities in which, this species occurs (S.F. ix, p. 286). It may be well, however, to point out that Mr. Brooks procured this species at Dhunda, in the Bhagirati valley, so that it is not unlikely to occur in the Dhoon.--ED.]

"In the specimen before me two large leaves are stitched together at the edges, and between these rests the cup-shaped nest composed of grass-stalks and fine roots, as in _P. stewarti_, and without any lining, while, being more completely surrounded by or enfolded in the leaves, the cottony seed-down which binds together the fibres in the others is here dispensed with.

"The eggs were three in number, of a pale bluish hue, irrorated with specks of rufous-brown, and chiefly so at the larger end, where they form an ill-defined ring.

"The eggs measured 0·62 by 0·44.

"The nest was found hanging on a large-leafed annual shrub growing in the Dhoon, and was placed about 2 feet from the ground. It was taken on 22nd July."

386. Laticilla burnesi (Bl.). _The Long-tailed Grass-Warbler_. Eurycercus burnesii, _Bl., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 74.

Mr. S.B. Doig appears to be the only ornithologist who has found the nest of the Long-tailed Grass-Warbler. Writing of the Eastern Narra District, in Sind, he says:--

"This bird is in certain localities very numerous, but invariably confines itself to dense thickets of revel and tamarisk jungle. The discovery of my first nest was as follows:

"On the 13th March, while closely searching some thick grass along the banks of a small canal, I heard a peculiar twittering which I did not recognize. After standing perfectly still for a short while, I at length caught sight of the bird, which I at once identified as _L. burnesi_. Leaving the bed of the canal in which I was walking and making a slight detour, I came suddenly over the spoil-bank of the canal on to the place where the bird had been calling. My sudden appearance caused the bird to get very excited, and it kept on twittering, approaching me at one time until quite close and then going away again a short distance; I at once began searching for its nest, and out of the first tussock of grass I touched, close to where I was standing, flew the female, who joined her mate, after which both birds kept up a continuous and angry twittering. On opening out the grass, I found the nest with three fresh eggs in it, placed right in the centre of the tuft and close to the ground. The eggs were of a pale green ground-colour, covered with large irregular blotches of purplish brown, and not very unlike some of the eggs of _Passer flavicollis_. After this I found several nests, but they were all building, and were one and all deserted, though in many instances I never touched the nest, often never saw it, as on seeing the birds flying in and out of the grass with building material in their bills I left the place and returned in ten days' time, but only to find the nest deserted. In one case where a single egg had been laid, I found that the bird before deserting the nest had broken the egg. In July I again got a nest and shot the parent birds; the eggs in this nest were quite of a different type, being of a very pale cream ground-colour, with large rusty blotches, principally confined to the larger end. The nests of this bird are composed of coarse grass, the inside being composed of the finer parts; they are 4 to 5 inches external diameter and 2½ inches internal diameter, the cavity being about 1½ inches deep. The months in which they breed are, as far as I at present know, March, June, and September. The eggs vary in size from ·65 to ·80 in length and from ·50 to ·55 in breadth. The average of seven eggs is ·72 in length and ·54 in breadth."

The eggs of this species vary somewhat in size and shape, but they are typically regular rather elongated ovals, rather obtuse at both ends, and often slightly compressed towards the small end. The shell is fine and compact and has a slight gloss; the ground-colour is sometimes greenish white, sometimes faintly creamy. The eggs are generally pretty thickly and finely speckled and scratched all over, and besides the fine markings there are a greater or smaller number of more or less large irregular blotches and splashes, chiefly confined to the large end. These markings, large and small, are brown, very variable in shade, in some eggs reddish, in some chocolate, in some raw sienna, &c. Besides these primary markings most eggs exhibit a number of paler subsurface secondary markings, varying in colour from sepia to lavender or pale purple; these are mostly confined to the large end (though tiny spots of the same tint occur occasionally on all parts of the egg), where with the large blotches they often form a more or less conspicuous and more or less confluent but always ill-defined zone or even cap. Here and there an egg absolutely wants the larger blotches, but even in such cases the specklings are more crowded about the large end, and these with the lilac clouds still combine to indicate a sort of zone.

The eggs I possess of this species, sent me by Mr. Doig, vary from 0·71 to 0·81 in length by 0·52 to 0·59 in breadth; but the average of seven eggs is 0·72 by 0·55.

388. Graminicola bengalensis, Jerd. _The Large Grass-Warbler_.

Graminicola bengalensis, _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 177. Drymoica bengalensis (_Jerd.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 542.

Long ago the late Colonel Tytler gave me the following note on this species:--"I shot these birds at Dacca in 1852, and sent a description and a drawing of them to Mr. Blyth. They were named after my esteemed friend Jules Verreaux, of Paris. They are not uncommon at Dacca in grass-jungle. I think the bird Dr. Jerdon gives in his 'Birds of India' as _Graminicola bengalensis_, Jerdon, No. 542, p. 177, vol. ii., is meant for this species. The genus _Graminicola_, under which he places this bird, appears to be a genus of Dr. Jerdon's own, for it is not in Gray's 'Genera and Subgenera of Birds in the British Museum,' printed in 1855. If it is the same bird as Dr. Jerdon's, then my name, which I communicated in 1851-52 not only to Mr. Blyth but also to Prince Bonaparte and M. Jules Verreaux, and which was published in my Fauna of Dacca, has, it seems to me, the priority."

The birds _are_ identical. Jerdon gave me one of his Cachar specimens, and I compared it with Tytler's types, and certainly Tytler's name was published ten years before Jerdon's (_vide_ Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., Sept. 1854, p. 176); but no description was published, and I fear therefore that the name given by Colonel Tytler cannot be maintained, unless indeed, which I have been unable to ascertain, either Bonaparte or Verreaux figured or described the specimens Tytler sent them in some French work.

I have only one supposed nest of this species, brought me from Dacca by a native collector who worked there for me under Mr. F.B. Simson. He did not take it himself; it was brought to him with one of the parent birds by a shikaree. The evidence is, therefore, very bad, but I give the facts for what they are worth.

The nest is a rather massive and deep cup, the lower portion prolonged downwards so as to form a short truncated cone. It is fixed between three reeds, is constructed of sedge and vegetable fibre firmly wound together and round the reeds, and is lined with fine grass-roots. It measures externally 5 inches in height and nearly 4 inches in diameter, measuring outside the reeds which are incorporated in the outer surface of the nest. The cavity is about 2½ inches in diameter and nearly 2 inches deep. It contained four eggs, hard-set; only one could be preserved, and that was broken in bringing up-country; so I could not measure it, but the shell was a sort of pale greenish grey or dull greenish white, rather thickly but very faintly speckled and spotted with very dull purplish and reddish brown, with some grey spots intermingled. The nest was obtained (no date noted) between the middle of July and the middle of August. I note that the eggs were on the point of hatching, so that the fresh egg would probably be somewhat brighter coloured.

389. Megalurus palustris, Horsf. _The Striated Marsh-Warbler_.

Megalurus palustris, _Horsf., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 70; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 440.

Nothing has hitherto been recorded of the nidification of the Striated Marsh-Warbler, although it has a very wide distribution and is very common in suitable localities.

The Striated Marsh-Babbler, as Jerdon calls it, has nothing of the Babbler in it. It rises perpendicularly out of the reeds, sings rather screechingly while in the air, and descends suddenly. It has much more of a song than any of the Babblers, a much stronger flight, and its sudden, upward, towering flight and equally sudden descent are unlike anything seen amongst the Babblers.

Mr. E.C. Nunn procured the nest and an egg of this species (which along with the parent birds he kindly forwarded to me) at Hoshungabad on the 4th May, 1868. The nest was round, composed of dry grass, and situated in a cluster of reeds between two rocks in the bed of the Nerbudda. It contained a single fresh egg.

Writing from Wau, in the Pegu District, Mr. Oates remarks:--"I found a nest on the 19th May containing four eggs recently laid. The female flew off only at the last moment, when my pony was about to tread on the tuft of grass she had selected for her home.

"The nest was placed in a small but very dense grass-tuft about a foot above the ground. It was made entirely of coarse grasses, and assimilated well with the dry and entangled stems among which it lay. The nest was very deep and purse-shaped. It was about 8 inches in total height at the back, and some 2 inches lower in front, the upper part of the purse being as it were cut off slantingly, and thus leaving an entrance which was more or less circular. The width is 6½ inches, and the breadth from front to back 4 inches. The interior is smooth, lined with somewhat finer grass, and measures 4 inches in depth by 3 inches from side to side, and by 2 inches from front to back.

"_Megalurus palustris_ is very common throughout the large plains lying between the Pegu and Sittang Rivers. At the end of May they were all breeding. The nest is, however, difficult to find, owing to the vast extent of favourable ground suited to its habits. Every yard of the land produces a clump of grass likely enough to hold a nest, and as the female sits still till the nest is actually touched, it becomes a difficult and laborious task to find the nest."

He subsequently remarks:--"May seems to be the month in which these birds lay here. The nest is very often placed on the ground under the shelter of some grass-tuft."

Mr. Cockburn writes to me:--"I found a nest of this bird on the north bank of the Bramaputra, near Sadija. One of the birds darted off the nest a foot or two from me in an excited way, which led me to search. The nest was almost a perfect oval, with a slice taken off at the top on one side, built in a clump of grass, and only 9 or 10 inches from the ground. It was made of sarpat-grass, and lined internally with finer grasses. The grass had a bleached and washed-out appearance, while the clump was quite green. This was on the 29th May. I noticed at the same time that the nest was not interwoven with the living grass. I removed it easily with the hand."

Mr. Cripps says:--"They breed in April and May in the Dibrugarh district, placing their deep cup-shaped nests in tussocks of grass wherever it is swampy, in some instances the bottoms of the nests being wet. Four seems to be the greatest number of eggs in a nest."

The eggs are much the same shape and size as those of _Acrocephalus stentoreus_. They have a dead-white ground, thickly speckled and spotted with blackish and purplish brown, and have but a slight gloss; the speckling, everywhere thick, is generally densest at the large end, and there chiefly do spots, as big as an ordinary pin's head, occur. At the large end, besides these specklings, there is a cloudy, dull, irregular cap, or else isolated patches, of very pale inky purple, which more or less obscure the ground-colour. In the peculiar speckly character of the markings these eggs recall doubtless some specimens of the eggs of the different Bulbuls, but their natural affinities seem to be with those of the _Acrocephalinae_.

The eggs vary from 0·8 to 0·97 in length, and from 0·61 to 0·69 in breadth; but the average of twelve eggs is 0·85 by 0·64.

390. Schoenicola platyura (Jerd.). _The Broad-tailed Grass-Warbler_.

Schoenicola platyura (_Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 73.

Colonel E.A. Butler discovered the nest of the Broad-tailed Grass-Warbler at Belgaum. He writes:--