Chapter 38

"In addition to the above, I found nests in the same neighbourhood in 1875. One on the 14th August containing four young birds almost ready to leave the nest. It was placed in the middle of a tussock of coarse grass on the side of a nullah on a bank overgrown with grass and bushes, and my attention was attracted first of all to the spot by the incessant chattering and uneasiness of the two old birds, one of which had a large grasshopper in its mouth. After hiding behind a bush for a few minutes, I saw the hen bird fly to the nest, which led to its discovery. The nest was dome-shaped, with an entrance upon one side, composed exteriorly of blades of rather coarse dry grass (green, however, as a rule when the nest is first built), and interiorly of similar, but finer, material. It is an easy nest to find when once the locality in which the birds breed is discovered, as it is a conspicuous ball of grass, smeared over, often more or less, exteriorly with a silky white vegetable-down or cobweb, and many of the blades of the tussock in which it is placed are often drawn down and woven into the nest, which at once attracts attention. Then, again, the cock bird is almost always to be found on the top of some low tree near the nest, uttering his peculiar ventriloquistic note '_tissip, tissip, tissip_,' etc. All the above nests were exactly alike and in similar situations, viz. fixed in the centre of a tussock of coarse grass on the banks of some deep nullahs running through a large grass 'Beerh.' The eggs remind me more of the English Robin's eggs than those of any other species I know. The ground-colour is dull white, sometimes tinted with pale green, and the markings reddish fawn. In some cases the eggs are peppered all over with a conspicuous zone at the large end, sometimes a dense cap instead of a zone. In other cases the markings, though always present, are almost invisible, as also the zone or cap. They are about the size of the eggs of the Spotted Flycatcher. I found a few other nests besides those I have mentioned during July and August 1875."

Captain Cock informed me that this species is "common in the jungles around Seetapore. Nest is largish, dome-shaped, and placed low down in a thorny bush. The bird lays in August five eggs, the _fac-simile_ of the eggs of _Pratincola ferrea_, perhaps of a more elongated type than the eggs of that bird."

Mr. H. Parker, writing on the birds of North-west Ceylon, refers to this bird under the titles _D. jerdoni_ and _D. valida_, and informs us that it breeds from January to May.

The eggs of this species are somewhat elongated ovals. The ground-colour is a greenish or greyish stone-colour, and they are finely and often rather sparsely freckled all over with very faint reddish brown, or brownish pink in most eggs; these frecklings are gathered together into a more or less dense zone round the large end, forming a conspicuous ring there much darker-coloured than the frecklings over the rest of the surface. The eggs have a faint gloss.

In length they vary from 0·68 to 0·75, and in breadth from 0·49 to 0·52, but the average appears to be 0·7 by 0·5.

466. Prinia inornata, Sykes. _The Indian Wren-Warbler_.

Drymoipus inornatus (_Sykes_), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii. p. 178; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 543. Drymoipus longicaudatus (_Tick._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 180. Drymoipus terricolor, _Hume_; _Hume, Rough Draft N, & E._ no. 543 bis.

The breeding-season of this Wren-Warbler commences with the first fall of rain, and lasts through July and August to quite the middle of September.

The birds construct a very elegant nest, always closely and compactly woven, of very fine blades, or strips of blades, of grass, in no nests exceeding one-twentieth of an inch in width, and in many of not above half this breadth. The grass is always used when fresh and green, so as to be easily woven in and out. Both parents work at the nest, clinging at first to the neighbouring stems of grass or twigs, and later to the nest itself, while they push the ends of the grass backwards and forwards in and out; in fact, they work very much like the Baya (_P. baya_), and the nest, though much smaller, is in texture very like that of this latter species, the great difference being that the Baya, with us, more often uses _stems_, and _Prinia_ strips of _blades_ of grass. The nest varies in shape and in size, according to its situation: a very favourite locality is in amongst clumps of the _sarpatta_, or serpent-grass, in which case the bird builds a long and purse-like nest, attached above and all round to the surrounding grass-stems, with a small entrance near the top. Such nests are often 8 or 9 inches in length, and 3 inches or even more in external diameter, and with an internal cavity measuring 1½ inch in diameter, and having a depth of nearly 4 inches below the lower margin of the entrance-hole. At other times they are hung between bare twigs, often of some thorny bush, or are even placed in low herbaceous plants; in these cases they are usually nearly globular, with the entrance-hole near the top; they are then probably 3½ inches in external diameter in every direction. In other cases they are hung to or between two or more leaves to which the birds attach the nest, much as a Tailor-bird would do, using, however, fine grass instead of cobwebs or cotton-wool for ligaments. I have never found more than five eggs in any nest, and four is certainly the normal number.

Mr. R.M. Adam remarks:--"I had a nest brought me in Oudh on the 17th April, containing four eggs. About Agra and Muttra, where as you know the birds are _very_ common, I have always obtained the greatest number of eggs during August; four is the regular number; in one taken on the 16th August I found five eggs."

Mr. W. Blewitt writes:--"During July, August, and the early part of September I found multitudes of nests of this species in the neighbourhood of Hausie, almost exclusively in the Dhasapoor, Dhana, and Secundapoor _Beerhs_ or jungle-preserves.

"The nests, of which numerous specimens were sent to you, were of the usual type, and were nearly all found in ber (_Z. jujuba_) and hinse (_Capparis aphylla_) bushes, at heights of from 3 to 4 feet from the ground. I did not meet with more than four eggs in any one nest."

Colonel E.A. Butler says:--"The Indian Wren-Warbler is very common in the plains, frequenting low scrub-jungle and long grass studied with low bushes (_Calotropis, Zizyphus_, &c.). It breeds during the monsoon, commencing to build in July, during which month and August in the neighbourhood of Deesa I must have examined some three or four dozen nests. There are two distinct types of nests, and there may be two species of this genus in this part of the country; but I must confess that after shooting a large number of specimens of both sexes, and after examining an immense series of the eggs, I have failed to make out more than one species, and that Mr. Hume informs me is his _Drymoipus terricolor_. The nests alluded to vary as follows:--One type is very closely and compactly woven, as described of _D. terricolor_ ('Nests and Eggs, Rough Draft,' p. 349), with the entrance almost at the top. The other type is built of the same material, with the exception that the grass is rather coarser, but is more in shape like a Wren's nest, and the grass is somewhat loosely put together instead of being woven, and it has the entrance with a slight canopy over it upon one side. The eggs four, and not uncommonly five, in number, were exactly alike in both types, as also were the specimens of the birds themselves that I obtained.

"Nearly all the nests I have seen have been built on the outside of ber bushes (_Z. jujuba_), at heights varying from 2½ to 5 feet from the ground."

Mr. B. Aitken says:--"I found this nest at Bombay on the 13th October, 1873, at the edge of a tank some 2 feet above the ground. I have found four or five precisely similar ones before, generally in similar situations. The nest was strongly attached to the stems and leaves of four herbaceous plants growing close together. In many cases the strips of grass had been passed through and pierced the leaves. The nest is deep and purse-shaped; the sides were prolonged upwards, except in front where the entrance was, and joined above so as to form a canopy. The nest has no lining, and none of the nests of this species that I ever saw have ever had any lining. The whole nest inside and out is composed of fine strips of blades of grass interwoven. The eggs, five in number, varied much in size. In colour they were bright blue, most irregularly blotched with various shades of purplish brown: some of the blotches very large, some mere specks. Each egg had also washed-out stains or blotches. The smaller eggs were by far the brighter.

"By reason of the roof and walls the entrance to the nest was at one side, but there was nothing that could be called a hole. The roof projected over the entrance, forming a porch.

"Six or eight nests which I have seen of this species were all over water. But the birds are by no means confined to marshy localities.

"Even in the middle of the rains the nests are invariably made of dry yellow grass.

"One nest found in Berar was in a babool bush, where of course there could have been no leaves pierced."

Mr. E. Aitken writes:--"I have found a good many nests in Bombay, and it breeds in Poona too. My notes only mention two nests with eggs, on the 22nd and 25th August, but I found some much later; and I am almost certain it begins to lay much earlier, if not actually at the beginning of the monsoon, like _Orthotomus_ and _Prinia_.

"It builds in gardens and cultivated fields, especially in the vicinity of water, and often among plants growing in water.

"The nest is very firmly attached to the twigs of some plant where long grass or other plants completely surround and conceal it. It is usually about 3 foot from the ground. It varies much in size and shape, some being much deeper than others, and some having the top open; others an entrance somewhat to one side.

"I have always found three or four eggs--bright blue, with large irregular purplish-brown blotches and no hair-lines. I should have said that the nest is a bag, very uniformly woven, of fine grass, and _never with any lining_--at any rate in none that I have ever found. They never use the same nest twice, always building a fresh one even if you only rob without injuring the first. I think they have only one brood in the year, but, like _Orthotomus_ and _Prinia_, one or two nests are generally deserted or destroyed by some accident before they succeed in rearing a brood."

Major C.T. Bingham informs us that this Wren-Warbler is a common breeder both at Allahabad and at Delhi from March to September. Builds a neat bottle-shaped nest in clumps of surpat grass, of fine strips of the grass itself, which I have repeatedly watched the birds tearing off. The eggs are lovely little oval fragile shells of a deep blue, blotched and speckled and covered with fine hair-like lines, chiefly at the large end, of a deep chocolate-brown.

The eggs are a moderately long, and generally a pretty perfect, oval, often pointed towards one end, sometimes globular, seldom, if ever, much elongated. The shell is fine and glossy, and comparatively thick and strong. The ground-colour is normally a beautiful pale greenish blue, most richly marked with various shades of deep chocolate and reddish brown. Nothing can exceed the beauty or variety of the markings, which are a combination of bold blotches, clouds, and spots, with delicate, intricately interwoven lines, recalling somewhat, but more elaborate and, I think, finer than, those of our early favourite--the Yellow Ammer. The markings are invariably most conspicuous at the large end, where there is very commonly a conspicuous confluent cap, and the delicate lines are almost without exception confined to the broader half of the egg.

Very commonly the smaller end of the egg is entirely spotless, and I have a beautiful specimen now before me in which the only markings consist of a ring of delicate lines round the large end. Some idea of the delicacy and intricacy of these lines may be formed when I mention that this zone is barely one tenth of an inch broad, and yet in a good light between twenty and thirty interlaced lines making up this zone may be counted.

The intricacy of the pattern is in some cases almost incredible, and, what with the remarkable character of the patterns and the rich and varying shades of their colours, these little eggs are, I think, amongst the most beautiful known.

Occasionally the ground-colour of the eggs, instead of being a bright greenish blue, is a pale, rather dull, olive-green, and still more rarely it is a clear pinkish white. These latter eggs are so rare that I have only seen six in about as many hundreds.

In size the eggs vary from 0·53 to 0·7 in length, and from 0·42 to 0·5 in breadth; but the average of one hundred and twenty eggs measured was 0·61 by 0·45.

467. Prinia jerdoni (Blyth). _The Southern Wren-Warbler_.

Drymoeca jerdoni (_Blyth_), _Hume, cat._ no. 544 ter.

Mr. Davison says:--"The Southern Wren-Warbler breeds chiefly on the slopes of the Nilgiris about the Badaga cultivation. The nest is entirely composed of fine grass, and is generally placed about 2 or 3 feet from the ground, either in a clump of long grass or attached to the branch of a small bush. It is often suspended, domed, and with the opening near the top. The eggs, generally three, are blue, spotted and lined with deep red-brown."

From Kotagherry Miss Cockburn tells us that "the Common Wren-Warbler has no song, but is loud and frequent in its repetition of a few notes during the breeding-season. Its nest, which is globular, is built in the same shape as that of _P. socialis_, with the entrance at one end, on some low bush, but it only uses _one_ material, namely fine long grass, and does not add any soft lining. The colour of its eggs, however, is totally different, of a light bluish green, and having a number of spots and streaks like dark threads carried round and through the spots, which are mostly at the thick end. The breeding-season lasts from April to July."

Mr. C.J.W. Taylor, writing from Manzeerabad, Mysore, says:--"Fairly common throughout the district. Eggs taken on the 15th July, 1882."

Mr. Rhodes W. Morgan, writing from South India, remarks:--"It builds a neat pendent nest in long grass on the Nilgiris. The nest is composed entirely of short pieces of grass fitted together, and is very compact. The eggs are three in number, and are of a blue colour, with large blotches and hair-like streaks of a dark reddish brown at the upper end. An egg measured ·69 inch by ·5."

The eggs of this species do not differ materially in size, shape, or markings from those of _P. inornata_ which are very fully described above.

468. Prinia blanfordi (Walden). _The Burmese Wren-Warbler_.

Drymoeca blanfordi, _Wald., Hume, cat._ no. 543 ter.

Mr. Oates, who found this bird very common in Pegu, writes:--"The Burmese Wren-Warbler is perhaps the commonest bird of the Pegu plains. From Myitkyo on the Sittang, and possibly from further north, down to Rangoon, it is to be found in all the low tracts covered with grass.

"Where it occurs it is a constant resident and breeds from May to August. I have found the nest in the middle of May, but it is not till July that the bulk of the birds lay.

"The nest is never more than 4 feet from the ground, and is attached either to two or more stalks of elephant-grass or to the stem of a low weed, or to the blades of certain tender grasses which grow in thick tufts. There is little or no attempt at concealment. The materials forming the nest are entirely fine grasses, of equal coarseness or fineness throughout, gathered green, and so beautifully woven together that it is almost impossible to destroy a nest by tearing it asunder, although it may be looked through. In shape it is somewhat of a cylinder, with a tendency to swell out at the middle. Its length, or rather height (for its longer axis, being invariably parallel to the stalks to which the nest is attached, is generally upright), is from 6 to 8 inches, and its extreme width 4. The entrance is placed at the top of the nest, the sides of which are produced an inch or two above the lower edge of the entrance. The thickness of the walls is very small, seldom reaching half, and generally being only a quarter, of an inch. Occasionally the nest is almost globular, but the back of the entrance is in every case produced upwards some inches. There is no lining at all.

"The eggs never exceed four, and frequently are only three, in number, and the female does not commence sitting till the full number is laid. She deserts the nest on the slightest provocation; and if a nest with only one or two eggs is found, and the fingers inserted, it is useless to leave the eggs in hopes of getting more. She will lay no more. I have tested this in at least ten cases."

Major C.T. Bingham tells us:--"About Kaukarit, on the Houndraw river in Tenasserim, I found this species, in June 1878, very common. They were then breeding, and I found several nests, all, however, unfinished; these were, in material and make, very like the nests of _P. inornata_ which I had taken years ago in India."

The eggs of this species recall in many respects those of _P. inornata_, but the ground-colour is much more variable, and the markings are more blotchy and less intricate in shape. They are pretty regular ovals, and while some are very glossy others exhibit but little of this. The ground-colour is perhaps typically pale greenish blue, but in a great many specimens this is more or less obliterated by a reddish or pinkish tinge, as if the colour of the markings had run; in some the ground is a sort of reddish olive, in some pinky white. The markings are large blotches and spots, often forming zones or caps about the larger end, where they seem almost always to be most conspicuous, as they vary in colour from an intense burnt-sienna which is almost black, through a dingy maroon, and again to a dull, somewhat pale reddish brown; here and there individual eggs exhibit a hair-line or two, or a hieroglyphic-like mark, but these are the exceptions.

The eggs vary in length from 0·53 to 0·64 inch, and in breadth from 0·42 to 0·45; but the average of fourteen eggs is 0·58 by 0·44.

Very constantly smears or clouds of a paler shade than the blotches cover large portions of the surface between these. Occasionally all the markings are smeared and ill-defined, and in some eggs they are almost entirely wanting, and nothing but a scratch or two about the large end is to be seen.

Family LANIIDAE

Subfamily LANIINAE.

469. Lanius lahtora(Sykes). _The Indian Grey Shrike_.

Lamus lahtora (_Sykes), Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 400. Collyrio lahtora, _Sykes, Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 256.

The Indian Grey Shrike lays from January to August, and occasionally up to October, but the majority of my eggs have been obtained during March or April.

It builds, generally, a very compact and heavy, deep, cup-shaped nest, which it places at heights of from 4 to 10 or 12 feet from the ground in a fork, towards the centre of some densely growing thorny bush or moderate-sized tree, the various carounders, capers, plums, and acacias being those most commonly selected.

As a rule it builds a new nest every year, but it not unfrequently only repairs one that has served it in the previous season, and even at times takes possession of those of other species.

The nest is composed of very various materials, so much so that it is difficult to generalize in regard to them. I have found them built entirely of grass-roots, with much sheep's wool, lined with hair and feathers, or solidly woven of silky vegetable fibre, mostly that of the putsun (_Hibiscus cannabinus_), in which were incorporated little pieces of rag and strips of the bark of the wild plum (_Zizyphus jujuba_); but I think that most commonly thorny twigs, coarse grass, and grass-roots form the body of the nest, while the cavity is lined with feathers, hair, soft grass, and the like.

Generally the nests are very compact and solid, 6 or 7 inches in diameter, and the egg-cavity 3 to 4 in diameter, and 2 to 2½ in depth, but I have come across very loosely built and straggling ones.

They have at times two broods in the year (but I do not think that this is always the case), and lay from three to six eggs, four or five being the usual number.

Mr. F.R. Blewitt, writing from Jhansie and Saugor, and detailing his experiences there and in the Delhi Districts, says:--

"The Common Indian Grey Shrike breeds from February to July; it builds on trees; if it has a preference, it is for the close-growing roonj tree (_Acacia leucophlaea_). I have particularly noticed this fact both here and at Gurhi Hursroo. The nest in structure is neat and compact (though I have occasionally seen some very roughly put together), and generally-well fixed into the forks of an off-shooting branch. In shape it is circular, varying from 5 to 7½ inches in diameter, and from 1½ to 3½ inches in thickness; thorn twigs, coarse grass, grass-roots, old rags, &c. form the outer materials of the nest, and closely interwoven fine grass and roots the border-rim. The egg-cavity is deeply cup-shaped, from 3½ to 5 inches in diameter, and lined with fine grass and khus; exceptionally shreds of cloth are interwoven with the khus and grass.

"On one occasion I got a nest with the cup interior entirely lined with old cloth pieces, very cleverly and ingeniously worked into the exterior framework. Five is the regular number of eggs, though at times six have been obtained in one nest. The birds often make their own nests each year, but this is not invariably the case. When at Gurhi Hursroo in February last, I found on an isolated roonj tree four nests within a foot of each other. The under centre one, an _old_ Shrike nest (the other three were of other birds), was occupied by a Shrike sitting on five eggs. I very carefully examined it, and my impression at the time was that the parent birds had returned, to rear a second progeny, to the nest constructed by them the year previous.

"I do not know whether you have noticed the fact, but both _L. lahtora_ and _L. erythronotus_ often lay in old nests, of which they first carefully repair the egg-cavity with new materials. It is not only, however, in old nests of their own species that these birds make a home in the breeding-season. At times they take possession of fabrics clearly not the work of any Shrike. Quite recently I found a pair of _L. lahtora_ with four eggs in a small nest entirely woven of hemp, the bottom of which was thickly coated with the droppings of former occupants. Again, on the 8th June, a nest with four eggs was found on a roonj tree. This wonderful nest, which I have kept, is entirely composed of what I take to be old felt and feathers, the bottom of the cavity of which, when found, was almost covered with the dung of young birds.

"Evidently this nest was not _originally_ made by the Shrike, but, as would appear, was taken possession of by it, after the brood of some other species of birds had left it."

Mr. W. Theobald makes the following note of this bird's breeding in the neighbourhood of Pind Dadan Khan and Katas in the Salt Range:--"Lays in the last week of March to the end of April. Eggs five only, shape ovato-pyriform, size 1·06 inch by 0·8 inch; colour pale greenish white, blotched and tinged with yellowish grey and neutral markings; vary much in intensity and colour. Nest of twigs, lined with cotton or wool, and usually placed in stiff thorny bushes."