Chapter 42

I have only taken one nest myself (though I have had many others sent me), and that was on the 2nd of April at Chundowah in Jodpoor, Rajpootana. The nest was in the fork of a ber tree (_Zizyphus jujuba_), on a small horizontal bough, about 5 feet from the ground. It was a broad shallow cup, somewhat oval interiorly, with the materials very compactly and closely put together. The basal portion and framework of the sides consisted of very fine stems of some herbaceous plant about the thickness of an ordinary pin. It was lined with a little wool and a quantity of silky fibre; exteriorly it was bound round with a good deal of the same fibre and pretty thickly felted with cobwebs. The egg-cavity measured 2·5 inches in diameter one way and only 2 the other way, while in depth it was barely ·86. The exterior diameter of the nest was about 4 inches and the height nearly 2 inches. It contained three fresh eggs, of a slightly greyish-white ground, very thickly spotted and speckled with yellowish brown, dark umber-brown, and a pale washed-out inky-purple. In all, the spots were thickest in a zone round the large end, where they became more or less confluent. I have, however, a large series of these nests, and taking them as a whole, although much more massive, they remind one no little of those of _Rhipidura albifrontata_ and _Terpsiphone paradisi_ and even _Aegithina tiphia_. They are broad shallow cups, measuring internally 2¼ inches across and about 7/8 inch in depth. They are placed in a horizontal fork of a branch, and are composed of vegetable fibre and fine grass-roots, thickly coated externally with cobwebs, by which also they are fixed on to branches, and lined internally with silky vegetable down or fibre. Externally their colour always approximates closely to the bark of the branch on which they are placed; they are not thin, basket-like structures like those of _Aegithina_ or _Rhipidura_, but are fully ½ inch thick at the sides and probably ¾ inch thick at the bottom.

Colonel G.F.L. Marshall writes:--"The Common Wood-Shrike builds in the Saharunpoor district in the latter half of March, the young being hatched early in April. The bird is common; but owing to the small size and bark-like colour of its nest, the latter is very difficult to find. On the 8th April I fired at a specimen and missed it; it then flew off and settled in a fork of another tree about 30 feet from the ground. On looking carefully with an opera-glass, I found that it was sitting on its nest. I drove it off and shot it. The nest was very small and shallow, cup-shaped, and wedged in between two small boughs at their junction, and not appearing either above or below. The egg-receptacle was 2¼ inches in diameter. The nest was made of grass and bits of bark, beautifully woven together and bound with cobwebs, and exactly resembling the boughs between which it was placed, or, I might say, wedged in. The eggs, four in number, were slightly set; they were small for the bird, and of a rather round oval shape; the colour was a creamy-yellow ground, thickly spotted and blotched with the different shades of brown and sienna, the bulk of the spots tending to form a zone near the thick end, as in the typical form, of the eggs of the _Laniidae_ and a number of faint purple blotches underlying the zone."

Major C.T. Bingham says:--"I have only found three nests of this bird, and these at Delhi. At Allahabad it was not very common. It is a difficult nest to find, being generally well hidden in the forks of leafy trees. All three nests I got were of one type--shallow saucers, made of vegetable fibre matted together into a soft felt-like substance. In two of the nests I found three and in the third one egg. These are thickly spotted and blotched with brown and a washed-out purple, on a pale greyish-yellow ground. The average measurements of the seven eggs are--length 0·77, breadth 0·61."

Colonel E.A. Butler writes from Sind:--

"_Hyderabad, 19th April_, 1878.--Noticed two young birds scarcely able to fly; fresh eggs were laid, therefore, about the beginning of March. On the 20th April near the same place I found a nest containing young birds. It consisted of a neat little cup composed of dry grass smeared all over exteriorly with cobwebs, and fixed in a fork of one of the outer branches of a large babool-tree about 10 feet from the ground. The nest was very small for the size of the bird, and had I not seen the old bird on it. I should have taken it for a nest of _Rhipidura albifrontata_."

The late Captain Beavan remarked that this bird "appears to come to the Maunbhoom District for the purpose of breeding. I procured the nest and eggs early in April, and the young were nearly fledged by the 20th of that month; they appear to come year after year to particular localities to breed.

"Several nests were brought me from the neighbourhood of Kashurghur both in 1864 and 1865, whereas none were seen elsewhere. The nest is very small for the size of the bird, and the material of which it is composed closely resembles the bird's plumage in colour. The nest is round and very shallow, something like a Chaffinch's, being very neatly made; diameter inside 2 inches, depth 1 inch; composed of grey fibres, bits of bark, grass, and the like, cemented with spider's web. The eggs are two in number, greenish white, spotted with brown and slate-coloured dots, which in most specimens form a well-defined zone round the thickest part of the egg, leaving both ends without marks. Length of the egg ·75 inch; breadth ·59 inch. This bird was not observed in Maunbhoom except during the breeding-season."

Mr. G.W. Vidal, writing from the South Konkan, remarks:--"Common, as also at Sávant Vádí. Nest found with three hard-set eggs on the 18th February, low down in a mango-tree. Nest a very neat compact cap of grasses and fibres, woven throughout with spiders' webs. Eggs greyish white, with brown and inky-purple spots."

Dr. Jerdon remarks:--"The nest has been brought to me in August at Nellore, chiefly made of roots and lined with hair; and the eggs, three in number, were greenish white with large brown blotches."

Major M.F. Coussmaker sends me the following note from Mysore:--"I took the nest of this bird on April 16th. It was composed of fine roots and fibres closely woven into a compact nest, secured to a horizontal bough with cobweb and covered externally with lichen to match the tree. It measured in diameter 4·1 inches externally and 2·2 internally and ·8 deep. The parent bird was shot from the nest.

"The nest contained two eggs, white with brown spots and markings. They were so broken when I got them that no reliable measurements could be taken."

Lastly, Mr. Gates writes from Pegu:--"Nest with three fresh eggs on the 3rd March near Pegu."

The eggs are very Shrike-like in appearance, and many of them are perfect miniatures of the eggs of _Lanius lahtora_, but some of them have a more uniformly brown tint than any of this latter species that I have yet met with. The ground-colour is generally either a very pale greenish white or a creamy-stone colour, and more or less thickly spotted and blotched with different shades of yellowish and reddish brown; many of the markings are almost invariably gathered into a conspicuous, but irregular and ill-defined, zone near the large end, in which zone clouds of subsurface-looking, pale, and dingy purple, not usually observable on any other portion of the egg, are thickly intermingled. The texture of the shell is fine and close, but scarcely any gloss is ever perceptible. Occasionally the eggs are very faintly coloured, and have a dull white ground, while the markings consist of only a few spots and specks of very pale purple and pale rust-colour confined to a zone near the large end.

In length the eggs vary from 0·69 to 0·8 inch, and in breadth from 0·57 to 0·65 inch; but the average of a dozen eggs is 0·75 by 0·61 inch nearly.

490. Pericrocotus speciosus (Lath.). _The Indian Scarlet Minivet_.

Pericrocotus speciosus (_Lath.). Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 419; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 271.

Captain Hutton records that the Indian Scarlet Minivet breeds both on the Doon and in the hills overlooking it, to an elevation of about 5000 feet. He says:--"The nest is generally placed high up on the branch of some tall tree, often overhanging the side of a fearful precipice. On the 6th and 17th of June I procured two nests in ravines opening upon the Doon, one of which contained four, and the other five eggs, of a dull-white colour, sparingly spotted and blotched with earthy brown, more thickly so at the larger end, where they form an open ring of spots; other small blotches of a fainter colour are seen beneath the shell.

"It is a curious fact that in the latter nest, out of the five eggs _three_ were ringed at the larger end, and the other two _at the smaller end_. The nest is rather coarsely made, being very thick at the sides, and the materials not neatly interwoven; it is composed externally of dried grasses and the fine stalks of various small plants, interspersed with bits of cotton and grass-roots, and lined with the fine seed-stalks of small grasses."

I am not at all sure that there is not some mistake here. The nest described is rather that of _L. erythronotus_ than of any of the _Pericrocoti_, and but for the excellent authority on which the above rests, I should certainly not have accepted it.

This species breeds in the forests of the central hills of Nepal; recording to Mr. Hodgson's notes and drawings they begin laying about April, and lay three or four eggs, which are neither described nor figured. The nest is a beautiful deep cup externally about 3·25 inches in diameter, and rather more than 2 inches high, composed of moss and moss-roots lined internally with the latter, and entirely coated exteriorly with lichen and a few stray pieces of green moss firmly secured in their places by spiders' webs. The nest is placed in some slender branch between three or four upright sprays. This, I may note, is just the kind of nest one would have expected this Large Minivet to build.

The only specimens, supposed to be the eggs of this species, that I possess I owe to Captain Hutton. They closely resemble the eggs of _L. erythronotus_, but are perhaps shorter, and hence _look_ broader than those of this latter. They are slightly bigger than the eggs of _L. vittatus_. In shape they seem to be typically a slightly broader oval than those of any of our true Shrikes, but elongated and pointed examples occur. Their ground-colour is a very pale greyish white, thickly spotted all over the large end, and thickly dotted elsewhere, with specks, spots, and tiny blotches of pale yellowish brown and pale inky-purple. Compared with the eggs of the other _Pericrocoti_, they are very dingily coloured. The eggs are devoid of gloss. I am doubtful about these eggs.

In length they vary from 0·88 to 0·93 inch, and in breadth from 0·72 to 0·75 inch; but the average of five eggs is 0·9 by 0·72 inch.

494. Pericrocotus flammeus (Forst.). _The Orange Minivet_.

Pericrocotus flammeus (_Forst.), Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 420; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 272.

The Orange Minivet lays, I believe, in June and July on the Nilghiris. I have never taken a nest myself, but I have received several, with a few words in regard to them, from Miss Cockburn.

The nests are comparatively massive little cups placed on, or sometimes in, the forks of slender boughs. They are usually composed of excessively fine twigs, the size of fir-needles, and they are densely plastered over the whole exterior surface with greenish-grey lichen, so closely and cleverly put together that the side of the nest looks exactly like a piece of a lichen-covered branch. There appears to be no lining, and the eggs are laid on the fine little twigs which compose the body of the nest.

The nests are externally from 3 to 3¼ inches in diameter, and about 1½ inch deep, with an egg-cavity about 2 inches in diameter and about ¾ inch in depth. Some, however, when placed in a fork are much deeper and narrower, say externally 2½ inches in diameter and the same height; the egg-cavity about 1¾ inch in diameter and 1¼ inch in depth.

Miss Cockburn notes that one nest was found on the 24th of June on a high tree, the nest being placed on a thin branch between 30 or 40 feet from the ground. It contained a single fresh egg, which was broken in the fall of the branch, which had to be cut. This egg, the remains of which were sent me, had a pale greenish ground, and was pretty thickly streaked and spotted, most thickly so at the large end, with pale yellowish brown and pale rather dingy-purple, the latter colour predominating.

Another egg which she subsequently sent me, obtained on the 17th of July, is a regular, moderately elongated oval, a little pointed towards one end. The shell is fine, but glossless. The ground is a delicate pale sea-green or greenish white, and it is rather sparsely spotted and speckled with pale yellowish brown. Only one or two purplish-grey specks are to be detected on this egg; it measures 0·9 by 0·67.

Mr. J. Darling, junior, sends me the following note:--"I had the good fortune to find a nest of the Orange Minivet at Neddivattam, about 6000 feet above the level of the sea, on the 5th September, 1870. It was placed on a tall tree near the edge of a jungle and was built in a fork, about 30 feet from the ground.

"The nest was built of small twigs and grasses, and covered on the outside with lichens, moss, and cobwebs, making it appear as part and parcel of the tree. I noticed it merely from the fact of seeing the bird sitting on her nest, and even then could not make up my mind, and came away. Being of an inquisitive nature, next day I went again and saw the bird in the same place, so I climbed up and managed to pull the nest towards me with a hook, and took two eggs, one of which I send you.

"In August 1874 at Vythory I saw a bird sitting on her nest, and watched her rear and take away her brood, but could not get at the nest."

An egg sent me by Mr. Darling is very similar to the eggs sent me by Miss Cockburn, except that the brown markings are rather more numerous, especially in a broad zone round the large end, and that with these a good many pale purple or lilac spots or specks are intermingled. It measures 0·88 by 0·68 inch.

495. Pericrocotus brevirostris (Vigors). _The Short-billed Minivet_.

Pericrocotus brevirostris (_Vig._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 421; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 273.

The Short-billed Minivet breeds in the Himalayas at elevations of from 3000 to 6000 feet in Kumaon, and again in Kulu and the valley of the Sutlej. It lays in May and June, building a compact and delicate cup-shaped nest on a horizontal bough pretty high up in some oak, rhododendron, or other forest tree. I have never seen one on any kind of fir-tree.

Sometimes the nest is merely placed on, and attached firmly to, the upper surface of the branch; but, more commonly, the place where two smallish branches fork horizontally is chosen, and the nest is placed just at the fork. I got one nest at Kotgurh, however, wedged in between two upright shoots from a horizontal oak-branch. The nests are composed of fine twigs, fir-needles, grass-roots, fine grass, slender dry stems of herbaceous plants, as the case may be, generally loosely, but occasionally compactly interlaced, intermingled and densely coated over the whole exterior with cobwebs and pieces of lichen, the latter so neatly put on that they appear to have grown where they are. Sometimes, especially at the base of the nest, a little moss is attached exteriorly, but, as a rule, there is nothing but lichen. The nest has no lining. The external diameter is about 2½ inches, and the usual height of the nest from 1½ to 2 inches; but this varies a good deal according to situation, and the bottom of the nest, which in some may be at most ¼ inch thick, in another is a full inch. The sides rarely exceed ¼ inch in thickness. The egg-cavity has a diameter of about 2 inches, and a depth of from 1 to 1·25 inch.

Five seems to be the maximum number of eggs laid, but I have now twice met with three, more or less incubated, eggs.

Mr. Hodgson notes:--"May 16th: At the top of the great forest of Sheopoori, secured a nest built near the top of a kaiphul tree, and laid on a thick branch amongst smaller twigs. The nest is about 2 inches deep and the same in diameter: inside it is 1·5 inch deep; it is made of paper-like bits of lichen welded together with spiders' webs, and with a lining of elastic fibres. It is the shape of a deep soap-stand, open at the top of course. It contained two eggs of a bluish or greenish-white ground, much spotted with liver colour, especially near the large end, where the spots are clustered into a zone."

Dr. Scully, writing also from Nepal, says:--"During the breeding-season (May and June) this Minivet is found in forests on the hills up to an elevation of 7500 feet. A nest was found in the Sheopoori forest on the 17th June, which contained two very young birds and one egg."

The eggs of this species that I have seen are moderately broad ovals, as a rule, very regular in their shape, and scarcely compressed at all towards the lesser end. The shell is fine and satiny, but the eggs have little or no real gloss. The ground-colour is a dull white, sometimes slightly tinged with pink, sometimes with green, and they are richly and profusely blotched, spotted, and streaked, most densely, as a rule, towards the large end, with brownish red and pale purple. Most eggs exhibit a more or less conspicuous, though irregular, zone round the larger end.

The eggs vary in length from 0·71 to 0·8 inch, and in breadth from 0·54 to 0·6 inch.

499. Pericrocotus roseus (Vieill.). _The Rosy Minivet_.

Pericrocotus roseus (_Vieill._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 422; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 275.

The only one of my contributors who appears to have taken the eggs of the Rosy Minivet is Colonel C.H.T. Marshall. Mr. R. Thompson says:--"They breed in the warmer valleys of Kumaon, up to an elevation of some 5000 feet, in May and June;" but he adds: "have never got down the nests."

Colonel Marshall, writing from Murree, says:--"The Rosy Minivet builds a beautifully little shallow cup-shaped nest, the outer edge being quite narrow and pointed. The external covering of the nest is fine pieces of lichen fastened on with cobwebs. It was found on the 12th of June, and contained three fresh eggs, white, with greyish-brown spots and blotches sparsely scattered about the larger end; the length is 0·8 by 0·55 inch; 5000 feet up."

The nest, which I owe to this gentleman, is externally a short section of a cylinder, rather than a cup, the walls standing up outside almost perpendicularly. It is 2·5 inches in diameter and nearly 1·75 in height. The rim of the nest is ¼ inch wide, and the cavity, a shallow cup, 2 inches wide by scarcely an inch deep; the walls of the nest increase in thickness as they approach the base.

Externally the whole surface is _entirely_ covered by small scales of lichen, firmly bound into their respective places by gossamer threads; internally the nest is a very loosely put together basket-work of excessively fine twigs and grass-stems not thicker than common needles. A morsel or two of moss have become involved in the fabric, as well as two fine blades of grass; but there is no lining, and the eggs are obviously laid upon the soft loose basket frame of the nest.

The egg which accompanied the nest is a regular oval, slightly compressed towards one end. The ground-colour is pale greenish white entirely devoid of gloss. The egg is richly blotched, spotted, and speckled (most densely so towards the larger end) with reddish brown and greenish purple, there being two conspicuously different shades (a much darker and a much lighter, the latter of which appears like subsurface tints) of each of these colours. This egg measures 0·82 by 0·6 inch nearly.

Another egg of the same clutch was less richly coloured, the markings being merely brown, with scarcely a perceptible reddish tinge, and dull mostly inky, but here and there somewhat reddish, purple. The markings, too, were fewer in number, but there was a more marked tendency for these to form a zone about the larger end.

In another clutch the markings were almost entirely confined to a dense zone round the larger end about a third of the way up from the middle of the egg. In this zone they were so densely set as to be quite confluent, and they consisted of yellowish brown and inky purple.

Mr. J.R. Cripps found the nest of this Minivet in the Bhaman tea-garden, in the Dibrugarh District of Assam, on the 31st May, 1879. The nest contained three eggs, and was placed on the upper side of a large lateral branch of a tree that grew on the main garden road, about 15 feet from the ground.

Seven eggs of this bird vary in length from 0·75 to 0·86, and in breadth from 0·58 to 0·6.

500. Pericrocotus peregrinus (Linn.). _The Small Minivet_.

Pericrocotus peregrinus (_Linn_), _Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 423; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 276.

Our Small Minivet lays during the latter half of June (as soon, in fact, as the rains set in), and throughout July and August. I believe it breeds pretty well all over India and Burma.

The nest is small and neat, and done up generally like a Chaffinch's, to resemble the bark of the tree on which it is placed.

The nests that I have seen have been invariably placed at a considerable height from the ground in the fork of a branch, most commonly, I think, a mango-tree, though I have occasionally noticed them in other trees.

The nest is a small moderately deep cup, with an internal cavity about 1·7 inch to 1·9 in diameter, and nearly an inch in depth. The sides of the nest are about 3/8 inch thick, and the thickness of the bottom of the nest varies according to the shape of the fork chosen, whether obtuse or acute-angled. In the former case the bottom of the nest is sometimes not above ¼ inch in depth. In the latter case, it is sometimes as much as an inch in thickness. It is composed of very fine, needle-like twigs (with at times here and there a few feathers) carefully bound together externally with cobwebs, and coated with small pieces of bark or dead leaves, or both, so that looked at from below with the naked eye it is impossible to distinguish it from one of the many little excrescences so common, especially on mango-trees. There appears to be rarely any regular lining, a very little down and cobwebs forming the only bed for the eggs, and even this is often wanting. Sometimes a few tiny dead leaves or a little lichen will be found incorporated in the nest, and occasionally, but rarely, fine grass-stems take the place of very slender twigs.

Three is, I believe, the normal number of the eggs. I extract a couple of old notes I made in regard to the nests of this species:--"_August 5th_.--Took three eggs of this bird, shooting the two old birds at the same time. The tree was a mango, the nest was in the fork of a branch, some 40 feet from the ground, built interiorly with very small twigs, with here and there a very few feathers intermixed, and was exteriorly coated with fine flakes of bark held in their place by gossamer threads. It was cup-shaped, with an interior diameter of 1-7/8 by ¾ inch.

"The eggs had a slightly greenish-white ground, thickly spotted and speckled, and towards the larger end blotched, with somewhat brownish red; the markings showing a decided tendency to form a zone round, or cap at the larger end."