Allan Octavian Hume

“ 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. ”

“ Captain Hutton says:—"This is a common species both in the Dhoon and in the hills, and may be found at all seasons, making known its presence among the brushwood by the utterance of a clear and musical note like the ringing of a tiny bell. ”

“ A nest of three eggs recently obtained from Mussoorie were more richly coloured than any I have yet seen, and were decidedly glossy. The ground-colour is a rich rosy pink, boldly, but sparingly, blotched and spotted with deep maroon, underlaid by clouds and spots of pale purple, which appear as if beneath the surface of the shell. In all the eggs the markings are far more numerous at the large end, where in one they form a huge confluent maroon-coloured patch, mottled lighter and darker. ”

“ She will first alight on a neighbouring tree, then on one closer, coming nearer and nearer each time; finally, she will perch on the very tree or bush in which the nest is built, and while taking a look round to see that all is well before making a final ascent, you have yourself to blame if you fail to bag her. All this sounds very cruel; but if a bird must be shot for scientific purposes, it is surely preferable to kill it outright than to let it die a lingering death. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some nests contain no extraneous matters, but others have all kinds of odds and ends—scraps of newspaper or cloth, shavings, rags, snake-skins, thread, &c.—interwoven in the exterior. The interior is always neatly lined with fine grass-stems.
Very commonly the bird so selects the site for its nest that the leaves of the twigs it uses as a framework form more or less of a shady canopy overhead; in fact, as a rule, it is from very few points of view that even a passing bird of prey can catch sight of the female on her eggs. ”

“ Its selection of a tree for its nest is not confined to any one species, but by preference the bird selects those of small growth, and even frequently high-growing brushwood. The nests are very neatly made, and what is singular is that, as regards build and shape, they are always almost exactly alike. If I have seen one, I must have seen at least fifty this year, all with the same exterior material of closely interlaced vegetable fibre over grass, and the inner lining of fine grass, deep cup-shaped, and in diameter, outer and inner, varying but little. ”

“ The nest is often suspended between several upright shoots, to which it is firmly attached by fibres twisted round the stems and the ends worked into the body of the nest; sometimes against a bamboo-stem seated on, and attached to, the bunch of twigs given out at a node; or in a fork of a small tree, or end of an upright cut branch where several shoots have sprung away from under the cut and keep the nest in position, when it has a large pad of an everlasting plant or of the downy heads of a large flowering grass to rest on—when the former material is handy it is preferred. ”

“ The outer diameter of a nest may fairly be given at 2·2 inches, inner at 1·8, depth of nest 0·9. Two is the regular number of eggs, at least that was the number in the three nests I took. In colour they are of a pale greenish white, sparingly speckled on the narrower half of the egg with brownish spots, but they have on the broader half the spots more dense, and forming at the end a more or less complete cap. The feat of securing a nest is a most hazardous one, for it is always fixed close in between two delicate forks at the extreme end of a slight side-branch near to the top of the tree. ”

“ The nest is a mere lining for the hole they select, and varies in size and shape with this latter; fine twigs, dry grass, and feathers are the materials most commonly used, the feathers being chiefly gathered together to form a bed for the eggs; but moss, moss and fern roots, flocks of wool, lichen, and down may often be found in greater or less quantities intermingled with the grass and straw which forms the main body, or with the feathers that constitute the lining, of the nest. ”

“ Etawah, March 18th.—The nest was on a babool tree, some 10 feet from the ground, on one of the outside branches; an exterior framework of very thorny babool twigs, and within a very warm deep circular nest made almost entirely of sun (Crotalaria juncea) fibre, a sort of fine tow, and flocks of cotton-wool, there being fully as much of this latter as of the former; a few fine grass-stems are interwoven; there are a few human and a few sleep's wool hairs at the bottom as a sort of lining. ”

“ On the 12th and 13th July we obtained ten nests of Franklin's Wren-Warbler, all in the neighbourhood of Doongurgurh. From what I have seen, I gather that this species breeds from the middle of June to the middle of August in this part of the country. They appear to resort to tracts at some little elevation, where the murori and kydia bushes are abundant, and where grass grows rapidly in the early part of the rains. The nests, very ingeniously made, are invariably sewn to one or two leaves in the centre of one of the above-named bushes, the entrance above, just as in the nest of an Orthotomus. ”

“ Captain Cock writes to me:—"I have taken numbers of nests of this bird in Cashmere and in and about the hill-station of Murree. They commence breeding in May and have finished by July. The nests are placed under roots of trees, in crevices of trees, between large stems, and a favourite locality is, where the road has a stone embankment to support it, between the stones. The nest is globular, made of moss, and the number of eggs is four. I have often caught the old bird on the nest. The nests are easy to find, as the birds are very noisy and demonstrative when any one is near their nests." ”

“ 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 variation in this bird's eggs is remarkable; out of more than one hundred eggs nearly one third have been pure white, and between the dead glossless purely white egg and a somewhat glossy, warm pinky grounded one, with numerous well-marked spots and specks of maroon colour, dull-red, and red-brown or even dusky, every possible gradation is found. Each set of eggs, however, seems to be invariably of the same type, and we have never yet found a quite white and a well coloured and marked egg in the same nest. ”

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

“ 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 broad leaves and stringy roots of the reed, common grass, and grass-roots are the materials of which it generally constructs its nest, which varies much in size, according to the situation and fineness of the material used. I have seen them composed almost wholly of reed-leaves, fully 7 inches in diameter and 5 in height, and again built entirely of fine grass-stems not more than 4 inches across and 3 inches in height. When semi-suspended between reeds, they are always smaller and more compact, while when placed in a fork of a low bush they are larger and more straggling. ”

“ Our present bird does not, however, invariably construct a "tailored" nest. When it does, like O. sittorius, it sews two, three, four, or five leaves together, as may be most convenient, filling the intervening space with down, fine grass, vegetable fibre, or wool, held firmly into its place by cross-threads, sometimes composed of cobwebs, sometimes made by the bird itself of cotton, and sometimes apparently derived from unravelled rags. It also, however, often makes a nest entirely composed of fine vegetable fibre, cotton, and grass-down, and lined as usual with fine grass-roots. ”

“ The bird tacks together not merely the few stems absolutely necessary to form a side to the nest, but most of the stems all round, decreasing the extent of attachment as they recede from the nest-cavity. It does this, too, very irregularly; on one side of the nest perhaps no stem more than an inch distant from the interior surface of the nest will be found in any way bound up in the fabric, while on the opposite side perhaps stems fully 3 inches distant, together with all the intermediate ones, will be found more or less webbed together. ”

“ 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 nests vary much, in appearance, according to the number and description of leaves which the bird employs and the manner in which it employs them; but the nest itself is usually chiefly composed of fine cotton-wool, with a few horsehairs and, at times, a few very fine grass-stems as a lining, apparently to keep the wool in its place and enable the cavity to retain permanently its shape. ”

“ High up in a fork a small nest was visible, and projecting over it on one side a black forked tail that could belong to nothing but the King-Crow. Of this bird we have already taken during the last six weeks at least fifty nests, and in many cases where we had left the empty nest in statu quo, we found it a week later with a fresh batch of eggs laid therein. Many birds will never return to a nest which has once been robbed, but others, like the King-Crow and the Little Shrike (Lanius vittatus) will continue laying even after the nest has been twice robbed. ”

“ In shape the nest is a moderately deep cup, nearly hemispherical, with an internal diameter of from 2·5 to 3 inches—a true Bulbul's nest, composed of grass and bents and lined with finer grasses. The nest is always suspended by the outer rim between two lateral branches, and never, I believe, built in a fork as is so common in the case of many other Bulbuls. They lay only two eggs, and never, I believe, more. The eggs are longish ovals, rather pointed at one end, a dull white or reddish white, more or less thickly speckled and spotted or clouded with pale yellowish or reddish brown ”

“ One nest I robbed in April of eggs contained young in the latter end of May, and I believe many of them have two if not more broods in the year. All nests that I have seen have been well made, firm, deep cups of babool branches, lined with grass-roots, and occasionally with bits of rag and tow. The eggs are broad ovals of a dead chalky bluish-white colour, spotted, chiefly at the large end, with purple and brown. Five is the greatest number of eggs I have found in a nest. ”

“ The markings are blackish brown, sepia and olive-brown, and rather pale inky purple. Some have the markings small, sharply defined, and thinly sprinkled: others are extensively blotched and streakily clouded; others are freckled or smeared over the entire surface, so as to leave but little, if any, of the ground-colour visible. Often several styles of marking and shades of colouring are combined in the same egg. Almost each nest of eggs exhibits some peculiarity, and varieties are endless. ”

“ When one first takes a nest or two of each of them, one is apt to draw distinctions and fancy that the eggs of the two species can be discriminated; but after taking forty or fifty nests of each species, it becomes obvious that there is no variety of the one in either colour, shape, or size that cannot be paralleled in the other. ”

“ In the breeding-season it is found chiefly in the glens, in the retired depths of which it constructs its nest; it never, like the Thrushes and Geocichlae, builds in trees or bushes, but selects some high, towering, and almost inacessible rock, forming the side of a deep glen, on the projecting ledges of which, or in the holes from which small boulders have fallen, it constructs its nest, and where, unless when assailed by man, it rears its young in safety, secure alike from the howling blast and the attack of wild animals. ”

“ Some eggs are perfectly pure unspotted white; others have a dull white ground, with a faint zone of minute specks of brownish red and tiny spots of greyish purple towards the large end, and a very few markings of a similar character scattered about the rest of the surface. All the eggs of the latter type vary in the amount and size of markings; these latter are always sparse and very minute. The pure white eggs appear to be less common. The eggs have always a slight gloss, the pure white ones at times a very decided, though never at all a brilliant gloss. ”

“ This difference in the habits of the two birds is very observable at Poona, where both species are exceedingly common. Where a jungly or watered piece of country borders upon the open plain, you may see half a dozen of each kind within an area of half a mile radius, and yet never find the one trespassing upon the domain of the other. When you say you have never found a nest more than 1500 feet above the level of the sea, I would remind you that although L. lahtora never ascends the hills, it is yet very abundant in the Deccan, which is 2000 feet above the sea-level. ”

“ Pine grass and roots, tow, and a variety of vegetable fibres, thread, floss silk, and cobwebs are all made use of to bind the little nest together and attach it to the twigs whence it depends. Grass again, moss, vegetable fibre, seed-down, silk, cotton, lichen, roots and the like are used in the body of the nest, which is lined with silky down, hair, moss, and fern-roots, or even silk, while at times tiny silvery cocoons or scraps of rich-coloured lichen are affixed as ornaments to the exterior. ”