Part 14 (1/2)

_C. malabaricus_.

The Jungle Babbler, like the White-headed one, breeds pretty well over the whole of Southern India, but while the latter is chiefly confined to the more open plain country, the former is the bird of the uplands, hills, and forests. Still the Jungle Babbler is found at times in the same localities as the White-headed one, and what is more, specimens occur, as in Cochin, which partake of the distinctive characters of both. A great deal still remains to be done in working out properly this group; both in Sindh on the west and the Tributary Mehals on the east, and again in some parts of the Nilghiris, races occur quite intermediate between typical _C. terricolor_ and typical _C.

malabaricus_, while in the south, as already mentioned, forms intermediate between this latter and _C. griseus_ seem common. Three distinguishable races again of _C. griseus_ are met with, but running the one into the other, while intermediate forms between this species and _C. somervillii_ (Sykes) are also met with.

Mr. Davison remarks:--”This bird seems to be very irregular in its time of breeding. I have taken the nest in May, June, October, and December. The nest is rather a loose structure of dry gra.s.s and leaves, lined with fine dry gra.s.s; it is generally placed in the middle of some thick th.o.r.n.y bush, and cannot generally be got at without paying the penalty of well scratched hands. The eggs, generally five in number, are of a very deep blue with a tinge of green, but of not so decided a tinge as in the eggs of _M. griseus_.

It breeds on the slopes of the Nilghiris, not ascending to more than about 6000 feet.”

Mr. Wait, writing from c.o.o.noor, says:--”_C. malabaricus_ builds a cup-shaped nest in small trees and bushes, and lays from three to five very round oval verditer-blue eggs.”

Captain Horace Terry says of this species:--”Rather rare at Pulungi, but very common lower down on the slopes and in the Pittur valley. I got a nest on April 5th at Pulungi with three incubated eggs, and on the 6th one with two incubated eggs, in the Pittur valley. The last was built in a hollow in the top of a stump of a tree that had been broken off some ten feet from the ground.”

Mr. I. Macpherson writes from Mysore:--”This bird is occasionally found with _C. griseus_ in the bigger scrub forests, but its chief habitat is the larger forests. Its breeding-season is much the same as _C. griseus_ but unlike it, it does not select th.o.r.n.y bushes for building in, its nests being generally found in small trees or bamboo-clumps. Four is the usual number of eggs laid, but five are often found, and the fifth I expect is frequently that of _H.

varius_.”

Three eggs sent me by Mr. Carter from c.o.o.noor, in the Nilghiries, are absolutely undistinguishable from those of _Argya malcolmi_. Like these they are a uniform, rather deep greenish blue, devoid of spots or markings, and very glossy. I do not think that, if the eggs of _A.

malcolmi, C. malabaricus_, and _C. terricolor_ were once mixed, it would be possible to separate them with certainty. Other eggs taken by Mr. Davison are similar but slightly smaller, and, taking them as a whole, I think they average rather darker than those of the two species just mentioned.

The eggs vary in length from 093 to 102, and in breadth from 071 to 082; but the average of nine eggs is 097 by nearly 077.

111. Crateropus griseus (Gm.). _The White-headed Babbler_.

Malacocercus griseus (_Gm._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 60; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 433.

I should say that the White-headed Babbler breeds all over the plain country of Southern India, not ascending the hills to any great elevation. At the same time, many people would very likely separate the Madras, Mangalore, and Anjango birds, and insist on their being different species; but for my part, seeing how the birds vary in each locality and what a perfect and unbroken chain of intermediate forms connects the most different-looking examples, and that all the several races are separable from the other species of this group by their more or less conspicuously pale heads, I prefer to keep them all as _C.

griseus_.

This species, thus considered, breeds apparently twice a year from April to June, and again in October and even later.

About Madras the nest is commonly placed in thick th.o.r.n.y hedges of a shrub locally known as ”Kurka-puli,” said by Balfour to be _Garcinia cambogia_, but which does not look like a _Garcinia_ at all. The nest is a loosely-made cup, composed of gra.s.s-stems and roots, and the eggs vary from three to five in number.

Dr. Jerdon says:--”I have often found the nest of this bird, which is composed of small twigs and roots, carelessly and loosely put together, in general at no great height from the ground. It lays three or four blue eggs.”

Colonel Butler writes:--”A nest containing four fresh eggs apparently of this species (it being the common Babbler in this district) was brought to me by some wood-cutters on the 18th March, 1880. It was taken in the jungles about six miles from Belgaum, and measured about 2 inches in diameter and about 2 inches deep interiorly, and was of the usual Babbler type, consisting of dry stems loosely but neatly constructed. The eggs were highly glossed and deep bluish green, some people might say greenish blue.”

Mr. Iver Macpherson writes of this bird from Mysore:--”I have found their nests in every month between March and August, and they possibly breed both earlier and later. The nests are generally fixed in th.o.r.n.y bushes and at no great height off the ground. Four is the usual number of eggs laid, but very often five are found, and I feel much inclined to think that the fifth egg is often that of _H. varius_.”

The eggs of this species that I possess were taken by Mr. Davison in May, in the immediate neighbourhood of Madras. They are all pretty regular, somewhat cylindrical ovals, excessively glossy, spotless, and of a deep greenish blue, much deeper than the eggs of any of the other _Crateropi_ are as a rule; in fact, they approach in colouring to the eggs of _Garrulax albigularis_.

They vary in length from 09 to 10, and in breadth from 062 to 074; but I have seen too few eggs to be able to strike any reliable average.

112. Crateropus striatus (Sw.). _The Southern-Indian Babbler_.

Malacocercus striatus (_Sw._), _Hume, Cat._ no. 432 bis.

Colonel Legge, writing of this bird's nidification in Ceylon, says:--”The breeding-season of the 'Seven Brothers' lasts from (page 80 in the book.) March until July. The nest is placed in a cinnamon-bush, shrub or bramble, at about four feet from the ground, and is a compact cup-shaped structure, usually fixed in a fork and made of stout gra.s.ses and plant-stalks and lined with fine gra.s.s, which, in some instances I have observed, was plucked green. The interior measures 2 inches in depth by about 3 in width. The eggs are two or three in number, small for the size of the bird, glossy in texture, and of a uniform opaque greenish blue. They measure from 091 to 10 in length, by 07 to 074 in breadth.”