Part 23 (1/2)
The eggs of this species, which I have received from Kotagherry and other parts of the Nilghiris, are broad, nearly regular ovals, slightly compressed towards the lesser end; considerably elongated, and more or less spherical, and pyriform varieties occur. The sh.e.l.l is fine, and has a slight gloss; the ground-colour is pale salmon-pink or pinkish-white, occasionally greyish white. The whole egg is, as a rule, finely speckled, spotted, and splashed with pinkish brown or brownish pink. The markings, in most eggs, everywhere very fine, are often considerably more dense at the large end, where they are not unusually more or less underlaid by a pinkish cloud, with which they form an irregular ill-defined and inconspicuous cap.
At times more boldly and richly marked eggs are met with; one now before me is everywhere thickly streaked with dull pink, in places purplish, and over this is thinly but rather conspicuously spotted and irregularly blotched (the blotches being small however) with light burnt sienna-brown.
In length they vary from 118 to 148 inch, and in breadth from 092 to 1 inch.
191. Larvivora brunnea, Hodgs. _The Indian Blue Chat_.
Larvivora cyana, _Gould, Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 145; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 507.
I have never obtained the nest of the Indian Blue Chat. Mr. Davison found it on the Nilghiris. He says:--”I really quite forget the details of that one egg which I brought you along with the skin of the parent, but it was taken in May on the Nilghiris. I remember very well another nest of this species, which I took in the latter end of March or the beginning of April in a shola or detached piece of jungle about 9 miles from Ootacamund.
”The nest was in a hole in the trunk of a small tree, about 5 feet from the ground, and was composed chiefly of moss, but mixed with dry leaves and twigs. It contained three young birds, apparently about four or five days old.”
The late Mr. Mandelli sent me a nest of this species which was found at Lebong (elevation 5500 feet) on the 16th May. It contained three eggs, and was placed on the ground amongst gra.s.s on a bank made by the cutting of a hill-road. It is a broad shallow nest, composed exteriorly of vegetable fibre, sc.r.a.ps of dead leaves and tiny pieces of moss matted closely together, and is rather thickly lined with black and red hairs, amongst which one or two soft downy feathers are incorporated. The external diameter of the nest is about 4 inches, the height about 15, the cavity is about 275 inches in diameter, and rather less than 1 in depth.
Two eggs taken by Mr. Darling[A] are very elongated, somewhat cylindrical ovals, very obtuse at both ends. In both, the sh.e.l.l is fine, and has an appreciable though not brilliant gloss. In one, the ground is a pale delicate clay-brown, and the markings consist only of a zone about 02 wide round the large end of densely set dull brownish-red specks, and a few similar specks inside the zone only.
In the other, the ground has a light greenish tinge, the zone is less marked and merges in a dull brownish-red mottled cap, and a faint marbling, of a paler shade of the cap, is scattered here and there over the whole surface of the egg. They measure 1 by 065 and 098 by 065.
[Footnote A: I cannot find any account of the finding of the nest of this bird by Mr. Darling amongst Mr. Hume's notes.--Ed.]
The egg taken by Mr. Davison is an elongated, slightly pyriform oval.
The sh.e.l.l is moderately fine, but with only a very slight gloss. The ground-colour is a pale slightly greyish green, and the whole egg is thickly (most thickly so about the large end, where the markings are almost perfectly confluent) mottled and streaked with pale brownish red. It measures 098 by 067.
193. Brachypteryx albiventris (Fairbank). _The White-bellied_ _Short-wing_.
Callene albiventris, _Fairb., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 339 bis.
The Rev. S.B. Fairbank, to whom I have, owed much useful information and many valuable specimens, kindly sent me the subjoined account of the nidification of the White-bellied Short-wing in the Pulney Hills at an elevation of about 6500 feet:--”In April, I found a nest in a hole in the side of the trunk of a large tree some 2 feet from the ground. The hole was just large enough for the nest, and was lined with fine roots. I surprised the bird on her nest several times. There were two eggs in the nest when I first found it that were 'hard-set'.
A month afterwards she laid two more in the same place, and I took them in good condition. One egg measures 09 by 068 inch, and another 094 by 068 inch. The ground-colour is grey, with a tinge of green, and it is thickly covered with small spots of bistre.”
Mr. Blanford, who saw the eggs, which I never did, describes them (and by a.n.a.logy, I should infer more correctly) as ”of an olive-brown colour, darker at the larger end, measuring 093 by 063 inch.”
An egg of this species sent me by Dr. Fairbank, measuring 093 by 066, is a somewhat elongated oval, slightly pointed towards the small end. The sh.e.l.l is fine and fairly glossy; the ground-colour, so far as this is discernible, is greyish green, but it is so thickly clouded and mottled all over with a warm, brown, that but little of the ground-colour is any where traceable, and the general result when the egg is looked at from a short distance is that of a nearly uniform olive-brown.
Captain Horace Terry also found the nest of this bird on the Pulney Hills. He says:--”I met with it a few times in the big _shola_ at Kodika.n.a.l, and got two nests, each with two fresh eggs; the first on the 7th June in a hole in a tree between 4 and 5 feet from the ground, a deep cup of green moss; the other, in a hole in the bank of a path running through the _shola_ was of green moss and a few fine fern-roots. Inside 175 inch deep and 25 inches across; outside a shapeless ma.s.s of moss filling up the hole it was built in. The nest was very conspicuous to any one pa.s.sing by.”
194. Brachypteryx rufiventris (Blyth). _The Rufous-bellied Short-wing_.
Callene rufiventris, _Blyth. Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 496: _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 339.
I have been favoured with nests of the Rufous-bellied Short-wing by Mr. Carter, who took them from holes or depressions of banks in the Nilghiris in April and May. They closely resemble nests of _Niltava macrigoriae_ from Darjeeling. They are soft ma.s.ses of green moss, some 4 or 5 inches in diameter externally, with more or less of a depression towards one side, lined with very fine dark moss-roots.
This depression may average about 2 inches across and inch in depth; but they vary a good deal. Mr. Carter says:--”I have found the nests of this species about Conoor in May, in holes of banks, on roads running through thick _sholas_ (i.e. jungles not amounting to forests). The nests are of moss, shallow, lined with fine root-fibres, the cavity about 3-5 inches in diameter. They lay two eggs, pale olive, shading into a decided brownish red at the larger end. The old birds are very shy in returning to the nest when watched; indeed, they are always shy, hiding in the brushwood of jungles or amongst fallen timber, along which they almost creep.”
Mr. Davison informs me that ”this species breeds on the Nilghiris from about 5500 feet to about 7000 during April and May, building in holes of trees, crevices of rocks, &c., seldom at any great elevation above the ground. The nest is composed of moss, lined with moss and fern-roots. Two or three eggs are laid.”