Part 61 (1/2)

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 15 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 sh.e.l.l 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 071 to 08 inch, and in breadth from 054 to 06 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 k.u.maon, 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 spa.r.s.ely scattered about the larger end; the length is 08 by 055 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 25 inches in diameter and nearly 175 in height. The rim of the nest is 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 gra.s.s-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 gra.s.s; 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 082 by 06 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 a.s.sam, 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 075 to 086, and in breadth from 058 to 06.

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 17 inch to 19 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 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 gra.s.s-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 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.”

”_Allygurh, August 27th_.--Another beautiful little nest in a mango-tree high up, a tiny cup about 1 inch internal diameter by inch deep, woven with very fine twigs, and exteriorly coated with tiny fragments of bark and dead leaves firmly secured in their places with gossamer threads and cobwebs. It contained two fresh eggs; a pale slightly greenish-white ground, richly speckled and spotted and spa.r.s.ely blotched with a purplish and a brownish red, the markings greatly predominating towards the larger end.”