The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1Hume, Allan Octavian
Philosophy
The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1
Hume, Allan Octavian
Birds -- India; Birds -- Nests
"On the 10th February I took another nest of _Pycnonotus finlaysoni_
at Taroar. The nest was built in a small shrub 3 feet from the ground,
in a fork; foundation of dead leaves, built of fine twigs and fibrous
bark; lined with fine grass-bents and moss-roots. Egg-cavity 2¾ inches
in diameter, 1¾ deep; walls ¼ inch thick, bottom ¾ inch.
"Found a nest of _Pycnonotus finlaysoni_, with two fresh eggs, on the
16th March. The nest was built in a thin small sapling, 5½ feet from
ground, on the top of a thinly wooded hill; the nest was of the
ordinary Bulbul type, but better put together and neater. The
foundation was of broad fibrous bark and twigs, lined with fine
grass-stalks."
The eggs vary in shape from broad ovals a good deal pointed towards
one end, to pyriform and elongated shaped, very obtuse even at the
small end. The shell is fine and compact, in some has a fine gloss,
in others it is rather dull. The ground-colour is a beautiful pink,
sometimes with a creamy tinge, and the markings are bold blotches,
spots, and streaks of a maroon of varying degrees in richness, and of
a subsurface-looking purple, varying to almost inky grey. In some eggs
the maroon, in some the purple or grey seems to predominate; in some
eggs the markings seem pretty equally distributed over the egg; in
others they form a more or less conspicuous zone about the larger end.
The eggs measure from 0·85 to 0·92 in length by 0·6 to 0·7 in breadth.
300. Pycnonotus davisoni (Hume). _Davison's Stripe-throated Bulbul_.
Ixus davisoni, _Hume; Hume, cat._ no. 452 quat.
Mr. Oates writes from Kyeikpadein in Pegu:--"A nest of this bird was
found on the 1st June, and another on 6th of the same month, each
containing two fresh eggs. The females, which were shot off the nest,
showed, however, no signs on dissection of being about to lay more.
"The nest is a flimsy structure, built of the stems of small weeds and
lined with grass. A few fine black tree-roots are twisted round the
inside of the egg-chamber. The outside and inside diameters measure 4
and 3 inches, and the depths are similarly 3 and 1·25. Both nests were
placed low down about 4 feet from the ground--one in a bush, and the
other in a creeper.
"The eggs vary much in size. One pair measure ·92 and ·88 by ·60
and ·65, and the other ·83 and ·82 by ·65 and ·61 respectively;
the ground-colour of all is a pinkish white. In one pair the
shell-blotches of washed-out purple are spread over the whole egg, and
the surface-spots and clashes of carneous red are also equally spread
over the whole shell. In the other pair the shell-marks are grouped
round the larger end to form a broad ring, and the whole egg is
thickly speckled and spotted with bright reddish. The eggs are very
slightly glossy."
301. Pycnonotus melanicterus (Gm.)._The Black-capped Bulbul_.
Rubigula melanictera (_Gm.), Hume, cat._ no. 455 bis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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