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
Mr. Oates writes from Pegu:--"Nest in a small tree, well concealed
by leaves, about 7 feet from the ground, near Pegu. A very neat cup
measuring 3 inches diameter externally and 2·25 internally. The depth
1·75 inch outside and 1·25 inside. The sides of the nest, though very
strongly woven, can be seen through. The materials consist of small
fine branchlets of weeds, and the inside is neatly lined with grass.
One or two dead leaves, or rather fragments, are used in the exterior
walling.
"The nest was found on the 25th May, and contained three eggs slightly
incubated. The ground-colour is a fresh pink, but with little gloss.
The whole egg is covered with a profusion of dark purplish-red spots,
more thickly disposed at the thick end, but everywhere frequent. In
addition there are some underlying and much paler smears. The three
eggs measured respectively ·75, ·78, and ·77 in length, by ·63, ·62,
and ·61 in breadth.
"Subsequently I found five other nests, from the 1st April to the 20th
June, all similar to the one described. Eggs invariably three. Average
size of twelve eggs ·82 by ·6."
The nests of this species that I have seen have been very slight
flimsy structures, nearly hemispherical cups, composed of fine twigs
and the leaf-stalks of pennated leaves a little bound together with
cobwebs and thinly lined with fine hair-like grass. In some cases
a leaf or two has been attached to the outer surface to aid the
concealment of the nest. The nest is very loosely woven just like a
sieve, as a rule nowhere more than 0·25 inch thick, and with a truly
hemispherical cavity, diameter about 2·5, depth about 1·25.
The eggs are of the ordinary Bulbul type, but not amongst the more
richly-coloured examples of these; in shape and size they vary a good
deal, but typically they seem to be moderately broad ovals slightly
compressed towards the small end. The shell is fine and smooth, but
has scarcely any appreciable gloss; the ground is pale pink or pinky
white. At the large end the markings are dense, forming in some eggs
an almost confluent zone, in others a mottled cap; they consist
of irregular-shaped spots and specks of deep red and pale
subsurface-looking greyish purple; over the rest of the surface of the
egg outside the zone or cap the markings are much smaller in size and
much more thinly scattered, and it is observable that the secondary
purple markings are to a great extent confined to the zone or cap, as
the case may be, and its immediate neighbourhood.
Occasionally the markings, which seem always to be small and speckly,
are very sparsely set, leaving comparatively large portions of the
surface unmarked; and occasionally eggs are met with in which the
primary markings are wholly wanting, and there is nothing but a pale
reddish-purple cloudy mottling over the greater portion of the surface
of the egg.[A]
[Footnote A: PYCNONOTUS PLUMOSUS, Bl. _The Large Olive Bulbul_.
Ixus plumosus (_Bl.), Hume, cat._ no. 452 sept.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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