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
There are two very distinct types of this bird's eggs. The one pure
white and spotless, the other a pale salmon-colour, spotted with a
rich brownish red. These eggs unquestionably both belong to the same
species, as I have taken them times without number myself and can
positively certify to their parentage; moreover connecting links are
not wanting in a large series. I have one egg perfectly white, with
the exception of three or four blackish-brown spots, another with more
of these spots, another with almost as many as the ordinary spotted
eggs have, the ground-colour in all these being still pure white,
and the spots being blackish or very deep reddish brown. Then I
have others similar to those just described, but showing a faint
salmon-coloured halo round one or two of the largest spots, others in
which the halo is further developed, and others again with the entire
ground-colour an excessively pale salmon throughout, and so on a
complete series gradually increasing in intensity of colour till we
get the pure rich salmon-buff which is at the other end of the scale.
I am particular in this description, because the eggs of this bird
have been a subject of almost as many contradictions between Indian
naturalists as the chameleon of pious memory. In shape the eggs are
typically a rather long oval, somewhat pointed towards one end. Very
much elongated varieties are common, recalling in this respect the
eggs of _Chibia hottentotta_. Spherical varieties, if they occur, must
be very rare, the enormous series I possess containing no example. In
the colour of the ground, as above remarked, there is every possible,
variety of shade between pure white and a very rich salmon-colour. In
the intensity and number of the markings there is an equally great
variety. The markings, always spots and specks, the largest never
exceeding 0·1 inch in diameter, are invariably most numerous towards
the large end, where they are sometimes, though rarefy, slightly
confluent. They vary from only two or three to a number too large to
count, and in colour through many shades of reddish, blackish, and
purplish brown, the latter being rare and abnormal.
The eggs are entirely devoid of gloss, as a rule, though here and
there a slight trace of it is observable. It is this want of gloss
alone that distinguishes some of the larger white, black-spotted
varieties from the eggs of the common Oriole, which they occasionally
exactly resemble not only in shape, colour, and character of marking,
but even (though generally smaller) in size.
In length they vary From 0·87 to 1·15 inch, and in breadth from 0·7
to 0·85, but the average of 152 eggs measured is 1·01 by 0·75 inch. I
have two dwarf eggs of this species not included in the above average
which I myself obtained in different nests, measuring only 0·78 by 0·5
inch, and 0·87 by 0·62 inch.
328. Dicrurus longicaudatus. A. Hay. _The Indian Ashy Drongo_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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