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
The eggs are much the same shape and size as those of _Acrocephalus
stentoreus_. They have a dead-white ground, thickly speckled and
spotted with blackish and purplish brown, and have but a slight gloss;
the speckling, everywhere thick, is generally densest at the large
end, and there chiefly do spots, as big as an ordinary pin's head,
occur. At the large end, besides these specklings, there is a cloudy,
dull, irregular cap, or else isolated patches, of very pale inky
purple, which more or less obscure the ground-colour. In the peculiar
speckly character of the markings these eggs recall doubtless some
specimens of the eggs of the different Bulbuls, but their natural
affinities seem to be with those of the _Acrocephalinae_.
The eggs vary from 0·8 to 0·97 in length, and from 0·61 to 0·69 in
breadth; but the average of twelve eggs is 0·85 by 0·64.
390. Schoenicola platyura (Jerd.). _The Broad-tailed Grass-Warbler_.
Schoenicola platyura (_Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 73.
Colonel E.A. Butler discovered the nest of the Broad-tailed
Grass-Warbler at Belgaum. He writes:--
"On the 1st September, 1880, I shot a pair of these birds as they rose
out of some long grass by the side of a rice-field; and, thinking
there might be a nest, I commenced a diligent search, which resulted
in my finding one. It consisted of a good-sized ball of coarse blades
of dry grass, with an entrance on one side, and was built in long
grass about a foot from the ground. Though it was apparently finished,
there were unfortunately no eggs, but dissection of the hen proved
that she would have laid in a day or two. On the 10th instant I found
another nest exactly similar, built in a tussock of coarse grass, near
the same place; but this was subsequently deserted without the bird
laying. On the 19th September I went in the early morning to the same
patch of grass and watched another pair, soon seeing the hen disappear
amongst some thick tussocks. On my approaching the spot she flew off
the nest, which contained four eggs much incubated. The nest was
precisely similar to the others, but with the entrance-hole perhaps
rather nearer the top, though still on one side. The situation in the
grass was the same--in fact it was very similar in every respect to
the nest of _Drymoeca insignis_. The eggs are very like those of
_Molpastes haemorrhous_, but smaller, having a purplish-white ground,
sprinkled all over with numerous small specks and spots of purple and
purplish brown, with a cap of the same at the large end, underlaid
with inky lilac.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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