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
"Both Jerdon and Tickell say they found this bird feeding on grain
and other seeds, but those I examined had all confined their diet to
different sorts of insects, such as would be found about the
flowers of bamboo, buckwheat, &c. Probably they do eat a few seeds
occasionally, but their principal food is certainly insects.
Very usually, in winter especially, they feed in company with
_Gampsorhynchus rufulus_. Rather curious that the two Red-heads should
affect each other's society."
The eggs are broad ovals, rather cylindrical, very blunt at both ends.
The shell fine, with a slight gloss. The ground is white, and it
is rather thinly and irregularly spotted, blotched, and smeared in
patches with a dingy yellowish brown, chiefly about the larger end, to
which also are nearly confined the secondary markings, which are pale
greyish lilac or purplish grey.
61. Scaeorhynchus gularis (Horsf.). _The Hoary-headed Crow-Tit_.
Paradoxornis gularis, _Horsf., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p, 5.
A nest sent me by Mr. Mandelli as belonging to this species was found,
he tells me, at an elevation of 8000 feet in Native Sikhim on the 17th
May. It was placed in a fork amongst the branches of a medium-sized
tree at a height of about 30 feet from the ground. The nest is a
very massive cup, composed of soft grass-blades, none of them much
exceeding ·1 inch in width, wound round and round together very
closely and compactly, and then tied over exteriorly everywhere, but
not thickly, with just enough wool and wild silk to keep the nest
perfectly strong and firm. Inside, the nest is lined with extremely
fine grass-stems; the nest is barely 4 inches in diameter exteriorly
and 2·5 in height; the egg-cavity is 2·4 in diameter and 1·2 in depth.
Mr. Mandelli sends me an egg which he considers to belong to this
species, found near Darjeeling on the 7th May. It is a broad oval,
very slightly compressed at one end; the shell dull and glossless; the
ground a dead white, profusely streaked and smudged pretty thickly
all over with pale yellowish brown; the whole bigger end of the egg
clouded with dull inky purple and two or three hair-lines of burnt
sienna in different parts of the egg. The egg measures 0·8 by 0·61.
Two eggs of this species, procured in Sikhim on the 17th May, are very
regular ovals, scarcely at all pointed towards the lesser end. The
ground-colour is creamy white, and the markings consist of large
indistinct blotches of pale yellow; round the large end is an almost
confluent zone or cap of purplish grey, darker in one egg; they have
no gloss, and both measure 0·82 by 0·61.
Family CRATEROPODIDAE.
Subfamily CRATEROPODINAE.
62. Dryonastes ruficollis (J. & S.) _The Rufous-necked
Laughing-Thrush_.
Garrulax ruticollis (_J. & S.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 38; _Hume, Rough
Draft N.& E._ no. 410.
Of the Rufous-necked Laughing-Thrush, Mr. Blyth remarks:--"Mr. Hodgson
figures the egg of a fine green colour."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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