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
Major C.T. Bingham writes:--"Common both at Allahabad and at Delhi; I
have found this bird breeding from April to the end of July. All nests
that I have found have, with the exception of one, been placed in low
babool bushes; once only I found a nest near Delhi in the fork of a
low bough of a mango-tree, this was on the 31st July. The nests are
more or less loosely constructed cups of slender twigs and grass-roots
and inclined."
Mr. J.R. Cripps writing from Eastern Bengal says:--"On the 15th April
I found a nest on the very top of a mango-tree about 30 feet off the
ground, shooting the male as it flew off the nest."
The eggs of this species are very variable in colour, shape, and size.
Typically they are rather broad ovals, somewhat compressed towards one
end, and much the shape of, though a good deal smaller than, those
of our English Song-Thrush. Some are, however, long and cylindrical;
others more or less spherical. The colour varies from a pale blue,
like that of _Trochalopterum lineatum_, to a deep dull blue,
recalling, but yet not so dark as, that of _Garrulax albigularis_. The
eggs are typically glossy, but it is remarkable that in a large series
the deepest coloured are always far the most glossy. Some deep blue
eggs of this species are most intensely glossy, more so than almost
any other of our Indian eggs, except those of _Metopidius indicus_. I
need scarcely say that the eggs are entirely spotless and devoid of
all markings, but I may note that each egg is invariably the same
colour throughout, and that I have never met with a specimen in which
the shade of colour varied in the same egg.
In length the eggs vary from 0·88 to 1·15, and in breadth from 0·75 to
0·82; but the average of fifty-one eggs measured is 1·01 by 0·78.
_C. malabaricus_.
The Jungle Babbler, like the White-headed one, breeds pretty well over
the whole of Southern India, but while the latter is chiefly confined
to the more open plain country, the former is the bird of the uplands,
hills, and forests. Still the Jungle Babbler is found at times in the
same localities as the White-headed one, and what is more, specimens
occur, as in Cochin, which partake of the distinctive characters of
both. A great deal still remains to be done in working out properly
this group; both in Sindh on the west and the Tributary Mehals on the
east, and again in some parts of the Nilghiris, races occur quite
intermediate between typical _C. terricolor_ and typical _C.
malabaricus_, while in the south, as already mentioned, forms
intermediate between this latter and _C. griseus_ seem common. Three
distinguishable races again of _C. griseus_ are met with, but running
the one into the other, while intermediate forms between this species
and _C. somervillii_ (Sykes) are also met with.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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