The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 — David Hume — John Shaqi
The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1
David Hume · en
"These birds closely resemble _Chaetornis striatus_ in their actions
and habits, and in the breeding-season rise constantly into the air,
chirruping like that species, and descending afterwards in the same
way on to some low bush or tussock of grass, sometimes even on to
the telegraph-wires. They are fearful little skulks, however, if you
attempt to pursue them, and the moment you approach disappear into the
grass like a shot, from whence it is almost impossible to flush them
again unless you all but tread on them. It is perfectly marvellous the
way they will hide themselves in a patch of grass when they have once
taken refuge in it; and although you may know within a yard or two of
where the bird is, you may search for half an hour without finding it.
If you shoot at them and miss, they drop to the shot into the grass as
if killed, and nothing will dissuade you from the belief that they are
so until, after a long search, the little beast gets up exactly where
you have been hunting all along, from almost under your feet, and
darts off to disappear, after another short flight of fifteen or
twenty yards, in another patch of grass, from whence you may again try
in vain to dislodge it."
The eggs of this species, though much smaller, are precisely of the
same type as those of _Megalurus palustris_ and _Chaetornis striatus_;
moderately broad ovals with a very fine compact shell, with but little
gloss, though perhaps rather more of this than in either of the
species above referred to. The ground-colour is white, with perhaps
a faint pinkish shade, and it is profusely speckled and spotted with
brownish red, almost black in some spots, more chestnut in others.
Here and there a few larger spots or small irregular blotches occur.
Besides these markings, clouds, streaks, and tiny spots of grey or
lavender-grey occur, chiefly about the large end, where, with the
markings (often more numerous there than elsewhere), they form at
times a more or less confluent but irregular and ill-defined cap.
One egg measured 0·73 by 0·6.
391. Acanthoptila nepalensis (Hodgs.). _The Spiny Warbler_.
Acanthoptila nipalensis (_Hodgs.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p 57.
Acanthoptila pellotis, _Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._
no. 431 bis.
According to Mr. Hodgson's notes and figures, this species builds, in
a fork of a tree, a very loose, shallow grass nest. One is recorded
to have measured 4·87 in diameter and 1·75 in height externally,
and internally 3·37 in diameter and an inch in depth. The eggs are
verditer-blue, and are figured as 1·1 by 0·65.
I may here note that _Acanthoptila pellotis_ and _A. leucotis_ are
totally distinct, as Mr. Hodgson's figures clearly show. Hodgson
published _A. leucotis_ apparently under the name of _A. nipalensis_,
so that the two will stand as _A. pellotis_ and _A. nipalensis_.[A]