The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds Part 7

They vary in length from 07 to 078, and in breadth from 052 to 055; but I have only measured six eggs.

43. Machlolophus haplonotus (Bl.). _The Southern Yellow t.i.t_.

_Machlolophus jerdoni (Bl.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 280.

Col. E.A. Butler writes:--"Belgaum, 12th Sept., 1879.--Found a nest of the Southern Yellow t.i.t in a hole of a small tree about 10 feet from the ground. My attention was first attracted to it by seeing the hen-bird with her wings spread and feathers erect angrily mobbing a palm-squirrel that had incautiously ascended the tree, and thinking there must be a nest close by, I watched the sequel, and in a few seconds the squirrel descended the tree and the t.i.t disappeared in a small hole about halfway up. I then put a net over the hole and tapped the bough to drive her out, but this was no easy matter, for although the nest was only about foot from the entrance, and I made as much noise as a thick stick could well make against a hollow bough, nothing would induce her to leave the nest until I had cut a large wedge out of the branch, with a saw and chisel, close to the nest, when she flew out into the net.

"The nest, which contained, to my great disappointment, five young birds about a week old, was very ma.s.sively built, and completely choked up the hollow pa.s.sage in which it was placed. The foundation consisted of a quant.i.ty of dry green moss, of the kind that natives bring in from the jungles in the rains, and sell for ornamenting flower vases, &c. Next came a thick layer of coir, mixed with a few dry skeleton-leaves and some short ends of old rope and a sc.r.a.p or two of paper, and finally a substantial pad of blackish hair, princ.i.p.ally human, but with cow- and horse-hair intermixed, forming a snug little bed for the young ones. The total depth of the nest exteriorly was at least 7 inches.

"The bough, about 8 inches in diameter, was partly rotten and hollow the whole way down, having a small hole at the side above by which the birds entered, and another rather larger about a foot below the nest all choked up with moss that had fallen from the base of the nest. It is strange that it should have escaped my eye previously, as the tree overhung my gateway, through which I pa.s.sed constantly during the day.

Immediately below the nest a large black board bearing my name was nailed to the tree.

"At Belgaum, on the 10th July, 1880, I observed a pair of Yellow t.i.ts building in a crevice of a large banian tree about 9 feet from the ground. The two birds were flying to and from the nest in company, the hen carrying building-materials in her beak. I watched the nest constantly for several days, but never saw the birds near it again until the 18th inst., when the hen flew out of the hole as I pa.s.sed the tree. I visited the spot on the 19th and 20th inst., tapping the tree loudly with a stick as I pa.s.sed, but without any result, as the bird did not fly off the nest.

"On the 21st, thinking the nest must either be forsaken or contain eggs, I got up and looked into the hole, and to my surprise found the hen bird comfortably seated on the nest, notwithstanding the noise I had been making to try and put her off. As the crevice was too small to admit my hand, I commenced to enlarge the entrance with a chisel, the old bird sitting closer than ever the whole time. Finding all attempts to drive her off the eggs fruitless, I tried to poke her off: with a piece of stick, whereupon she stuck her head into one of the far corners and sulked. I then inserted my hand with some difficulty and drew her gently out of the hole, but as soon as she caught sight of me, she commenced fighting in the most pugnacious manner, digging her claws and beak into my hand, and finally breaking loose, flying, not away as might have been expected, but straight back into the hole again, to commence sulking once more. Again I drew her out, keeping a firm hold of one leg until I got her well away from the hole, when I released her. I then extracted five fresh eggs from the hole by means of a small round net attached to the loop end of a short piece of wire. The nest was a simple pad of human and cows' hair, with a few horsehairs interwoven, and one or two bits of snake's skin in the lining, having a thin layer of green moss and thin strips of inner bark below as a foundation--in fact a regular t.i.t's nest. The eggs, of the usual parine type, were considerably larger than the eggs of _P.

atriceps_, broad ovals, slightly smaller at one end than the other, having a white ground spotted moderately thickly all over with reddish chestnut; no zone or cap, but in some eggs more freely marked at one end (either small or large end) than the other, some of the markings almost amounting to blotches and the spots as a rule rather large."

Messrs. Davidson and Wenden remark of this bird in the Deccan:--"Specimens of this t.i.t were procured at Lanoli in August and at Egutpoora in March. They certainly breed at these places, as in September, at the latter place, W. observed two parent birds with four young ones capable of flying out very short distances."

And Mr. Davidson further states that it is "common throughout the district of Western Kandeish. I saw a pair building in the hole of a large mango tree at Malpur in Pimpalnir in the end of May."

44. Lophophanes melanolophus (Vig.). _The Crested Black t.i.t_.

Lophophanes melanolophus (_Vig._) _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 273: _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 638.

The Crested Black t.i.t breeds throughout the Lower Himalayas west of Nepal, at elevations of from 6000 to 8000 feet.

The breeding-season lasts from March to June, but the majority have laid, I think, for the first hatch by the end of the first week in April, unless the season has been a very backward one. They usually rear two broods.

They build, so far as I know, always in holes, in trees, rocks, and walls, preferentially in the latter. Their nests involve generally two different kinds of work--the working up of the true nests on which the eggs repose, and the preliminary closing in and making comfortable the cavity in which the former is placed. For this latter work they use almost exclusively moss. Sometimes very little filling-in is required; sometimes the ma.s.s of moss used to level and close in an awkward-shaped recess is surprisingly great. A pair breed every year in a terrace-wall of my garden at Simla; elevation about 7800 feet.

One year they selected an opening a foot high and 6 inches wide, and they closed up the whole of this, leaving an entrance not 2 inches in diameter. Some years ago I disturbed them there, and found nearly half a cubic foot of dry green moss. Now they build in a cavity behind one of the stones, the entrance to which is barely an inch wide, and in this, as far as I can see, they have no moss at all.

The nests are nothing but larger or smaller pads of closely felted wool and fur; sometimes a little moss, and sometimes a little vegetable down, is mingled in the moss, but the great body of the material is always wool and fur. They vary very much in size: you may meet with them fully 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches thick, comparatively loosely and coa.r.s.ely ma.s.sed together; and you may meet with them shallow saucers 3 inches in diameter and barely half an inch in thickness anywhere, as closely felted as if manufactured by human agency.

Six to eight is considered the full complement of eggs, but the number is very variable, and I have taken three, four, and five well-incubated eggs.

Captain Beavan, to judge from his description, seems to have found a regular cup-shaped nest such, as I have never seen. He says:--"At Simla, April 20th, 1866, I found a nest of this species with young ones in it in an old wall in the garden. I secured the old bird for identification, and then released her. The nest contained seven young ones, and was large in proportion. The outside and bottom consists of the softest moss, the nest being carefully built between two stones, about a foot inside the wall; the rest of it is composed of the finest grey wool or fur. Diameter inside 25; outside about 5 inches. Depth inside nearly 3 inches; outside 36."

Captain c.o.c.k told me that he "found several nests in May and June in Cashmere. The first nest I found was in a natural cavity high up in a tree, containing three eggs, which I unfortunately broke while taking them out of the nest. The interior of the cavity was thickly lined with fur from some small animal, such as a hare or rat. I found my second nest close to my tent in a cleft of a pine, quite low down, only 3 feet from the ground. I cut it out and it contained five eggs of the usual type--broad, blunt little eggs, white, with rusty blotches."

Colonel G.F.L. Marshall writes:--"I have only found two nests of this species in Naini Tal, both had young (two in one nest, in the other I could not count) on the 25th April; they were at about 7000 feet elevation, built in holes in walls, the entrance in both cases being very small, having nothing to distinguish it from other tiny crevices, and nothing to lead any one to suppose that there was a nest inside.

It was only by seeing the parent birds go in that the nest was discovered."

The eggs of this species are moderately broad ovals, with a very slight gloss. The ground-colour is a slightly pinkish white, and they are richly blotched and spotted, and more or less speckled (chiefly towards the larger end), with bright, somewhat brownish red.

The markings very commonly form a dense, almost confluent zone or cap about the large end, and they are generally more thinly scattered elsewhere, but the amount of the markings varies much in different eggs. In some, although they are thicker in the zone, they are still pretty thickly set over the entire surface, while in others they are almost confined to one end of the egg, generally the broad end.

These eggs vary much in size and in density of marking. The ordinary dimensions are about 061 by 047, but in a large series they vary in length from 057 to 072, and in breadth from 043 to 054. The very large eggs, however, indicated by these _maxima_ are rare and abnormal.

47. Lophophanes rufinuchalis (Bl.). _The Simla Black t.i.t_.

Lophophanes rufinuchalis (_Bl.). Jerd. B. Ind._ ii. p. 274.

Mr. Brooks informs us that this t.i.t is common at Derali and other places of similar elevation. "I found a nest under a large stone in the middle of a hill foot-path, up and down which people and cattle were constantly pa.s.sing; the nest contained newly-hatched young. This was the middle of May."

Dr. Scully, writing of the Gilgit district, tells us that this t.i.t is a denizen of the pine-forests, where it breeds.

Finally Captain Wardlaw Ramsay, writing in the 'Ibis,' states that this t.i.t was breeding in Afghanistan in May.

Subfamily PARADOXORNITHINAE.

50. Conostoma aemodium, Hodgs. _The Red-billed Crow-t.i.t_.

Conostoma aemodium. _Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 10; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 381.

A nest of the Red-billed Crow-t.i.t was sent me from Native Sikhim, where it was found at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, in a cl.u.s.ter of the small Ringal bamboo. It contained three eggs, two of which were broken in blowing them.

The nest is a very regular and perfect hemisphere, both externally and internally. It is very compactly made, externally of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and strips of bamboo-leaves, and internally very thickly lined with stiff but very fine gra.s.s-stems, about the thickness of an ordinary pin, very carefully curved to the shape of the nest. The coa.r.s.er exterior gra.s.s appears to have been used when dry; but the fine gra.s.s, with which the interior is so densely lined, is still green. It is the most perfectly hemispherical nest I ever saw. Exteriorly it is exactly 6 inches in diameter and 3 in height; internally the cavity measures 4.5 in diameter and 225 in depth.

The egg is a regular moderately elongated oval, slightly compressed towards the smaller end. The sh.e.l.l is fine and thin, and has only a faint gloss. The ground-colour is a dull white, and it is spa.r.s.ely blotched, streaked, and smudged with pale yellowish brown, besides which, about the large end, there are a number of small pale inky purple spots and clouds, looking as if they were beneath the surface of the sh.e.l.l.

The single egg preserved measures 111 by 08.

A nest sent me by Mr. Mandelli was found, he says, in May, in Native Sikhim, in a cl.u.s.ter of Ringal (hill-bamboo) at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet. It is a large, rather broad and shallow cup, the great bulk of the nest composed of extremely fine hair-like gra.s.s-stems, obviously used when green, and coated thinly exteriorly with coa.r.s.e blades of gra.s.s, giving the outside a ragged and untidy appearance.

The greatest external diameter is 5.5, the height 32, but the cavity is 45 in diameter and 2.2 in depth, so that, though owing to the fine material used throughout except in the outer coating the nest is extremely firm and compact, it is not at all a ma.s.sive-looking one.

60. Scaeorhynchus ruficeps (Bl.). _The Larger Red-headed Crow-t.i.t_.

Paradoxornis ruficeps, _Bl., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 5.

Mr. Gammie writes from Sikhim:--"In May, at 2000 feet elevation, I took a nest of this bird, which appears to have been rarely, if ever, taken by any European, and is not described in your Rough Draft of 'Nests and Eggs.' It was seated among, and fastened to, the spray of a bamboo near its top, and is a deep, compactly built cap, measuring externally 35 inches wide and the same in depth; internally 27 wide by 19 deep. The material used is particularly clean and new-looking, and has none of the secondhand appearance of much of the building-stuffs of many birds. The outer layer is of strips torn off large gra.s.s-stalks and a very few cobwebs; the lining, of fine fibrous strips, or rather threads, of bamboo-stems. There were three eggs, which were ready for hatching-off. They averaged 083 in. by 063 in.

I send you the nest and two of the eggs.

"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 princ.i.p.al 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 sh.e.l.l 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.