Part 47

Dr. Jerdon remarked ('Illustrations of Indian Ornithology'), writing at the time from Southern India:--

"I have seen a nest of this species in the possession of S.N. Ward, Esq. It is a neat but slightly cup-shaped nest, composed chiefly of fine grass, and was placed near the extremity of a branch, some of the nearest leaves being, it was said, brought down and loosely surrounding it. It contained two eggs, white, with a few claret-coloured blotches. Its nest and eggs, I may remark, show an analogy to that of the Orioles."

Mr. Layard tells us that this species is "extremely common in the south of Ceylon, but rare towards the north. It feeds in small flocks on seeds and insects, and builds an open cup-shaped nest. The eggs, four in number, are white, thickly mottled at the obtuse end with purplish spots."

And Sir W. Jardine says:--"For the interesting nest and eggs of Phyllornis jerdoni, Blyth, we are indebted to E.S. Layard, Esq., Magistrate of the district of Point Pedro (the northernmost extremity of Ceylon), in which district we understand it to have been procured. A large groove along the underside of the nest indicates it to have been placed upon a branch; the general form is somewhat flat, and it is composed of very soft materials, chiefly dry grass and silky vegetable fibres, rather compactly interwoven with some pieces of dead leaf and bark on the outside, over which a good deal of spider's web has been worked. It contains four eggs, white, abruptly speckled over with dark bistre mingled with some ashy spots." Layard is not generally reliable where eggs are concerned, for he did not usually take them with his own hands and natives will lie; and I doubt the four eggs here, but I think, so far as the nest goes, that he was right in this case.

The eggs are rather elongated ovals; some of them a good deal pointed towards one end, others again slightly pyriform. The shell is very delicate; the ground-colour white to creamy white; as a rule almost glossless, in some specimens slightly glossy. They are sparingly marked, usually chiefly at the large end, with spots, specks, small blotches, hair-lines, or hieroglyphic-like figures, which are typically almost black, but which in some eggs are blackish, or even reddish, or purplish brown. In no specimens that I have seen were the markings at all numerous, except just at the large end; and in some they consist solely of a few tiny specks, scattered about the crown of the egg.

The eggs vary from 0·8 to 0·92 in length, and from 0·56 to 0·63 in breadth; but the average of a dozen was 0·86 by 0·6.

254. Irena puella (Lath.). The Fairy Blue-bird.

Irena puella (Lath.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 105; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no 469.

Mr. Frank Bourdillon favoured me with an egg of the Fairy Blue-bird, which with other rare eggs he obtained on the Assamboo Hills. So little is known of this range that I quote his remarks upon this locality.

"I must premise that the specimens were obtained along the Assamboo Range of hills, between the elevations of 1500 and 3000 feet above sea-level. This range of hills, running in a north-westerly and south-easterly direction from Cape Comorin to 8°33' north latitude, forms the boundary line between Travancore and the British Territory of Tinnevelly, the average height of the range being about 4000 feet, while some of the peaks are as high as 5500 feet. The general character of the hills is dense forest, broken here and there by grass ridges and crowned by precipitous rocks, above which lies an almost unexplored table-land, varying in width from a mile to 12 or 15 miles, at an elevation of almost 4000 feet."

"The egg of the Fairy Blue-bird," he adds, "was taken slightly set on the 28th February, 1873, from a loose sparsely-built nest situated in a sapling about 12 feet from the ground. The nest was composed of dead twigs lined with leaves, and was about 4 inches broad and very slightly indented."

As will be remembered, Dr. Jerdon states that "Mr. Ward obtained, what he was informed were, the nest and eggs; the nest was large, made of roots and fibres and lined with moss; and the eggs, two in number, were pale greenish, much spotted with dusky:" and I have no doubt that Mr. Ward's eggs were genuine.

The egg is an elongated oval, compressed almost throughout its entire length, very blunt at both points; a long cone, the apex broadly truncated and rounded off obtusely, sealed on half a very oblate spheroid. In no one single point--shape, texture of shell, colour or character of markings--does this egg approach to those of either the Oriole or the Chloropsis. This shell is very close-grained and fine, but only moderately glossy. The ground is pale green, and it is streaked and blotched with pale dull brown. The markings are almost entirely confluent over the large end (where they appear to be underlaid by dingy, dimly discernible greyish blotches), and from the cap thus formed they descend in streaky mottlings towards the small end, growing fewer and further apart as they approach this latter, which is almost devoid of markings.

It is impossible to generalize from a single specimen as to the position this bird should hold, but this one egg renders it quite certain to my mind that the nearest allies of Irena are neither Oriolus nor Chloropsis, and that it is quite impossible to place it with the Dicruridae. The eggs of Psaroglossa spiloptera are not very dissimilar, and I expect that it is somewhere between the Paradiseidae, Sturnidae, and Icteridae that Irena will ultimately have to be located.

The egg measures 1·1 by 0·73.

Mr. Fulton Bourdillon writes:--"The last note I have to send you at present is that of a Blue-bird's nest (Irena puella). Of this there can be no possible doubt, as my brother and I shot both the male and female birds, and I took the nest with my own hands. It was in a pollard tree beside a stream among some thick branches about 20 feet from the ground. The nest was neatly but very loosely constructed of fresh green moss, which formed the bulk of the nest, and lined with the flower-stalks of a jungle shrub. It was very well concealed, and was about 4 inches broad with a cavity not more than 1½ inch deep. It contained two eggs slightly set, measuring respectively 1·11 x ·84 and 1·16 x ·81. These eggs tally very fairly in colour, shape, and size with those sent last year; of the identity of which I was doubtful at the time, though now I think there can be no mistake.

"Since writing last I have had another nest of Irena puella brought me with two fresh eggs. The nest was very loosely put together and similar in all respects to the one last sent. The eggs measure ·95 x ·81 and ·92 x ·79, with the same well-defined ring round the larger end. The nest was in a small tree about 10 feet from the ground and was well concealed. It was composed of twigs, without any lining."

The nest sent me by Mr. Bourdillon is a very flimsy affair, reminding one much of the nest of Graucalus macii and not in the smallest degree of that of an Oriole. A mere pad, some 4 inches in diameter, composed of very thin twigs or dry flower-stalks with a couple of dead leaves intermingled, and an external coating of green moss.

Major C.T. Bingham has favoured me with the following notes from Tenasserim:--"At the sources of the Winsaw stream, a feeder of the Thoungyeen river, on the 30th April I found a nest of this bird, a mere irregularly roundish pad of moss with very little depression in the centre, containing two fresh eggs, and placed 12 feet or so above the ground in the fork of an evergreen sapling. The eggs measure 1·18 x 0·86 and 1·19 x 0·86 respectively, and are so thickly spotted and blotched with brown as to show very little of the ground-colour, which latter, however, appears to be of a greenish white.

"On the 11th April I was slowly clambering along a very steep hill-side overlooking the Queebaw choung, a small tributary of the Meplay stream, when from a tree whose crown was below my feet I startled a female Irena puella off her nest. I could see the nest and that it contained two eggs, so I shot the female, who had taken to a tree a little above me. On getting the nest down, I found it a poor affair of little twigs, with a superstructure of moss, shaped into a shallow saucer, on which reposed two eggs, large for the size of the bird, of a dull greenish white, much dashed, speckled, and spotted with brown. They were so hard-set that I only managed to save one, which measured 1·09 by 0·77 inch."

Mr. Davison writes:--"At Kussoom, in some moderately thin tree-jungle I found the nest of Irena puella. The nest was placed in the fork of a sapling some 12 feet from the ground. The nest externally was composed of dry twigs, carelessly and irregularly put together. The egg-cavity was shallow, not more than 1·5 inch at its deepest part, and it was lined with finer twigs, fern-roots, and some yellowish fibre. The nest contained two fresh eggs."

Two eggs, taken by Mr. Davison at Kussoom in the north of the Malay Peninsula, to which the Malayan form does not extend, are rather elongated ovals, with a slightly pyriform tendency. The shell is fine, smooth, and compact, and has a perceptible gloss. The ground-colour is greenish white; round the large end is a huge, smudgy, irregular zone of reddish brown and inky grey, the one colour predominating in the one egg, the other in the other. Inside the zone are specks and spots of the same colours, and below the zone streaks and spots of these same colours, thinly set, stretched downwards towards the small end of the egg.

Other eggs subsequently received are very similar to that first sent by Mr. Bourdillon, except that in shape they are more regular ovals, and that the brown markings in some have a reddish and in some a purplish tinge, and that in some eggs the mottings and markings are pretty thick even at the small end.

In length they seem to vary from 1·08 to 1·2 inch and in breadth from 0·73 to 0·88 inch.

In some eggs the ground appears to have no green tinge, but is simply a greyish white. In one egg the markings are all of one colour, a sort of chocolate-brown, a dense almost confluent mass of mottlings in a broad irregular zone round the large end and elsewhere pretty thickly set over the entire surface of the egg. They have always a certain amount of gloss, but are never very glossy.

257. Mesia argentauris, Hodgs. The Silver-eared Mesia.

Leiothrix argentauris (Hodgs.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 251. Mesia argentauris, Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 615.

According to Mr. Hodgson's notes, the Silver-eared Mesia breeds in the low-lands of Nepal, laying in May and June. The nest is placed in a bushy tree, between two or three thin twigs, to which it is attached. It is composed of dry bamboo and other leaves, thin grass-roots and moss, and is lined inside with fine roots. Three or four eggs are laid: one of these is figured as a broad oval, much pointed towards one end, measuring 0·8 by 0·6, having a pale green ground with a few brownish-red specks, and a close circle of spots of the same colour round the large end.