Part 53

The nests are usually in dense and thorny bushes--acacias, catechu, and jhand (Prosopis spicigera)--and are placed at heights of from 4 to 6 feet from the ground. The Customs hedge is a great place for their nests, but I have noticed that they are partial to bushes in the immediate neighbourhood of water; and at Hansie, whence he sent me many nests and eggs, Mr. W. Blewitt always found them either in the fort ditch or along the banks of the canal.

The nests, which very much resemble those of Molpastes haemorrhous, are usually composed of very fine dry twigs of some herbaceous plant, intermingled with vegetable fibre resembling tow, and scantily lined with very fine grass-roots. They are rather slender structures, shallow cups measuring internally from 2·5 to 3 inches in diameter, and a little more than 1 inch in depth. Three was the largest number of eggs I ever found in any nest, and several sets were fully incubated.

Mr. W. Theobald makes the following note on the nidification of this bird in the neighbourhood of Pind Dadan Khan and Katas in the Salt Range:--"Lay in May, June, and July: eggs four; shape ovato pyriform; size 0·91 inch by 0·64 inch: colour white, much dotted with claret-red; nest a neat cup of vegetable fibres in bushes,"

Mr. S. Doig informs us that this bird breeds on the Eastern Narra in Sind from May to August.

Colonel Butler writes:--"I found a nest of the White-eared Bulbul at Deesa on the 5th August containing three fresh eggs. It was placed in the fork of a low Beer tree about 4 feet from the ground, and in structure closely resembled the nest of M. haemorrhous.

"On the 17th August I found another nest built by the same pair of birds in an exactly similar situation, about 60 yards from the first nest, containing three more fresh eggs."

The eggs, which I need not here describe in detail, are precisely similar to, but as a body slightly smaller than, those of Molpastes leucogenys. The only point of difference that I seem to notice, and this might disappear with a larger series before me, is that there is a rather greater tendency in the eggs of this species to exhibit a zone or cap. In length they vary from 0·75 to 0·9, and in breadth from 0·52 to 0·68; but the average of twenty-three eggs measured was 0·83 barely, by 0·64.

288. Otocompsa emeria(Linn.). The Bengal Red-whiskered Bulbul.

Otocompsa jocosa (L.), Jerd. B. Ind ii, p, 92 (part). Otocompsa emeria (Shaw), Hume, Rough Draft N.& E. no. 460.

The Bengal Red-whiskered Bulbul breeds from March to the end of May. Its nest is placed, according to my experience in Lower Bengal, in any thick bush, clump of grass, or knot of creepers; sometimes in the immediate proximity of native villages or in the gardens of Europeans, and sometimes quite away in the jungle. It is a typical Bulbul nest, a broad shallow saucer, compactly put together with twigs of herbaceous plants, amongst which, especially towards the base, a few dry leaves are incorporated, and lined with roots or fine grass. Exteriorly a little cobweb is wound on to keep twigs and leaves firm and in their places. All the nests that I have seen were tolerably near the ground, at heights ranging from 3 to 5 feet.

Three is the normal number of the eggs, but only the other day we obtained one containing four.

Mr. R.M. Adam says:--"This bird is very common in Oudh. It affects gardens and low scrub-jungle, flying about with a jerky flight from bush to bush. They are very fond of the fruit of the mangot-tree (F. indica), and may be seen in great numbers about these trees when the fruit is ripe. Their note is something like that of the common Bulbul, but livelier and louder. I have seen a number of this year's young birds well grown, but as yet without the red cheek-tuft.

"They build in clamps of moong-grass about 2 to 3 feet from the ground. One I found in the tendrils of a creeper about 20 feet from the ground. The nest is well fixed in the grass and fastened to it by the intertwining of some of the fibres of which it is composed. It is cup-shaped, and measures 4 inches in diameter, about 0·75 in thickness, with an egg-cavity 2·75 in diameter and 1·5 deep.

"The nest is formed of roots, twigs, and grass loosely worked together, and over the exterior, with the view of binding the mass together, dried or skeleton leaves, pieces of cloth, broad pieces of grass, and plaintain-bark are fastened carelessly on by means of cobwebs and the silk from cocoons. The egg-cavity is lined with fine roots.

"I never have found more than three eggs; on several occasions only two."

I do not think it possible to separate the Andaman bird. Of its nidification in those islands Mr. Davison says:--"I found a nest of this species in April near Port Blair, in a low mangrove-bush growing quite at the edge of the water; it (the nest) was cup-shaped and composed of roots, dried leaves, and small pieces of bark, lined with fine roots and cocoanut fibres; it contained three eggs, with a pinkish-white ground thickly mottled and blotched with purplish red, the spots coalescing at the thicker end to form a zone."

Mr. J.H. Cripps writes from Eastern Bengal:--"Very common and a permanent resident; it freely enters gardens and orchards. In my garden there was a kamiinee-tree (Murraya exotica), in which I found a nest of this species on the 27th March in course of construction; and on looking at it on the 12th April found two young that had just been hatched. Cane-brakes are favourite places for them to nest in. On the 6th May I found a nest in one of these about 4 feet off the ground, and containing three partly incubated eggs. This species does not, as a rule, build in such exposed situations as M. bengalensis; it eats the fruit of jungly trees, Ficis, &c., as well as insects."

On the breeding of this Bulbul in Pegu Mr. Gates remarks:--"This bird breeds as early as February, on the 27th of which month I procured a nest with two eggs nearly hatched. It stops nesting, I think, at the beginning of the rains."

Mr. W. Davison informs us that he "took a nest of this bird at Bankasoon, in Southern Tenasserim, on the 15th March. It was placed in a small bush growing in an old garden about 4 feet above the ground. The nest was of the usual type, a compactly-woven cup, composed externally of dry twigs, leaves, &c., the egg-cavity lined with fibres. It contained three nearly fresh eggs."

The eggs in size, colour, and shape closely resemble those of Molpastes leucotis. All that I have said in regard to these latter is applicable to those of the present species, and, so far as varieties of coloration go, the description of the eggs of Molpastes leucogenys is equally applicable to those of the present species. If any distinction can be drawn, it is that, as a body, bold blotches of rich red and pale purple are more commonly exhibited in the eggs of this species than in those of either of the preceding ones.

In length the eggs vary from 0·8 to 0·9, and in breadth from 0·85 to 0·7, but the average of twenty-seven eggs was 0·83 nearly, by 0·63 barely.

289. Otocompsa fuscicaudata, Gould. The Southern Red-whiskered Bulbul.

Otocompsa fuscicaudata, Gould, Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 400 bis.

The Southern Red-whiskered Bulbul is found throughout the more hilly and more or less elevated tracts of the peninsula, from Cape Comorin northwards as far as Mount Aboo on the west, and the Eastern Ghâts, above Nellore, on the east. How far northwards it extends in the centre of the peninsula I am not certain, but I have seen a specimen from the Satpooras.

They breed any time from the beginning of February to the end of May. Their nests are usually placed at no great height from the ground (say at from 2 to 6 feet) in some thick bush.

The nests of this species that I procured at Mount Aboo, and which have been sent me by Mr. Carter both from Coonoor and Salem, and by other friends from other parts of the Nilghiris, where the bird is excessively common, very much resemble those of O. emeria, but they are somewhat neater and more substantial in structure. They differ a good deal in size and shape, as the nests of Bulbuls are wont to do. Some are rather broad and shallow, with egg-cavities measuring 3¼ inches across, and perhaps 1 inch in depth; while others are deeper and more cup-shaped, the cavity measuring only 2½ inches across and fully 1½ inch in depth. They are composed in some cases almost wholly of grass-roots, in others of very fine twigs of the furash (Tamarix furas) in others again of rather fine grass, and all have a quantity of dead leaves or dry ferns worked into the bottom, and all are lined with either very fine grass or very fine grass-roots. The external diameter averages about 4½ inches, but some stand fully 3 inches high, while others are not above 2 inches in height. As might be expected, the White-cheeked and White-eared and the two Red-whiskered Bulbuls' types of architecture differ considerably; inter se, the nests of M. leucotis and M. leucogenys differ just sufficiently to render it generally possible to separate them, and the same may be said of the nests of O. emeria and O. fuscicaudata. But there is a very wide difference between the nests of the two former and the two latter species, so that it would be scarcely possible to mistake a nest belonging to the one group for that of the other. The incorporation of a quantity of dead leaves in the body of the nests, reminding one much, of those of the English Nightingale, is characteristic of the Red-whiskered Bulbul, and is scarcely to be met with in those of the White-cheeked or White-eared ones.

Mr. H.R.P. Carter says:--"At Coonoor on the Nilghiris I have found the nests from the 13th March to the 22nd April, but I believe they commence laying in February. They are generally placed in coffee-bushes and low shrubs, as a rule in a fork, but I have frequently found them suspended between the twigs of a bush which had no fork. I have also found the nest of this bird in the thatch of the eaves of a deserted bungalow, and in tufts of grass on the edge of a cutting overhanging the public road.

"The nest is cup-shaped, rather loosely constructed outside, but closely and neatly finished inside. The outside is nearly always fern-leaves at the bottom, coarse grass and fibres above, and lined inside either with fine fibres or fine grass.