Part 83

This jungle consists chiefly of the blue-flowered holly-leaved Acanthus ilicifolia and of the trailing semi-creeper-like Derris scandens. It is in amongst the drooping twigs of the latter that the nest is invariably made.

The nests vary a good deal in shape; some are regular cylinders rounded off at both ends, with the aperture on one side above the centre--a small oval entrance neatly worked. Such a nest is about 4.5 inches in length externally from top to bottom, and 2·75 in diameter; the aperture 1·3 in height, and barely 1·0 in width.

Others are still more egg-shaped, with a similar aperture near the top, and others are more purse-like. The material used appears to be always much the same--fine grass-stems intermingled with blades of grass, and here and there dry leaves of some rush, a little seed-down, scraps of herbaceous plants, and the like; the interior, always of the finest grass-stems, neatly arranged and curved to the shape of the cavity. The nests are firmly attached to the drooping twigs, to and between which they are suspended, sometimes by line vegetable fibre, but more commonly by cobwebs and silk from cocoons, a good deal of both of which are generally to be seen wound about the surface of the nest near the points of suspension or attachment.

Four appears to be the full number of the eggs. Mr. Doig, writing from Sind, says:--"This bird is tolerably common all along the Narra, but as it keeps in very thick jungle it is not often seen unless looked for. I took my first nest on the 12th, and my second on the 17th of May. This evidently is the second brood, as I noticed on the same day a lot of young birds which must have been fully six weeks old. One nest was lined with horsehair and fine grasses. Four was the normal number of eggs."

Mr. Gates writes:--"The Yellow-bellied Wren-Warbler is very abundant throughout Lower Pegu in suitable localities. In the plains between the Sittang and Pegu rivers they are constant residents, breeding freely from May to August and September. In Rangoon also, all round the Timber Depot at Kemandine, and in the low-lying land between the town proper and Monkey Point, they are very numerous."

The eggs are of the well-known Prinia type--broad regular ovals, of a nearly uniform mahogany-red, and very glossy. To judge from the few specimens I have seen, they average a good deal smaller, and are somewhat less deeply coloured, than those of P. socialis. They vary from 0·52 to 0·6 in length, and from 0·43 to 0·48 in breadth.

464. Prinia socialis, Sykes. The Ashy Wren-Warbler.

Prinia socialis, Sykes, Jerd. B. Ind. ii. p. 170: Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 534. Prinia stewarti, Blyth, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 171; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 535.

Prinia socialis.

The Ashy Wren-Warbler breeds throughout the southern portion of the Peninsula and Ceylon, alike in the low country and in the hills, up to all elevation of nearly 7000 feet.

The breeding-season extends from March to September, but I am uncertain whether they have more than one brood.

Dr. Jerdon says:--"Colonel Sykes remarks that this species has the same ingenious nest as O. longicauda. I have found the nest on several occasions, and verified Colonel Sykes's observations; but it is not so neatly sewn together as the nest of the true Tailor-bird, and there is generally more grass and other vegetable fibres used in the construction. The eggs are usually reddish white, with numerous darker red dots at the large end often coalescing, and sometimes the eggs are uniform brick-red throughout."

Now, first, as regards the eggs, it is clearly wrong to say that the eggs are usually reddish white; that such eggs, as exceptions, may have occurred I do not doubt, but I have seen more than fifty eggs of this bird taken by Miss Cockburn, Messrs. Carter, Davison, Wait, Theobald, and others, and all were without exception mahogany- or brick-red, at times mottled, somewhat paler and darker here and there, but making no approach, even the most distant, to what Dr. Jerdon says is the usual type. Moreover, I have taken many hundreds of the eggs of stewarti (the northern, rather smaller form), which is not only most closely allied but really very doubtfully distinct, and yet I never met with one single egg of this type. At the same time Mr. Swinhoe ('Ibis,' 1860, p. 50) tells us that P. sonitans also at times exhibits a reddish-white egg; so I do not for a moment question that Dr. Jerdon had seen such eggs, only it must be understood that, so far from constituting the usual type, it is in reality a most abnormal and rare variety. Out of eight correspondents who have collected for me in Southern India, I cannot learn that any one has ever yet even seen an egg of this type.

As regards the nest, this species often constructs a Tailor-bird nest, the true nest being filled in between two or more leaves carefully stitched together to the nest; but it also, like that species, often builds a very different structure.

A nest now before me, sent from Conoor, is a loosely-made cup--a very slight fabric of grass-stems, matted with a quantity of the downy seed of some flowering grass and with a lining of fine grass-roots. It is an irregular cup about 2½ inches in diameter and 2 inches in depth.

Four seems to be the regular number of the eggs.

From Kotagherry Miss Cockburn writes that "the Ashy Wren-Warbler builds a neat little hanging nest very much in the Tailor-bird style, for it draws the leaves of the branch on which the nest is constructed close together, and sews them so tightly as sometimes to make them nearly touch each other, while a small quantity of fine grass, wool, and the down of seed-pods is used as a lining and also placed between the leaves. These nests are built very low, and contain three beautiful little bright red eggs, a shade darker at the thick end. They are easily discovered; for the birds get so agitated if any one approaches the bush on which they have built that they invariably attract one to the very spot they most wish to conceal. They build in the months of June and July."

Mr. Davison says:--"This bird breeds on the Nilghiris in March, April, and May, and sometimes as late as the earlier part of June. The nest is generally placed low down near the roots of a bush or tuft of grass. It is made of grass beautifully and closely woven, domed, and with the entrance near the top. The eggs, three or four in number, are of a deep brick-red, darker at the larger end, where there is generally a zone, and are very glossy. I once obtained a nest made of grass and bits of cotton, but instead of being built as above described it was placed between, and sewn to, two leaves of the Datura stramonium. It contained three eggs of a deep brick-red; in fact, precisely like those described above."

Mr. Wait tells us that "in September I found two nests, the one deeply cup-shaped, the other domed, both constructed of similar materials. The latter of the two was placed at the bottom of a large bunch of lemon-grass, and was constructed of root-fibre and grass, grass-bents, and down of thistle and hawkweed, all intermixed. Exteriorly it measured between 3 and 4 inches in diameter. The nests contained three and five eggs, all highly glossy and of a deep brownish-red, deeper than brick-red, mottled with a still deeper shade."

Colonel "W.Y. Legge, writing from Ceylon, tells us that "P. socialis breeds with us in the commencement of the S.W. monsoon during the months of May, June, and July. It nests in long grass on the Patnas in the Central Province, in guinea-grass fields, and in sugarcane-brakes where these exist, as in the Galle District for instance. I can scarcely imagine that Jerdon is correct about this Warbler's nesting.

"Nothing can be more un-Tailor-bird-like than the nest which it builds in this country, and this led me to think that ours was a different species until my specimens were identified by Lord Walden. In May 1870 a pair resorted to a large guinea-grass field attached to my bungalow at Colombo, for the purpose of breeding. I soon found the nest, which was the most peculiarly constructed one I have ever seen. It was, in fact, an almost shapeless ball of guinea-grass roots, thrown as it were between the upright stalks of the plant at about 2 feet from the ground: I say 'thrown,' because it was scarcely attached to the supporting stalks at all. It was formed entirely of the roots of the plant, which, when it is old, crop out of the ground and are easily plucked up by the bird, the bottom or more solid part being interwoven with cotton and such-like substances to impart additional strength. The entrance was at the side in the upper half, and was tolerably neatly made; it was about an inch in diameter, the whole structure measuring about 6 inches in depth by 5 inches in breadth. I found the nest in a partial state of completion on the 10th of May; by the 19th it was finished and the first of a clutch of three eggs laid. The nest and eggs were both taken on the evening of the 24th, and the following day another was commenced close at hand. This was somewhat smaller, but constructed in the same peculiar manner as the first. This was completed, and the first of another clutch laid. The eggs are somewhat pointed at the smaller end, and of an almost uniform dull mahogany ground-colour, showing indications of a paler underground at the point."

Birds like these, that build half-a-dozen different kinds of nests, ought to be abolished; they lead to all kinds of mistakes and differences of opinion, and are more trouble than they are worth.

Colonel E.A. Butler writes:--"Found numerous nests of this species at Belgaum on the following dates:--

"July 13. A nest containing 4 fresh eggs. " 22. " " " 3 " " 25. " " " 4 " " 26. " " " 3 " " 26. " " " 3 " " 28. " " " 2 slightly incubated eggs. Aug. 5. " " " 4 fresh eggs. " 6. " " " 4 "

"All of the above nests were built in sugarcane-fields or in corn-fields; and most of them were stitched up in leaves of various plants after the fashion of Tailor-birds' nests; but in some instances they were of the other type, simply supported by the blades of sugar-cane or corn they were built in. In addition to the above I found numerous other nests all through August, many of which were destroyed by something or other--what, I do not know! In fact, it has always been a puzzle to me what it is that takes the eggs of these small birds: three out of four nests, when visited a second time, are either empty, gone altogether, or pulled down; and how the birds ever manage to hatch off a brood at all with so many enemies I do not know.

"I found a nest of the Ashy Wren-Warbler at Deesa on the 21st July, containing three fresh eggs, of a highly polished deep mahogany-red colour, with an almost invisible cap of the same colour a shade darker at the large end. The nest, which was placed in the centre of a low bush and fixed to a few small twigs, was oval in shape, measuring 3¾ inches in length exteriorly and 2-5/8 in width, with a small round entrance near the top about 1¼ inch in diameter. It was composed of fine dry fibrous grass, with silky vegetable down (Calotropis giganten) and cobwebs smeared over the exterior. The walls were very thin, but the bottom of the nest somewhat solid. The whole well woven and compactly built. Later on I got nests on the following dates:--

"Aug. 1. A nest containing 3 fresh eggs. " 1. " " 2 " " 5. " " 4 " " 5. " " 4 " " 8. " " 3 " " 9. " " 4 " " 26. " " 3 "

"In addition to the above, I found nests containing young birds on the 15th, 17th, and 23rd August.