Part 93

Captain Horace Terry writes from the Palani Hills:--"Pittur Valley. I had a nest brought me which from the description of the bird must, I think, have belonged to this species. Nest rather a shallow cup placed in a thorny tree about ten feet from the ground, neatly made of grass and moss, lined with fine grass and a few feathers, covered a great deal on the outside with dusky-coloured cobwebs, 2·5 inches across and 1·5 inch deep inside, and 3·25 inches to 3·5 inches across, and 2·25 inches deep outside: contained five very much incubated eggs; shape and marking exactly like those of L. caniceps, having a well-defined zone round the larger end; size about the same or rather smaller than those of Pratincola bicolor."

485. Hemipus capitalis (McClelland). The Brown-backed Pied Shrike.

Hemipus capitalis (McClell.), Hume, cat. no. 267 A.

I must premise that to the best of my belief there is no such thing as H. capitalis, McClell., in India, or, in other words, that this latter name is a mere synonym of H. picatus.

Mr. Blyth remarks, Ibis, 1866:--"Hemipus picatus. Under this name two very distinct species are brought together by Dr. Jerdon: H. capitalis (McClell., 1839; H. picaecolor, Hodgson, 1845) of the Himalaya, which is larger, with proportionally longer tail, and has a brown back; and H. picatus (Sykes) of Southern India and Ceylon, which has a black back. Mr. Wallace has good series of both of them.

"Hemipus capitalis has accordingly to be added to the birds of India."

Now, out of India, Mr. Wallace may have got hold of some brown-backed Hemipus, which is really distinct, but nothing is more certain (I speak after comparison of a large series from Southern India with a still larger, gathered from all parts of the Himalayas) than that the Southern and Northern Indian birds are identical, and that in both localities the males have black and the females brown backs.

Capt. T. Hutton says:--"On the 12th of May I procured a nest of this bird in the Dehra Doon; it was placed on the ground at the base of an overhanging rock, and was composed entirely of the hair of horses and cows and other cattle, which had doubtless been collected from the bushes and pasture-lands in the vicinity. There were four eggs of a pale sea-green, spotted with rufous-brown, and forming an indistinct and nearly confluent ring at the larger end. The bird had begun to sit.

"This curious little species is not uncommon in the outer hills up to 5000 feet in the summer months."

The three eggs sent me by Captain Hutton appear to differ somewhat conspicuously from any other eggs of the Laniidae that I have yet seen. The ground-colour is a very pale greenish white, and they are moderately thickly freckled and mottled all over, but most densely towards the large end (where, in one egg, there is a well-marked, though somewhat irregular, zone), with pale brownish pink and very pale purple. In shape the eggs are very regular, rather broad ovals, and appear to have but little or no gloss. They vary in length from 0·66 to 0·7 inch, and in breadth from 0·53 to 0·55 inch.

Dr. Jerdon's evidence, so far as it goes, tallies with Captain Hutton's account. He says:--"I obtained its nest once at Darjeeling, made of roots and grasses, with three greenish-white eggs, having a few rusty-red spots."

From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes:--"At page 178 of 'Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds' (Rough Draft), Captain T. Hutton's description of the nest and eggs of Hemipus picatus is given, and at page 179 that of Mr. W. Davison. The two descriptions differ so radically that, as there remarked, one of the two must be in error. Permit me to record my limited experience of the nesting of this bird.

"Common as it is in Sikhim I have but once taken its nest, and that in the first week of May, at 4000 feet elevation. The nest, which is well described by Mr. Davison, is made of black, fibry roots, sparingly lined with fine grass-stalks, and covered outwardly with small pieces of lichens bound to the sides with cobwebs. It is a very neat diminutive cup, measuring externally 1·9 inch across by an inch deep; internally 1·5 by half an inch.

"The whole nest, although quite a substantially built structure, is barely the eighth part of an ounce in weight. It was placed on the upper side of a horizontal branch close to its broken end, about fifteen feet from the ground, and contained two fresh eggs. I send you the nest and an egg, both of which will, I think, be found on comparison to agree exactly with those taken by Mr. Davison."

Mr. Mandelli has sent me two nests of this species, found on the 15th August above Namtchu in Native Sikhim. They were placed about two feet from each other, each in a small fork of the branches of a small tree which was situated in heavy forest. Each contained two fresh eggs. The nests are very similar, but one is rather larger and less tidily finished-off than the other. Both are shallow cups, miniatures of some of the nests of Dicrurus, composed of excessively fine grass-stems, coated exteriorly all round the sides with cobwebs, and, in the case of one of them, plastered exteriorly with tiny films of bark and dry leaves like some of the nests of the Pericrocoti. Both have a little soft silky vegetable down at the bottom of the cavity. The one nest is about two inches, the other about two and a half inches in diameter exteriorly, and both are a little less than three quarters of an inch high outside. The cavity in the one is about an inch and a half, in the other about an inch and three quarters in diameter, and both are about half an inch deep.

Eggs received from Sikhim are broad ovals, glossless, with greenish-white grounds, profusely speckled and mottled with slightly varying shades of brown, here and there intermingled with dull, pale inky purple. The markings are densest generally round the broadest part of the egg. They measured from 0·61 to 0·7 in length, and from 0·51 to 0·55 in breadth.

486. Tephrodornis pelvicus (Hodgs.). The Nepal Wood-Shrike.

Tephrodornis pelvica (Hodgs.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 409; Hume. cat. no. 263.

The Nepal Wood-Shrike is a permanent resident throughout Burma, Assam, Cachar, and the sub-Himalayan Terais and Ranges to which the typical Indo-Burmese fauna extends. Still we have no information as to its nidification, and the only egg of the species that I possess was extracted from the oviduct of a female shot by Mr. Davison on the 26th of March, 1874, near Tavoy in Tenasserim. The egg is rather a handsome one--very Shrike-like in its character, but rather small for the size of the bird. In shape it is a broad oval, very slightly compressed towards one end. The shell is fine and compact, but has no gloss. The ground is white, with the faintest possible greenish tinge only noticeable when the egg is placed alongside a pure white one, such as a Bee-eater's for instance. The markings are bold, but except at the large end not very dense--spots and blotches of a light clear brown, and (chiefly at the large end) somewhat pale inky grey. Where the two colours overlap each other, there the result of the mixture is a dark dusky brown, so that the markings appear to be of three colours. Fully half the markings are gathered into a broad conspicuous but very broken and irregular zone about the broad end. The egg measured only 0·86 by 0·69.

Subsequently to writing the above Mr. Mandelli sent me a nest of this species found at Ging near Darjeeling on the 27th April. It contained four fresh eggs, and was placed on branches of a very large tree about 22 feet from the ground. The tree was situated at an elevation of about 3000 feet. The nest is a large massive cup, 5 inches in exterior diameter and rather more than 3 in height. It is composed of tendrils of creepers and stems of herbaceous plants, to many of which the bright yellow amaranth flowers remain attached; and all over the sides and bottom masses of flower-stems of grass with the white silky down attached are thickly plastered, which, intermingled as this white down is with the glistening yellow flowers, produces a very ornamental effect, and looks as it the bird had really had an eye to decoration.

Inside the nest is entirely lined with very fine grass-stems. The nest is everywhere about an inch thick, and the cavity about 3 inches in diameter by nearly 2 deep.

Eggs said to belong to this species kindly sent me by Mr. Mandelli, whose men obtained them on the 27th April, are very Shrike-like in their appearance. In shape they vary from broad to ordinary ovals, generally somewhat compressed towards the small end. The shell is white but almost glossless. The ground-colour is a dead white, and they are profusely speckled and spotted with yellowish brown, paler in some eggs, darker in others. In all the eggs the markings are by far the most numerous towards the large end. Two eggs measure 0·95 and 0·91 in length by 0·74 and 0·72 in breadth respectively.

487. Tephrodornis sylvicola, Jerdon. The Malabar Wood-Shrike.

Tephrodornis sylvicola, Jerd., Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 409; Hume, cat. no. 204.

Major M. Forbes Coussmaker has furnished me with the following note on the nidification of the Malabar Wood-Shrike:--"I took the nest of this bird on April 13th, 1875. It was composed of fine roots and fibres, neatly woven into a shallow cup-like nest, secured to the fork of a horizontal bough and fixed in its place with cobweb, and covered externally with lichen corresponding to that on the bough. It measured 4·2 inches in diameter externally, and 2·4 internally and ·7 deep. Both parent birds were shot. The eggs two in number, rather round, coloured white with faint inky and brown spots."

One of these eggs is a very regular oval, the shell fine but glossless, the ground-colour white, with a faint greenish tinge; round the large end is a pretty conspicuous zone of black or blackish-brown and pale inky purple spots and small blotches, and similar spots and blotches of the same colour are somewhat sparsely scattered over the rest of the surface of the egg. The egg measured 0·98 by 0·73.

488. Tephrodornis pondicerianus (Gm.). The Common Wood-Shrike.

Tephrodornis pondiceriana (Gm.), Jerd B. Ind. i, p. 410; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 265.