Part 25

The Black-crested Yellow Bulbul is another very common species of which I have as yet seen very few eggs. The first notice of its nidification I am acquainted with is contained in the following brief note by Captain Bulger, which appeared in 'The Ibis.' He says:--"I obtained several specimens, chiefly from the vicinity of the Great Rungeet River. From a thicket on the bank, near the cane-bridge, a nest was brought to me on the 16th May, of the ordinary cup-shape, made of fibres and leaves, and containing three eggs, which my _shikaree_ said belonged to this species. The eggs were of a dull pinkish hue, very thickly marked with small specks and blotches of brownish crimson."

Major C.T. Bingham, writing of this Bulbul in Tenasserim, says:--"Common enough in the Thoungyeen forests, affecting chiefly the neighbourhood of villages and clearings. The following is a note of finding a nest and eggs I recorded in 1878:--On the 14th April I happened to be putting up for the day in one of the abandoned Karen houses of the old village of Podeesakai at the foot of the Warmailoo toung, a spur from the east watershed range of the Meplay river. Having to wait for guides, I had nothing particular to do that day, a very rare event in my forest work; I devoted it to a fruitless search for bears. I had returned tired and rather dispirited, and was moving about among the ruined houses, between and among which a lot of jungle was already springing up, when, just as I passed a low bush about 3 feet high, out went one of the above-mentioned birds; of course the bush contained a nest, a remarkably neat cup-shaped affair, below and outside of fine twigs, then a layer of roots, above which was a lining of the stems of the flower of the 'theckay' grass. It contained three eggs on the point of hatching, out of which I was only able to save one. It is one of the loveliest eggs I have seen; in colour I can liken it only to a peculiar pink granite that is so common at home in Ireland. Its ground-colour I should say was white, but it is so thickly spotted with pink and claret that it is hard to describe. It measured 0·85 x 0·61 inch."

Captain Wardlaw Ramsay writes in 'The Ibis':--"I found a nest containing two eggs in April at the foot of the Karen hills in Burma."

I have seen too few eggs of this species to say much about them. What I have seen were rather elongated ovals pretty markedly pointed towards the small end. The shell fine, but with only a slight gloss; the ground a pinky creamy white, everywhere very finely freckled over with red, varying from brownish to maroon, and again still more thickly with pale purple or purplish grey, this latter colour being almost confluent over a broad zone round the large end.

292. Spizixus canifrons, Blyth. _The Finch-billed Bulbul_.

Spizixus canifrons, _Bl., Hume, cat._ no. 453 bis.

Colonel Godwin-Austen says:--"_Spizixus canifrons_ breeds in the neighbourhood of Shillong, in May. Young birds are seen in June."[A]

[Footnote A: TRACHYCOMUS OCHROCEPHALUS (Gm.). _The Yellow-crowned Bulbul_.

Trachycomus ochrocephalus (_Gm.), Hume, cat._ no. 449 bis.

As this bird occurs in Tenasserim, the following description of the nest and eggs found a short distance outside our limits will prove interesting.

Mr. J. Darling, Junior, writes:--"I found the nest of this bird on the 2nd July at Kossoom. The nest was of the ordinary Bulbul type, but much larger, and like a very shallow saucer. The foundation was a single piece of some creeping orchid, 3 feet long, coiled round; then a lot of coils of fern, grass, and moss-roots. The nest was 4 inches in diameter on the inside, the walls 1/4 inch thick, and the cavity 1 inch deep. It was built 10 feet from the ground, in a bush in a very exposed position, and exactly where any ordinary Bulbul would have built."

The eggs of this species are of the ordinary Bulbul type, rather broad at the large end, compressed and slightly pyriform, or more or less pointed, towards the small end. The shell fine and smooth, but with only a moderate amount of gloss. The ground-colour varies from very pale pinky white to a rich warm salmon-pink. The markings are two colours: first, a red varying from a dull brownish to almost crimson; the second, a paler colour varying from neutral tint through purplish grey to a full though pale purple. The first may be called the primary markings; the others, which seem to be somewhat beneath the surface of the shell, the secondary ones. Varying as both do in _different_ eggs, all the primary markings of any one egg are almost precisely the same shade; and the same is the case with the secondary ones, and there is always a distinct harmony between both these and the ground tint. As for the markings, they are generally much the most dense, in a more or less confluent mottled cap, round one end, generally the largest, and are usually more or less thinly set elsewhere. In some eggs all the markings are rather coarse and sparse, in others fine and more thickly set. Two eggs measured 1·06 by 0·76 and 1·03 by 0·73.]

295. Iole icterica (Strickl.). _The Yellow-browed Bulbul_.

Criniger ictericus, _Strickl., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii. p. 82; _Hume. Rough Draft N. & E._ no 450.

The Yellow-browed Bulbul breeds apparently throughout the hilly regions of Ceylon and the southern portion of the Peninsula of India. I have never taken the nests myself, and I have only detailed information of their nidification on the Nilghiris, which they ascend to an elevation of from 6000 to 6500 feet, and where they lay from March to May.

A nest of this species, taken by Mr. Wait near Coonoor on the 20th of March, is a small shallow cup hung between two twigs, measuring some 3½ inches across and ¾ inch in depth. It is composed of excessively fine twigs and lined with still finer hair-like grass, is attached to the twigs by cobwebs, and has a few dead leaves attached by the same means to its lower surface. It is a slight structure, nowhere I should think above ¼ inch in thickness, and apparently carelessly put together: but for all that, owing to the fineness of the materials used, it is a pretty firm and compact nest. It is not easy to express it in words; but still this nest differs very considerably in appearance from the nests of any of the true Bulbuls with which I am acquainted, and more approaches those of _Hypsipetes_.

Mr. Wait sends me the following note:--

"This bird, although very common on the Nilghiris at elevations of from 4000 to 5000 feet, is a very shy nester, and its nest, which is not easily found, is, as far as my experience goes, invariably placed in the top of young thin saplings at heights of from 6 to 10 feet from the ground. The saplings chosen are almost always in thick cover near the edge of dry water-courses. They generally lay during May, but I have found nests in March. In shape the nest is a moderately deep cup, nearly hemispherical, with an internal diameter of from 2·5 to 3 inches--a true Bulbul's nest, composed of grass and bents and lined with finer grasses. The nest is always suspended by the outer rim between two lateral branches, and never, I believe, built in a fork as is so common in the case of many other Bulbuls. They lay only two eggs, and never, I believe, more. The eggs are longish ovals, rather pointed at one end, a dull white or reddish white, more or less thickly speckled and spotted or clouded with pale yellowish or reddish brown; occasionally the eggs exhibit a few very fine black lines."

Miss Cockburn, writing from Kotagherry, says:--"The Yellow-browed Bulbul is common on the less elevated slopes of the Nilghiris, where it is often seen feeding upon guavas, loquots, pears, peaches, &c. They lay generally in April and May.

"Their nests are constructed very much like those of the common Bulbuls, except that, instead of being placed in the forked branches of trees, they are suspended between two twigs, and fastened to them by cobwebs, the inside being neatly lined with fine grass. Two nests of this bird were found, each containing two fresh eggs, of a pretty pinkish salmon colour, with a dark ring at the thick end; but another nest had three nearly _white_ eggs! The whole structure of the nests was slight and thin, and the eggs could be plainly seen through. The notes of the Yellow-browed Bulbul are loud and repeated often."

Writing on the birds of Ceylon, Colonel Legge remarks:--"I once found the nest of this bird in the Pasdun-Korale forests in August; little or nothing, however, is known of its breeding-habits in Ceylon, so that it most likely commences earlier than that month to rear its brood. My nest was placed in the fork of a thin sapling about 8 feet from the ground. It was of large size for such a bird, the foundation being bulky and composed of small twigs, moss, and dead leaves, supporting a cup of about 2½ inches in diameter, which was constructed of moss, lined with fine roots; the upper edge of the body of the nest was woven round the supporting branches.... The bottom of the nest was in the fork."

The eggs of this species sent to me by Mr. Wait from Coonoor are totally unlike any other egg of this family with which I am acquainted. They remind one more of the eggs of _Stoparola melanops_ or one of the _Niltavas_ than anything else. The eggs are moderately long and rather perfect ovals, almost devoid of gloss, and with a dull white or pinkish-white ground, speckled more or less thickly over the whole surface with rather pale brownish red or pink. The specklings becoming confluent at the large end, where they form a dull irregular mottled cap. Other specimens received from Miss Cockburn from Kotagherry exhibit the same general characters; but the majority of them are considerably elongated eggs, approaching, so far as shape is concerned, the _Hypsipetes_ type. In some eggs only the faintest trace of pale pinkish mottling towards the large end is observable; in others, the whole surface of the egg is thickly freckled and mottled all over, but most densely at the large end, with salmon-pink or pale pinkish brown.

In length the eggs vary from 0·9 to 1·03, and in breadth from 0·64 to 0·7.[A]

[Footnote A: PYCNONOTUS ANALIS (Horsf.). _The Yellow-vented Bulbul_.

Otocompsa analis (_Horsf._), _Hume, cat._ no. 452 sex.

Mr. J. Darling, Junior, writes:--"I found the nest of this Bulbul at Salang in the Malay peninsula, on the 14th February. The nest was built in a bush in secondary jungle, with a few trees scattered about. It was in a fork 6 feet from the ground. The foundation was of dried leaves, then fine twigs, and lined with fine grass-bents. There was a good deal of cobweb in the construction. It was an exact facsimile of many nests of _Otocompsa fuscicaudata_ from the Nilgherry Hills. The egg-cavity was 3 inches in diameter and 2½ inches deep; the walls were ½ inch thick, the bottom 1 inch."

The eggs are of the usual variable Bulbul type, some broader and more regular, some more elongated, some more or less pyriform. The shell as in others, and apparently rarely showing any very perceptible gloss. The ground-colour pinky white to a warm pink; the markings, specks, and spots, or, when three or four of these latter have coalesced, occasionally small blotches of a rich maroon-red intermixed with spots and specks and clouds of pale purple. The markings always apparently pretty thickly set everywhere, but almost invariably most densely in a zone about the larger end, where they become at times more or less confluent. Of course as in others of the genus, in some eggs all the markings are very fine and speckly, while in others they are somewhat bolder. In some the red greatly predominates; in others, again, the grey underlying clouds are very widely extended, and form by far the most conspicuous part of the markings, giving a grey tinge to the entire egg. The eggs vary from 0·82 to 0·91 in length and from 0·61 to 0·65 in breadth.]

299. Pycnonotus finlaysoni, Strickl. _Finlayson's Stripe-throated Bulbul_.

Ixus finlaysoni (_Strickl.), Hume, cat._ no. 452 ter.

Major C.T. Bingham says:--"On the 22nd May, 1877, while wandering about collecting in the jungles below the Circuit-house at Maulmain, I came across a neat, though thinly made, cup-shaped nest in the fork of a tall sapling, some 12 feet above the ground. Coming closer, I perceived it contained eggs, which were plainly visible through the frail structure of the sides. On looking about to find the owner, I saw a couple of _Pycnonotus finlaysoni_ flitting about uneasily in a tree close at hand; so I hid myself a few yards off, and was almost immediately rewarded by seeing one of them (it turned out to be the female) fly down on to the nest, and seat herself on the eggs. Approaching cautiously, I managed to shoot her as she slipped off; but, on taking down the nest, I found I had fired too soon, as one of the eggs (there were but two) was smashed by a pellet of shot. The nest was rather a deep cup, and, notwithstanding its flimsy sides, strongly made of grass-roots, lined with very fine black roots of fern. The one unbroken egg was rather roundish in shape, of a dull whitish and claret colour, mixed and spotted and clouded with deeper vinous red, chiefly at the larger end."

Mr. J. Darling, Junior, found the nest of this Bulbul on more than one occasion at Taroar in the Malay peninsula. He writes:--"I shot this bird off a nest with two eggs on the 8th February; the nest was in a bush 5 feet from the ground; the foundation was of leaves and fine grass, lined with fine grass and a few cocoanut fibres. The nest was 3 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep. The eggs were too hard-set to blow.

"On the 10th February I took another nest of _Pycnonotus finlaysoni_ at Taroar. The nest was built in a small shrub 3 feet from the ground, in a fork; foundation of dead leaves, built of fine twigs and fibrous bark; lined with fine grass-bents and moss-roots. Egg-cavity 2¾ inches in diameter, 1¾ deep; walls ¼ inch thick, bottom ¾ inch.

"Found a nest of _Pycnonotus finlaysoni_, with two fresh eggs, on the 16th March. The nest was built in a thin small sapling, 5½ feet from ground, on the top of a thinly wooded hill; the nest was of the ordinary Bulbul type, but better put together and neater. The foundation was of broad fibrous bark and twigs, lined with fine grass-stalks."

The eggs vary in shape from broad ovals a good deal pointed towards one end, to pyriform and elongated shaped, very obtuse even at the small end. The shell is fine and compact, in some has a fine gloss, in others it is rather dull. The ground-colour is a beautiful pink, sometimes with a creamy tinge, and the markings are bold blotches, spots, and streaks of a maroon of varying degrees in richness, and of a subsurface-looking purple, varying to almost inky grey. In some eggs the maroon, in some the purple or grey seems to predominate; in some eggs the markings seem pretty equally distributed over the egg; in others they form a more or less conspicuous zone about the larger end. The eggs measure from 0·85 to 0·92 in length by 0·6 to 0·7 in breadth.

300. Pycnonotus davisoni (Hume). _Davison's Stripe-throated Bulbul_.

Ixus davisoni, _Hume; Hume, cat._ no. 452 quat.

Mr. Oates writes from Kyeikpadein in Pegu:--"A nest of this bird was found on the 1st June, and another on 6th of the same month, each containing two fresh eggs. The females, which were shot off the nest, showed, however, no signs on dissection of being about to lay more.

"The nest is a flimsy structure, built of the stems of small weeds and lined with grass. A few fine black tree-roots are twisted round the inside of the egg-chamber. The outside and inside diameters measure 4 and 3 inches, and the depths are similarly 3 and 1·25. Both nests were placed low down about 4 feet from the ground--one in a bush, and the other in a creeper.

"The eggs vary much in size. One pair measure ·92 and ·88 by ·60 and ·65, and the other ·83 and ·82 by ·65 and ·61 respectively; the ground-colour of all is a pinkish white. In one pair the shell-blotches of washed-out purple are spread over the whole egg, and the surface-spots and clashes of carneous red are also equally spread over the whole shell. In the other pair the shell-marks are grouped round the larger end to form a broad ring, and the whole egg is thickly speckled and spotted with bright reddish. The eggs are very slightly glossy."

301. Pycnonotus melanicterus (Gm.)._The Black-capped Bulbul_.

Rubigula melanictera (_Gm.), Hume, cat._ no. 455 bis.

Colonel Legge writes:--"In April 1873 I received from a friend in Ceylon three eggs of this bird; but I was unable to identify them until lately, when I had an opportunity of comparing them with a clutch taken last year in the Western Province, and about which there was no doubt. In the latter case the nest was fixed on the top of a small stump, and was a loose structure of grass and bents; in shape rather a deep cup; and contained two eggs of a reddish-white ground-colour, profusely speckled with reddish brown (in one example confluent round the obtuse end, in the other distributed over the whole surface) over freckles of bluish grey. Dimensions: 0·79 by 0·58, 0·78 by 0·57. The other nest was made of grass on a foundation of dry leaves and herbaceous stalks, loosely lined with fine hair-like tendrils of creepers. The eggs were of a reddish-white ground, thickly covered throughout with brownish-red and dusky red spots, becoming somewhat confluent round the obtuse end. In form they are regular ovals, and measure 0·78 by 0·6, 0·79 by 0·58."

305. Pycnonotus luteolus (Less.). _The White-browed Bulbul_.

Ixos luteolus (_Less.) Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 84; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 452.

Common as is the White-browed Bulbul in Midnapoor, throughout the Tributary Mehals, along the Eastern Ghâts, and again, it appears, in Bombay, only two of my correspondents appear as yet to have procured the nest or eggs.

Mr. Benjamin Aitken, writing from Bombay under date the 11th June, says:--"I now send you a nest of _Pycnonotus luteolus_ with two eggs. I took it this morning from, a thickly foliaged tree in a garden. It was placed on the top of the main stem of the tree, which had been abruptly cut off about 5 feet from the ground, where the stem was about 3 inches thick. The nest was begun this day week, Thursday, and the first egg was laid the day before yesterday (Tuesday). The bird is a very common one in gardens in Bombay, though I never saw it in Berar nor even in Poona. They build in situations similar to, but perhaps rather more sheltered than, those chosen by the Common Bulbul; but I remember finding one nest placed at a height of only 2 feet from the ground.

"This present nest was begun, as already mentioned, last Thursday, just two days after the first severe thunder-shower preliminary to the monsoon, now fairly on us.

"I draw your attention to the manner in which the nest has been tied at _one_ place to a twig to prevent its being blown off its very (apparently) insecure site. I was obliged to take the nest, as I was leaving at once, otherwise one or perhaps two more eggs would have been laid."

The nest is a rather loose straggling structure, exteriorly composed of fine twigs. The cavity, hemispherical in shape, is carefully lined with fine grass-stems. Outside it is very irregularly shaped, and many of the twigs used are much too long and hang down several inches from the nest; but on one side the outer framework has been firmly tied with wool and a little cobweb to a live twig to which the leaves, now withered, are still attached. No roots or hair have entered into the composition of this nest.

Mr. E. Aitken writes:--"I once found a nest in Bombay, not many feet above the level of the sea of course.

"The first egg was laid on 14th September. The nest was built in a bush on the edge of an inundated field, but in our garden. It was fixed to a thin waving branch underneath the bush, which completely overshadowed it. It was only 2 feet from the ground, a cup just large enough to hold the body of the bird, whose head and tail always projected over the edge; and it was made of thin twigs and neatly lined with _coir_. The bird laid two eggs and then deserted the nest. One of these, which I took, was thicker and rounder than a Bulbul's, and thickly spotted with claret-coloured spots, which gathered into a ring at the larger end.

"The eggs were laid on successive days. I think the birds had already had one brood (in another nest), for I saw apparently the same pair followed by a young one not long before."

Dr. Jerdon says:--"I found the nest in my garden at Nellore. It was rather loosely made with roots, grass, and hair, placed in a hedge, and the eggs, four in number, were reddish white, with darker lake-red spots, exceedingly like those of the Common Bulbul."

Colonel Legge, in his 'Birds of Ceylon,' tells us that this Bulbul breeds in the west and south-west of Ceylon from December to June, the months of April and May, however, appearing to be the favourite time. On the eastern side of the island it breeds during the north-east rains.

The eggs answer well enough to Dr. Jerdon's description, but to an oologist's eye they are excessively _un-like_ those of the Common Bulbul; shape, tone of colour, and character of markings alike differ.

In shape they are decidedly elongated ovals. The shell is very fine and smooth, and moderately glossy. The ground is reddish white, and this is profusely speckled and blotched (the blotches being chiefly confined, however, to a broad irregular zone round the broader end) with a deep but certainly, I should say, _not_ lake-red, but much nearer what one would get by mixing brown with vermilion. Besides these red markings sundry clouds and spots of a pale greyish lilac are intermingled in a zone, and one or two spots of the same colour may be traced elsewhere.

The eggs measure 0·92 by 0·62, and 0·97 by 0·63.

300. Pycnonotus blanfordi (Jerd.). _Blanford's Bulbul_.

Ixus blanfordi (_Jerd.), Hume, cat._ no. 452 quint.

Mr. Oates writes from Pegu:--"Nest in a small tree, well concealed by leaves, about 7 feet from the ground, near Pegu. A very neat cup measuring 3 inches diameter externally and 2·25 internally. The depth 1·75 inch outside and 1·25 inside. The sides of the nest, though very strongly woven, can be seen through. The materials consist of small fine branchlets of weeds, and the inside is neatly lined with grass. One or two dead leaves, or rather fragments, are used in the exterior walling.