Part 30

Troglodytes neglecta, _Brooks, Hume, cat._ no. 333 bis. Troglodytes nipalensis, _Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 333.

The Cashmir Wren breeds in Cashmir in May and June at elevations of from 6000 to nearly 10,000 feet. I have never seen the nest, though I possess eggs taken by Captain Cock and Mr. Brooks in Cashmir. The latter says:--"Only two nests of this bird were found (both at Gulmurg), one having four eggs and the other three. In the latter case the full number was not laid, as the nest, when first found, was empty; on three successive mornings an egg was laid and then they were taken.

"In shape they vary as much as do those of the English Wren, and like them they are white, sometimes minutely freckled with pale red and purple-grey specks, which are principally confined to the large end, with a tendency to form a zone. Other eggs are plain white, without the slightest sign of a spot; but these, I think, must be the exception, for the egg of the English Wren is usually spotted. The egg has very little gloss, and the ground-colour is pure white."

The eggs are very large for the size of the bird. There appear to be two types. The one somewhat elongated ovals, slightly compressed towards the lesser end; the others broad short ovals, decidedly pointed at one end. Some eggs are perfectly pure unspotted white; others have a dull white ground, with a faint zone of minute specks of brownish red and tiny spots of greyish purple towards the large end, and a very few markings of a similar character scattered about the rest of the surface. All the eggs of the latter type vary in the amount and size of markings; these latter are always sparse and very minute. The pure white eggs appear to be less common. The eggs have always a slight gloss, the pure white ones at times a very decided, though never at all a brilliant gloss.

In length they vary from 0·61 to 0·7 inch, and in breadth from 0·5 to 0·52 inch.

Mr. Brooks subsequently wrote:--"The Cashmir Wren is not uncommon in the pine-woods of Cashmir, and in habits and manners resembles its European congener. Its song is very similar and quite as pretty. It is a shy, active little bird, and very difficult to shoot. I found two nests. One was placed in the roots of a large upturned pine, and was globular with entrance at the side. It was profusely lined with feathers and composed of moss and fibres. The eggs were white, sparingly and minutely spotted with red, rather oval in shape; measuring 0·66 by 0·5. A second nest was placed in the thick foliage of a moss-grown fir-tree, and was about 7 feet above the ground. It was similarly composed to the other nest, but the eggs were rounder and plain white, without any spots."

355. Urocichla caudata (Blyth). _The Tailed Wren_.

Pnoepyga caudata (_Blyth), Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 490; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 331.

The Tailed Wren, according to Mr. Hodgson's notes, lays in April and May, building a deep cup-shaped nest about the roots of trees or in a hole of fallen timber; the nest is a dense mass of moss and moss-roots, lined with the latter. One measured was 3·5 inches in diameter and 3 in height; internally, the cavity was 1·6 inch, in diameter and about 1 inch deep. They lay four or five spotless whitish eggs, which are figured as broad ovals, rather pointed towards one end, and measuring 0·75 by 0·54 inch.

356. Pnoepyga albiventris (Hodgs.). _The Scaly-breasted Wren_.

Pnoepyga squamata (_Gould), Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 488.

From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes:--"I found two nests of the Scaly-breasted Wren this year within a few yards of each other. They were in a small moist ravine in the Rishap forest, at 5000 feet above sea-level. One was deserted before being quite finished, and the other was taken a few days after three eggs had been laid. The two nests were alike, and both were built among the moss growing on the trunks of large trees, within a yard of the ground. The only carried material was very fine roots, which were firmly interwoven, and the ends worked in with the natural moss. These fine roots were worked into the shape of a half-egg, cut lengthways, and placed with its open side against the trunk, which thus formed one side of the nest. Near the top one side was not quite close to the trunk, and by this irregular opening the bird entered. Internally the nest measured 3 inches deep by 2 in width. I killed the female off the eggs; she had eaten a caterpillar, spiders, and other insects."

Mr. Mandelli found a nest of this species at Pattabong, elevation 5000 feet, near Darjeeling, on the 19th May, containing three fresh eggs. The nest was placed amongst some small bushes projecting out of a crevice of a rock about three feet from the ground. It was completely sheltered above, but was not hooded or domed; it was, for the size of the bird, a rather large cup, composed of green moss rather closely felted together and lined with fine blackish-brown roots. The cavity measured about 2 inches in diameter and 1 in depth.

The eggs of this species seem large for the size of the bird; they are rather broad at the large end, considerably pointed towards the small end. They are pure white, almost entirely devoid of gloss, and with very delicate and fragile shells.

The eggs varied from in 0·72 to 0·78 in length, and from 0·54 to 0·57 in breadth.

Family REGULIDAE.

358. Regulus cristatus, Koch. _The Golderest_.

Regulus himalayensis, _Blyth, Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 206; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 580.

All I know of the nidification of this species is that Sir E.C. Buck, C.S., found a nest at Rogee, in the Sutlej Valley, on the 8th June, on the end of a deodar branch 8 feet from the ground and partly suspended. It contained seven young birds fully fledged; no crest or signs of a crest were observable in the young. Both the parent birds and the nest were kindly sent to me.

The nest is a deep pouch suspended from several twigs, with the entrance at the top, and composed entirely of fine lichens woven or intervened into a thick, soft, flexible tissue of from three eighths to half an inch in thickness. Externally the nest was about 3½ to 4 inches in depth, and about 3 inches in diameter.

Family SYLVIIDAE.

363. Acrocephalus stentoreus (H. & E.). _The Indian Great Reed-Warbler_.

Acrocephalus brunnescens (_Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 154. Calamodyta stentorea (_H. & E.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 515.

Both Mr. Brooks and Captain Cock succeeded in securing the nests and eggs of the Indian Great Reed-Warbler in Cashmere. Common as it is, my own collectors failed to get eggs, though they brought plenty of nests.

The nest is a very deep massive cup hung to the sides of reeds. A nest before me, taken in Cashmere on the 10th June, is an inverted and slightly truncated cone. Externally it has a diameter of 3¼ inches and a depth of nearly 6 inches. It is massive, but by no means neat; composed of coarse water-grass, mingled with a few dead leaves and fibrous roots of water-plants. The egg-cavity is lined with finer and more compactly woven grass, and measures about 1¾ inch in diameter and 2¼ inches in depth.

It breeds in May and June; at the beginning of July all the nests either contained young or were empty. Four is the full complement of eggs.

Mr. Brooks noted _in epist._:--"_Srinuggur, 10th June_. I went out early this morning on the lake here to look for eggs of _Acrocephalus stentoreus_, but it came on to rain so heavily that I only partially succeeded. I took three nests, two with three eggs each, and one with four young ones, the latter half-hatched. The eggs very much resemble large and boldly-marked Sparrows' eggs. They are smaller than the eggs of _A. arundinaceus_, but very similar. The latter have larger clear spaces without spots than those of our bird. I neither saw nor heard any other aquatic warbler."

Later, in a paper on the eggs and nests he had obtained in Cashmere, he stated that this species "breeds abundantly in the Cashmere lakes. The nest is supported, about 18 inches above the water, by three or four reeds, and is a deep cup composed of grasses and fibres. The eggs are four, very like those of _A. arundinaceus_, but the markings are more plentiful and smaller."

Captain Cock writes to me that "the Large Reed-Warbler is very common in the reeds that fringe all the lakes in Cashmere. It breeds in June, builds a largish nest of dry sedge, woven round five or six reeds, of a deep cup form, which it places about 2 feet above the water. It lays four or five eggs, rather blunt ovals, equally blunt at both ends, blotched with olive and dusky grey on a dirty-white ground."

Mr. S.B. Doig, who found this bird breeding in the Eastern Narra in Sind, writes:--"On the 4th August, while my man was poling along in a canoe in a large swamp on the lookout for eggs, he passed a small bunch of reeds and in them spotted a nest with a bird on it. The nest contained three beautiful fresh eggs. A few days later I joined him, and on asking about these eggs he described the bird and said he had found several other nests of the same species, but all of them contained young ones nearly fledged. I made him show me some of these nests, all of which were situated in clumps of reed, in the middle of the swamp, and in these same reeds I found and shot the young ones which, though fledged, were not able to fly. These I sent with one of the eggs to Mr. Hume, who has identified them as belonging to this species. The nests were composed of frayed pieces of reed-grass and fine sedge, the latter being principally towards the inside, thus forming a kind of lining. The nests were loosely put together, were about 3 inches inner diameter, 1¼ inch deep, the outer diameter being 6 inches. They were situated about a foot over water-line in the tops of reeds growing in the water."

Colonel Legge says:--"This species breeds in Ceylon during June and July. Its nest was procured by me in the former month at the Tamara-Kulam, and was a very interesting structure, built into the fork of one of the tall seed-stalks of the rush growing there; the walls rested exteriorly against three of the branches of the fork, but were worked round some of the stems of the flower itself which sprung from the base of the fork. It was composed of various fine grasses, with a few rush-blades among them, and was lined with the fine stalks of the flower divested, by the bird I conclude, of the seed-matter growing on them. In form it was a tolerably deep cup, well shaped, measuring 2½ inches in internal diameter by 2 in depth. The single egg which it contained at the time of my finding it was a broad oval in shape, pale green, boldly blotched with blackish over spots of olive and olivaceous brown, mingled with linear markings of the same, under which there were small clouds and blotches of bluish grey. The black markings were longitudinal and thickest at the obtuse end. It measured 0·89 by 0·67 inch."

The eggs of this species, as might have been expected, greatly resemble those of _A. arundinaceus_. In shape they are moderately elongated ovals, in some cases almost absolutely perfect, but generally slightly compressed towards one end. The shell, though fine, is entirely devoid of gloss.

The ground-colour varies much, but the two commonest types are pale green or greenish white and a pale somewhat creamy stone-colour. Occasionally the ground-colour has a bluish tinge.

The markings vary even more than the ground-colour. In one type the ground is everywhere minutely, but not densely, stippled with minute specks, too minute for one to be able to say of what colour; over this are pretty thickly scattered fairly bold and well-marked spots and blotches of greyish black, inky purple, olive-brown, yellowish olive, and reddish-umber brown; here and there pale inky clouds underlay the more distinct markings. In other eggs the stippling is altogether wanting, and the markings are smaller and less well-defined. In some eggs one or more of the colours predominate greatly, and in some several are almost entirely wanting. In most eggs the markings are densest towards the large end, where they sometimes form more or less of a mottled, irregular, ill-defined cap.

In length the eggs vary from 0·8 to 0·97, and in breadth from 0·58 to 0·63; but the average of the only nine eggs that I measured was 0·89, nearly, by rather more than 0·61.

366. Acrocephalus dumetorum, Blyth. _Blyth's Reed-Warbler_.

Acrocephalus dumetorum, _Bl., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 155. Calamodyta dumetorum (_Bl.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 516.

Blyth's Reed-Warbler breeds, I believe, for the most part along the course of the streams of the lower Himalayan and sub-Himalayan ranges, and in suitable localities on and about these ranges; such at least is my present idea. They are with us in the plains up to quite the end of March, and are back again by the last day of August, and during May at any rate they may be heard and seen everywhere in the valleys south of the first snowy range.

Mr. Brooks remarks that "this species was excessively common on the Hindoostan side of the Pir-pinjal Range, but I have never seen it in Cashmere. I think it breeds in the low valleys by the river-sides, for it was in very vigorous song there at the end of May." This is my experience also, and probably while many may go north to Central Asia to breed, a good many remain in the localities indicated.

Captain Hutton says:--"This species arrives in the hills up to 7000 feet at least, in April, when it is very common, and appears in pairs with something of the manner of a _Phylloscopus_. The note is a sharp _tchick, tchick_, resembling the sound emitted by a flint and steel.

"It disappears by the end of May, in which month they breed; but, owing to the high winds and strong weather experienced in that month in 1848, many nests were left incomplete, and the birds must have departed without breeding.

"One nest, which I took on the 6th May, was a round ball with a lateral entrance; it was placed in a thick barberry-bush growing at the side of a deep and sheltered ditch; it was composed of coarse dry grasses externally and lined with finer grass. Eggs three and pearl-white, with minute scattered specks of rufous, chiefly at the larger end. Diameter 0·62 by 0·5."

The late Mr. A. Anderson wrote the following note:--"On the fifth day after leaving Naini Tal--ever mindful of my friend Mr. Brooks's

## parting advice to me (in reference to the part of the country which

required to be investigated), 'avoid the lower hills as the plague'--I reached Takula, which is the first march beyond Almora on the road to the Pindari glacier, late on the evening of the 10th of May. It rained heavily all that night, so that I was obliged to halt the next day, my tents being far too wet to be struck, and the distance to the next halting-place necessitating a start the first thing in the morning.

"Takula is at an elevation between 5000 and 6000 feet; it is beautifully wooded, with a small mountain-stream flowing right under the camping-ground, and the climate is delightful. All things considered, I was not sorry at having an opportunity of exploring such productive-looking ground; and before it was fairly daylight the next morning operations were commenced in right earnest. To each of my collectors I apportioned off a well-wooded mountain-slope, reserving for my own hunting-ground (as I had not yet got my _hill-legs_) the water-courses and ravines in the immediate vicinity of my camp.

"Not more than 20 yards from where my tent stood, there is a deep ravine clothed on both banks with a dense jungle of the larger kind of nettle (_Girardinia heterophylla_: such nettles too!), the hilldock (_Rumea nepalensis_), and wild-rose trees. Wending my way through this dark, damp, and muggy nullah to the best of my ability, I came upon the nest of this interesting little bird; it was placed in the centre of a rose-bush, at an elevation of some two feet above the bank and about four feet from where I stood, but yet in a most tantalizing situation, inasmuch as it was necessary to remove several thorny branches before an examination of the nest was possible.

"The act of cutting away the branches alarmed my sombre little friend (I knew that the nest was tenanted, as the bill and head were distinctly visible through the lateral entrance), and out she darted with such a '_whir_' that anything like satisfactory identification for a bird of this sort was utterly hopeless. The nest contained four beautiful little eggs, so that to bag the parent bird was a matter of the first importance; all my attempts, however, first to capture her on the nest and next to shoot her as she flew off, were equally futile, her movements being as rapid and erratic as forked lightning. And here let me give a word of advice to my brother ornithologists: Never attempt to shoot a _wary little bird in the act of leaving its nest_, as you only run the risk, and mortification I may add, of wounding perhaps an unknown bird, in which case she will never again return to her nest; but _lie in ambush_ for her with, outlying scants, _and make certain of her as she is returning to her nest_. She will first alight on a neighbouring tree, then on one closer, coming nearer and nearer each time; finally, she will perch on the very tree or bush in which the nest is built, and while taking a look round to see that all is well before making a final ascent, you have yourself to blame if you fail to bag her. All this sounds very cruel; but if a bird must be shot for scientific purposes, it is surely preferable to kill it outright than to let it die a lingering death. Thus it was that I eventually succeeded, even at the expense of being devoured alive by midges and mosquitoes; but then had I not the satisfaction of knowing that to become the happy possessor of _authentic_ eggs of _Acrocephalus dumetorum_ was in itself sufficient to repay me for my hill excursion!

"I cannot, however, pretend to lay claim to originality in the discovery of the breeding-habits of this bird, for Hutton's description of the nest and eggs taken by him so fully accords with my own experience, that it is but fair to conclude he was correct in his identification. I would add, however, with reference to his remarks, that the nest above alluded to was _more elliptical_ than _spherical_, being about the size and shape of an Ostrich's egg, that it was constructed throughout of the _largest_ and _coarsest_ blades of various kinds of dry grass, the egg-cavity being lined with grass-bents of a finer quality, and that it was domed over, having a lateral entrance about the middle of the nest. The whole structure was so loosely put together as to fall to pieces immediately it was removed.

"The eggs, four in number, are pure while, beautifully glossed, and well covered with rufous or reddish-brown specks, most numerous at the obtuse end. Owing to its similarity to a number of eggs, particularly to those of the Titmouse group, it is just one of those that I would never feel comfortable in accepting on trust.

"It was a remarkable coincidence that the very day I took this nest my post brought me part iv. of the P.Z.S. for 1874, containing Mr. Dresser's interesting paper on the nidification of the _Hypolais_ and _Acrocephalus_ groups; and if I understand him rightly, he is certainly correct in his surmise as to the eggs of _Acrocephalus dumetorum_ approaching those of the _Hypolais_ group.

"My good luck, as regards Blyth's Reed-Warbler, did not end here, for on the following day, at Bagesur, at an elevation of only 3000 feet, I again encountered a pair of these birds, finding their nest on the banks of the Surjoo. The position, shape, and architecture of this nest were identical with the one I have above described, but the eggs unfortunately had not been laid. The little birds, on this occasion, were quite fearless, hopping from stem to stem of the dense undergrowth which throughout the Bagesur valley fringes both banks of the river, every now and again making a temporary halt for the purpose of picking insects off the leaves, with an occasional '_tchick_,' which Hutton resembles to the 'sound emitted by a flint and steel,' but all the time enticing me away from the site of their dwelling-place. In this way they led me a wild-goose chase several times up and down the river-bank before I was able to discover the whereabouts of their nest."

Captain Hutton sent me three eggs of this species. The eggs are otherwise unknown to me, and I describe them only on Captain Hutton's authority. The eggs are rather broad ovals, very smooth and compact in texture, but with little or no gloss. They are pure white, very thinly speckled with reddish and yellowish brown, the markings being most numerous towards the large end, and even there somewhat sparse and very minute. They measure respectively 0·65 by 0·52, 0·65 by 0·51, and 0·62 by 0·51.

367. Acrocephalus agricola (Jerd.). _The Paddy-field Reed-Warbler_.

Acrocephalus agricolus (_Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 156. Calamodyta agricola (_Jerd.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 517.

The Paddy-field Reed-Warbler nests apparently occasionally in May and Jane in the valleys of the Himalayas, the great majority probably going further north-west to breed.

Very little is known about the matter. I have shot the birds in the interior of the hills in May, but I have never seen a nest.

Mr. Brooks, however, says:--"Near Shupyion (Cashmere) I found a finished empty nest of this truly aquatic warbler in a rose-bush which was intergrown with rank nettles. This was in the roadside where there was a shallow stream of beautifully clear water. On either side of the road were vast tracts of paddy swamp, in which the natives were busily engaged planting the young rice-plants. The nest strongly resembled that of _Curruca garrula_. The male with his throat puffed out was singing on the bush a loud vigorous pretty song like a Lesser Whitethroat's, but more varied. I shot the strange songster, on which the female flew from the nest. This was the only pair of these interesting birds that I met with. I think, therefore, that their breeding in Cashmere is not a common occurrence."

This nest, now in my collection, was found on the 13th June, at an elevation of about 5500 feet, in the Valley of Cashmere. It is a deep, almost purse-like cup, very loosely and carelessly put together, of moderately fine grass, in amongst which a quantity of wool has been intermingled.

371. Tribura thoracica (Blyth). _The Spotted Bush-Warbler_.