462. Prinia lepida, Blyth. _The Streaked Wren-Warbler_

Burnesia lepida (_Blyth), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 185.

Burnesia gracilis, _Rupp., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 550.

I have never happened to meet with the nest of the Streaked Wren-Warbler, and all the information I possess in regard to its nidification I owe to others.

The late Mr. Anderson remarked:--"Although this species was far from uncommon, I found it very local and confined entirely to the tamarisk-covered islands and 'churs' along the Ganges.

"The first nest was taken on the 13th March last, and contained three well-incubated eggs; of these I saved only one specimen, which is now in the collection of Mr. Brooks. The second was found on the following day, and contained two callow young and one perfectly fresh egg.

"The nest is domed over, having an entrance at the side; and the cavity is comfortably lined, or rather felted, with the down of the madar plant. It is fixed, somewhat after the fashion of that of the Reed-Warbler, in the centre of a dense clump of surpat gra.s.s, about 2 feet above the ground. On the whole the structure is rather large for so small a bird, and measures 6 inches in height by 4 inches in breadth.

"But while the _nest_ corresponds exactly with Canon Tristram's description[A] of those taken by him in Palestine, there are differences, oologically speaking, which induce me to hope that our Indian bird may yet be restored to specific distinction[B]. In the first place, my single eggs from each nest have a _green_ ground-colour, and are covered all over with reddish-brown spots. Now Mr. Tristram describes his Palestine specimens as 'richly coloured _pink_ eggs, with a zone of darker red near the larger end, and in shape and colour resembling some of the _Prinia_ group.' Is it possible for the same birds to lay such widely different eggs? If I had taken only one specimen, it might have been looked upon as a mere variety. Again, our Indian bird lays three eggs, and I have never seen the parent birds feeding more than this number of young ones, occasionally only two. Mr. Tristram, _per contra_, mentions having met with as many as five and six. The egg is certainly the prettiest, and one of the smallest, I have ever seen; indeed, I found it too small to risk measurement."

[Footnote A: Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine, P. 2. S. 1864, p. 437; Ibis, 865, pp. 82, 83.]

[Footnote B: The two birds are now considered distinct by all ornithologists.--ED.]

He adds:--"Since writing the above, which appeared in 'The Ibis,' I have discovered that this species breeds in September and October, as well as in February and March, so some of them probably have two broods in the year. I took a nest on the 9th October at Futtegurh, which contained two callow young and one (_fresh_) egg, which I send you, and which is exactly similar to all the others I have taken from time to time."

The egg sent me by Mr. Anderson is a very broad oval in shape, a good deal compressed however, and pointed towards the small end. The sh.e.l.l is very fine and has a decided gloss. In colouring the egg is exactly like those of some of the Blackbirds--a pale green ground, profusely freckled and streaked with a bright, only slightly brownish, red; the markings are densest round the large end, where they form a broad, nearly confluent, well-marked, but imperfect and irregular, zone. It measures 055 by 041.

Colonel C.H.T. Marshall says:--"The Streaked Wren-Warbler breeds in great numbers near Delhi in March; Mr. C.T. Bingham has found several of them in the clumps of surpat gra.s.s that had been cut within three feet of the ground on the alluvial land of the Jumna. It was when out with him in the end of March 1876 that I first saw the nest of this species. The locality of the nest is exactly that described by Mr.

Anderson; it is oval in shape, with a large side entrance near the top; it is built of fine gra.s.s and seed-down, no cobweb being employed in the structure; it is loosely made, and there are always a few feathers in the egg-cavity. The whereabouts is generally pointed out by the c.o.c.k bird, who, seated on the top of the highest blade of gra.s.s he can find near where his hen is sitting, pours out with untiring energy his feeble monotonous song, little knowing that by so doing he has betrayed the spot where he has fixed his nest to the marauder.

The eggs, of which I have seen about fifteen or twenty, answer the description given in 'Stray Feathers' exactly."

Major C.T. Bingham tells us:--"Between the 12th and 31st March this year I found ten nests of this bird, which is very common in the gra.s.s-covered land of the Jumna. These nests were all alike, of fine dry gra.s.s mixed with the down of the surpat, which also thickly lined the inside. In shape the nests are blunt ovals, with a tiny hole for entrance a little above the centre. Seven out of the ten nests contained four eggs each, the rest three each. The eggs in colour are a pale yellowish white with a tinge of green, thickly speckled with dashes rather than spots of rusty red, tending in some to form a cap, in others a zone round the large end. The average of twenty eggs measured is 053 by 044 inch. The nests were all, with one exception, supported by stems of the gra.s.s being worked into the sides. The one exception was a nest I found in the fork of a tamarisk bush. It is not a difficult nest to find, for when you are in the vicinity of one, one of the birds will flit about the stems of the surrounding clumps of gra.s.s and above you freely, opening its tiny mouth absurdly wide, but giving forth the feeblest of feeble sounds."

Writing on the Avifauna of Mt. Abu and N. Guzerat, Colonel E.A. Butler says:--"I found a nest in a tussock of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s in the sandy bed of a river, amongst a number of tamarisk-bushes, on the 8th July, 1875, in the neighbourhood of Deesa. It was composed of fine dry fibrous roots and gra.s.s-stems exteriorly, and lined with silky vegetable down. It was a long bottled-shaped structure with a small entrance on one side. The nest, eggs, situation, locality, &c. all agree so exactly with the descriptions quoted by Dr. Jerdon and with Mr. Anderson's note in 'Nests and Eggs,' _Rough Draft_, that I should have found it difficult to avoid copying these two gentlemen in describing my own nest.

"The nest contained three hard-set eggs and one young one just hatched."

Referring to its occurrence in the Eastern Narra District, Mr. Doig tells us:--"This little Warbler is very common. I took the first nest in March and again in May; they build in stunted tamarisk-bushes; the nest is circular dome-shaped, with the entrance on one side the top, the inside being very beautifully and softly lined with the pappus of gra.s.s-seeds. Four is the usual number of eggs in one nest."

The Blackbird type of egg above described is by no means the commonest one; the great ma.s.s of the eggs have the ground greyish, greenish, or pinkish white, and they are very thickly and finely freckled and speckled all over, but most densely about the large end, with a slightly brownish, rarely a slightly purplish grey. Occasionally when the markings are very dense in a cap at the large end there is a distinct purplish-grey tinge there, and on the rest of the surface of the egg the markings are somewhat less thickly set, leaving small portions of the ground-colour clearly visible. Typically the eggs are moderately broad ovals, a little compressed towards the small end, and though none are very glossy, the great majority have a fair amount of gloss.

463. Prinia flaviventris (Deless.). _The Yellow-bellied Wren-Warbler_.

Prinia flaviventris (_Deless.) Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 169: _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 532.

Of the Yellow-bellied Wren-Warbler's nidification I know personally nothing.

Tickell describes the nest as pensile but quite open, being a hemisphere with one side prolonged, by which it is suspended from a twig. The eggs, he says, are bright brick-red without a spot.

Mr. H.C. Parker tells me that "this bird breeds in the Salt-Water Lake, or rather on the swampy banks of the princ.i.p.al ca.n.a.ls that intersect it. The nest is nearly always placed on an ash-leaved shrub-like plant growing on the banks of the ca.n.a.l and overhanging the water. One taken on the 26th July, 1873, containing four nearly fresh eggs, was almost touching the water at high tide. The male has the habit, when the female is sitting, of hopping to the extreme point of a tall species of cane-like gra.s.s which grows abundantly in these swamps, whence he gives forth a rather pleasing song, erecting his tail at the same time, after which he drops into the jungle and is seen no more. It is almost impossible to make him show himself again."

The nest, which I owe to Mr. Parker, and which was found in the neighbourhood of the Salt-Water Lake, Calcutta, on the 26th July, is of an oval shape, very obtuse at both ends, measuring externally 4 inches in length and about 2 inches in diameter. The aperture, which is near the top of the nest, is oval, and measures about 1 inch by 1 inch. The nest is fixed against the side of two or three tiny leafy twigs, to which it is bound lightly in one or two places with gra.s.s and vegetable fibre; and two or three leafy lateral twiglets are incorporated into the sides of the nest, so that when fresh it must have been entirely hidden by leaves. The nest was in an upright position, the major axis perpendicular to the horizon. It is a very thin, firm, close basket-work of fine gra.s.s, flower-stalks, and vegetable fibre, and has no lining, though the interior surface of the nest is more closely woven and of still finer materials than the outside. The cavity is nearly 2 inches deep, measuring from the lower edge of the entrance, and is about 2 inches in diameter.

During this present year (1874) Mr. Parker obtained several more nests of this species, all built in the low jungle that fringes the mud-banks of the congeries of channels and creeks that are known in Calcutta by the name of the "Salt Lake."

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 275 in diameter; the aperture 13 in height, and barely 10 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 gra.s.s-stems intermingled with blades of gra.s.s, and here and there dry leaves of some rush, a little seed-down, sc.r.a.ps of herbaceous plants, and the like; the interior, always of the finest gra.s.s-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 coc.o.o.ns, 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 gra.s.ses. 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 052 to 06 in length, and from 043 to 048 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 gra.s.s 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 c.o.c.kburn, 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 const.i.tuting 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 st.i.tched 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 gra.s.s-stems, matted with a quant.i.ty of the downy seed of some flowering gra.s.s and with a lining of fine gra.s.s-roots. It is an irregular cup about 2 inches in diameter and 2 inches in depth.

Four seems to be the regular number of the eggs.

From Kotagherry Miss c.o.c.kburn 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 quant.i.ty of fine gra.s.s, 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 gra.s.s. It is made of gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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-gra.s.s, and was constructed of root-fibre and gra.s.s, gra.s.s-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 gra.s.s on the Patnas in the Central Province, in guinea-gra.s.s 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-gra.s.s 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-gra.s.s 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."