Pycnonotus pygaeus (_Hodgs.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 93.
Molpastes pygmaeus (_Hodgs.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._
no. 461.
I have taken many nests of the Bengal Red-vented Bulbul in many
localities, and while the birds vary, getting less typical as you go
westwards, the nests are all pretty much the same, though the eastern
birds go in rather more for dead leaves than the western. Sikhim birds
are very typical, and I will therefore confine myself to quoting a
note I made there.
Several nests taken at Darjeeling in June, at elevations of from 2000
to 4000 feet, each contained three or four, more or less incubated,
eggs. The nests were mostly very compact and rather deep cups about 3½
inches in diameter and 2 inches in height, very firmly woven of moss
and grass-roots, but with a certain quantity of dry and dead leaves,
and here and there a little cobweb worked into the outer surface.
Sometimes a little fine grass was used as a lining; but generally
there was no lining, only the roots that were used in finishing off
the interior of the nests were rather finer than those employed
elsewhere. The egg-cavity is very large for the size of the nest, the
sides, though very firm and compact, being scarcely above half an inch
in thickness. The nests differ very much in appearance, owing to the
fact that in some all the roots used are black, in others pale brown.
Mr. Gammie says:--"I took two or three nests of this species in the
latter half of May at Mongpho, in Sikhim, at elevations of 3500 feet
or thereabouts. They contained three eggs each, hard-set. The nests
were in trees, at a moderate height, and rather flimsy structures;
shallow caps, composed externally of fine twigs and vegetable fibre,
and generally some dead leaves intermingled, especially towards their
basal portions, and lined with the fine hair-like stem portion of the
flowering tops of grass. One nest measured internally 2½ inches in
diameter by nearly 1½ inch in depth; externally it was nearly 4 inches
in diameter and 2 inches in height. The eggs were of the usual type."
Mr. J.R. Cripps, writing from Fureedpore, Eastern Bengal,
says:--"Excessively common and a permanent resident; commits great
havoc in gardens amongst tomatoes and chillies, the red colour of
which seems to attract them. Builds its nest in very exposed places
and at all heights from two to thirty feet off the ground, in bushes
and trees. One nest I saw containing two young ones, on the 28th June,
was built on a small date-tree which stood on the side of a road along
which people were passing all day, and within six feet of them. The
nest was only five feet from the ground, but the materials of which it
was made and the colour of the bird assimilated so perfectly with the
bark of the tree that detection was difficult. I have found the nests
with eggs from the 3rd of April to the end of June; dead leaves and
cobwebs were incorporated with the twigs and grasses in all nests
which I have seen in Dacca. The natives keep these birds for fighting
purposes; large sums are lost at times on these combats."
Writing from Nepal, Dr. Scully remarks:--"It breeds in May and June in
the Residency grounds, the nests being very commonly placed in small
pine-trees (_Pinus longifolia_). Three is the usual number of eggs
found, and a clutch taken on the 29th May measured in length from 0·85
to 0·93, and in breadth from 0·64 to 0·65."
I have fully described the leading types of the eggs of these Bulbuls
under _Molpastes haemorrhous_. I shall therefore only here say that
the eggs of this species in shape and colour exactly resemble those
of its congener, but that as a body they are larger in size; every
variety observable in the eggs of the one is, as far as I know, to be
met with amongst those of the other. Taking only the eggs of typical
birds from Lower Bengal and Sikhim, they vary from 0·88 to 1·05 in
length and from 0·67 to 0·75 in breadth.