Dicrurus longicaudatus, _A. Hay, Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 430.
Buchanga longicaudata (_A. Hay), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._
no. 280.
The Indian Ashy Drongo, a species that, with the really large series
before me from all parts of India, I find it impossible to subdivide
into two or more species, breeds alike in the plains, in well-watered
and wooded districts, and in the Himalayas up to an elevation of 6000
to 7000 feet, and lays during the months of May and June.
They build generally in large trees, at a considerable height from
the ground, placing their somewhat shallow cup-shaped nests in some
slender fork towards the summit or exterior of the tree.
The nest is neatly and firmly built, of fine grass-stems, slender
twigs, and grass-roots, closely interwoven, and externally bound
together with cobwebs, in which, as in the body of the nest, lichens
of several species are much intermingled. Exteriorly the nests are
from 4 to 5 inches in diameter, and from 2 to 2½ in height. Interiorly
they are lined with moss, roots, hairs, and fine grass; the cavity
measuring from 3 to 3·5 inches in breadth, and from 1·1 to 1·4 inch in
depth. The normal number of the eggs is four.
Mr. Brooks says:--"The nest is usually fixed on the upper surface of a
thin branch about 15 to 20 feet from the ground, and at its junction
with another branch, the nest being partly embedded in the fork of two
_horizontal_ branches. It is composed of grass, fibres, and roots, and
lined with finer grasses and a few hairs. The nest is broader and much
shallower than that of _D. ater_; outside it is covered with spiders'
webs and small bits of lichen.
"The eggs are four in number, sometimes only three, and vary much in
size, shape, and colour; size 1·0 by 0·7 inch: some are buff, blotched
with light reddish brown and pale purple-grey; others are lighter
buff, almost white in fact, spotted and marked more sparingly than the
first described with the same two colours, but each of a darker tint;
others are white, marked sparingly with spots and blotches of dark
purple-brown and reddish brown, and intermixed with larger blotches
of deep purple-grey, the markings principally forming a zone at the
larger end. Others, again, are pale purplish white, spotted with dark
and light purple-brown, and intermixed with spots and blotches of
purple-grey. The shape of the egg varies as much as the colouring,
some being of a fine oval form, while others are quite pyriform.
Laying in Kumaon from the middle to end of May."
As I shall notice further on, I think that Mr. Brooks is mistaken
about some of his eggs.
Captain Hutton remarks:--"This species, the only one that visits
Mussoorie, arrives from the Doon about the middle of March, and
retires again about September. It is abundant during the summer
months, and breeds from the latter end of April till the middle of
June, making a very neat nest, which is placed in the bifurcation of
a horizontal branch of some tall tree, usually an oak tree; it
is constructed of grey lichens gathered from the trees, and fine
seed-stalks of grasses, firmly and neatly interwoven; with the latter
it is also usually lined, although sometimes a black fibrous lichen is
used; externally the materials are kept compactly together by being
plastered over with spiders' webs. It is altogether a light and
elegant nest. The shape is circular, somewhat shallow; internal
diameter 3 inches. The eggs are three or four, generally the latter
number, and so variable in colour and distribution of spots that until
I had got several specimens and compared them narrowly, I was inclined
to think we had more than one species of _Dicrurus_ here. I am,
however, now fully convinced that these variable eggs belong to the
same species. Sometimes they are dull white with brick-red spots
openly disposed in form of a rude ring at the larger end; at other
times the spots are rufescent claret, with duller indistinct ones
appearing through the shell; others are of a deep carneous hue,
clouded and coarsely blotched with deep rufescent claret; while again
some are faint carneous with large irregular blotches of rufous clay
with duller ones beneath the shell."
Some of Captain Hutton's eggs which he sent me were clearly those of
_Hypsipetes psaroides_ (of which also be sent me specimens), and the
fact is that in thick foliage where the Red-bill is not seen nothing
is easier than to mistake this bird for _D. longicaudatus_. I have
taken a great many of these nests, and I never found eggs other than
of the two types to be below described.
Colonel G.F.L. Marshall writes:--"In Kumaon this species breeds from
4000 to 5000 feet above the sea; the eggs are laid in the last week of
May. I have never seen a nest at Naini Tal itself (6000 to 7000 feet),
but at Bheem Tal (4000 feet) I found numerous nests within three days,
in the first week of June; all without exception had young. The next
season I visited the place in the last week of May, and found the eggs
just laid.
"The nests were of the usual _Dicrurus_ type, wedged in a fork at
heights varying from fifteen to fifty feet from the ground, but as far
as my experience goes always in conspicuous places and generally on
trees almost or quite bare of leaves. The nests are usually only to be
obtained by sawing off the bough they are built on."
Long ago Captain Cock, writing from Dhurmsala, said:--"I took a
nest on the 8th of May, containing four eggs. The eggs are regular,
roundish ovals, somewhat pointed towards one end. The ground-colour is
white, here and there suffused with a faint pinkish tinge, and it is
spotted and blotched with purplish red and pale lilac, most of the
spots being gathered into an irregular zone about the large end."
Colonel C.H.T. Marshall, writing from Murree, says:--"Breeds in May,
in almost inaccessible places, about 7000 feet up, choosing a thin
fork at the outermost end of a bough about 50 or 60 feet from the
ground, and always on trees that have no lower branches. The nest is
almost invisible from below, as it is very neatly built on the top of
the fork; and when the female sits on it, she places her tail down the
bough so as entirely to hide herself. The eggs are only to be obtained
either by climbing higher up the tree than the nest is, and extracting
the eggs by means of a small muslin bag at the end of a long stick, or
else by lashing the bough on which the nest is to an upper bough as
the climber goes along so as to make it strong enough to support him.
The nest is much neater than that of _D. ater_; the eggs are light
salmon-coloured, with brick-red blotches sparsely scattered over them,
and are ·95 by ·7 inch."
Dr. Scully records the following note from Nepal:--"This species lays
in the valley in May and June, the nest being placed high up in trees,
often in _Pinus longifolia_. The eggs are usually four in number,
fairly glossy, in shape moderate ovals, smaller at one end. The
ground-colour is pinkish white, with a tinge of buff, sparingly
spotted and blotched with brownish red, chiefly at the large end,
where the marks tend to coalesce, so as to form an irregular
incomplete ring. Four eggs taken on the 28th May measured 1·09 to 1·12
in length, and 0·75 to 0·76 in breadth. The race which I identify with
_D. himalayanus_ was found, in very small numbers, on the summit of
Sheopuri, at an elevation of about 7500 feet, and was breeding at the
time I shot my specimen, viz. the 20th May."
Mr. Gammie found a nest at Mongpho, near Darjeeling, at an elevation
of about 3500 feet on the 13th May. It was placed on an outer branch
of a tall tree and contained only one partially incubated egg. The
nest was a beautifully compact, but shallow cup, placed on the upper
surface of the bough, composed externally of roots and coated with a
little lichen and a great deal of cobweb. Interiorly lined with the
finest grass and moss-roots. The cavity measured about 3 inches in
diameter and scarcely more than 1 inch in depth. At the bottom, where
it rested on the bough, the nest was not above ¼ inch thick, and
consisted only of the lining materials. Laterally it was about ¾ inch
thick.
The egg was a broad oval, slightly compressed towards one end, but
not at all pointed. The shell very fine and with a slight gloss, the
ground-colour a delicate salmon-pink, and with a broad ring of deep
brownish-pink spots and blotches intermingled with pale purple
subsurface-looking clouds and spots round the large end. The rest of
the egg with some half-dozen similar spots.
He subsequently sent me the following note:--"This species is common
in the Darjeeling district up to 4000 feet or so. It rather affects
the neighbourhood of bungalows, and is a very lively neighbour,
especially in the mornings and evenings. These birds are continually
quarrelling among themselves, sallying after insects, or making
their best attempts at singing. They are _dead_ on Kites, Crows, and
such-like depredators. For several days an Owl (_Bulaca newarensis_)
was flying about near the Cinchona Bungalow at Mongpho, and being a
stupid creature at the best, and doubly so during daylight when it had
no business to be abroad, was evidently considered fair game by the
Long-tailed Drongo and Swallow-Shrikes, and so awfully 'sat upon' by
them, that its life must have become a burden to it until it left
the place in despair of ever getting either peace or comfort about
Mongpho.
"They lay in April and May, and have but one brood in the year.
The nest is generally either built against a tall bamboo, well up,
supported on the branch of twigs at a node, or near the extremity of a
branch of a tree, sometimes on quite slender branches of young trees,
which get so tremendously wafted about by the wind as to make the
retention of the eggs or young in the nest appear almost miraculous.
When anyone meddles with the nest, the owners make bold dashes at the
head of the robber. The Darjeeling birds are not so knowing as their
fellows of Murree, the females of whom are said to sit on the
nests with their tails along the boughs so as to entirely conceal
themselves. I have seen dozens of the nests here, and never once saw
the female in this position, but always with her tail _across_ the
bough. The nest is a compact shallow cup, measuring externally 4·5
inches across by 1·75 in height, while the cavity is 3 inches in
diameter by about 1·2 in depth. It is made of twigs bound up with
cobwebs, among which a few lichens are intermingled. The lining is a
mixture of straw-coloured root-fibres and fine branchlets of the same
coloured grass-panicles."
Mr. Mandelli sent me nests of this species, which were taken, at
Ging, near Darjeeling, on the 26th April and on the 22nd May, the one
contained one fresh egg, the other three. They were both placed on
branches of large trees at heights of about 20 feet from the ground.
They are broad shallow cups, from 4 to 5 inches in diameter, about 2
in height, compactly composed of fine twigs and grass-stems, bound
together with cobwebs and with many pieces of lichen and some tiny dry
leaves worked in on the outer surface. Interiorly, they are lined with
very fine hair-like grass-stems. The saucer-like cavities are about 3
inches in diameter and about 1¼ in depth.
Dr. Jerdon says:--"I found its nest on one occasion, in April, in
Lower Malabar. It was shallow and loosely made with roots, and lined
with hair, about 20 feet from the ground, on the fork of a tree; and
it contained three eggs of a pinkish-white colour, with some longish
rusty or brick-red spots."
There are two very strongly marked types of this bird's eggs. The eggs
of both types are moderately broad, or, at most, somewhat elongated
ovals, and comparatively devoid of gloss. The first, in its colouring,
exactly resembles the eggs of _Caprimulgus indicus_; a pinkish
salmon-coloured ground, streaked, blotched, and clouded, but nowhere
densely (except towards the large end, where there is a tendency to
form a cap or zone), with reddish pink, not differing widely in hue
from, though deeper in shade than, the ground-colour. Here and there,
where the markings are thickest, under-clouds of very faint purple
occur, but these are too feeble to attract attention, unless the egg
is looked into closely. In the other type of egg, the ground-colour
is pale pinkish white, pretty boldly blotched and spotted almost
exclusively towards the large end, where there is a broad irregular
imperfect zone, with brownish red, intermingled with blotches of very
faint inky purple. My description possibly fails to make this as
apparent as it should be, but no two eggs can, to a casual observer,
appear more distinct than these two types. There is yet, according to
Mr. Brooks, a third type of this bird's eggs; of this he has given me
a single example. In shape it is excessively long and narrow, of the
type of the eggs of _Chibia hottentotta_, but its coloration and
character of markings are unlike those of any Shrike or Drongo with
which I am acquainted, and exactly resemble those of many types of the
eggs of the several Bulbuls. The ground-colour is pinkish white, and
is thickly speckled and spotted throughout with primary markings of
rich brownish red, and feeble secondary ones of excessively pale
inky purple. This egg, moreover, possesses a degree of gloss never
observable in those of the _Dicruri_, and therefore, well assured
though Mr. Brooks is of the parentage of this egg which he took with
his own hands, I feel confident, having since obtained many eggs
of _Hypsipetes psaroides_ which are exactly similar to this last
described egg, that in, perhaps, indifferent light he mistook this
bird for a _Dicrurus_. I may add that the first described type, of
which I have procured numerous specimens from different parts of
the Himalayas, taking _several_ nests with my own hands, is most
characteristic of this species.
In the type with the pinky-white ground, large or small spots often
occur about the large end of a deep purple colour, so deep as to be
almost black, and but for the absence of gloss some of these paler
eggs are very close to those of some of the Orioles. Intermediate
varieties between the two types above described occur, but in not one
of more than sixty specimens that I have examined has there been any
perceptible gloss.
The eggs vary in length from 0·85 to 1·01 inch, and in breadth from
0·7 to 0·75 inch, but the average of fifty-one eggs is 0·95 by 0·74
inch.