Salpornis spilonota (_Frankl.), Jerd. B.I._ i, p. 382.
Mr. Cleveland found a nest of this species at Hattin, in the Gurgaon
district, on the 16th April. The nest was placed on a large ber-tree
in a patch of preserved jungle, at a height of about 10 feet from the
ground. It was cup-shaped, placed on the upper surface of a horizontal
bough at the angle formed between this and a vertical shoot, to which
it was attached on one side, the other three sides being free. The
nest itself is unlike any other that I have seen. It is composed
entirely of bits of leaf-stalks, tiny bits of leaves, chips of bark,
the dung of caterpillars, all cemented together everywhere with
cobwebs, so that the whole nest is a firm but yet soft and elastic
mass. The nest is cup-shaped, but oval and not circular; its exterior
diameters are 4 and 3 inches respectively; its greatest height 2
inches; the cavity measures 2·6 by 2·2, and 1·1 in depth.
The texture of the nest, as I have already said, is extremely
peculiar; it is extremely strong, and though pulled off the bough on
which it rested and the off-shoot to which it was attached, is as
perfect apparently as the day it was found, bearing on the lower
surface an exact cast of the inequalities of the bark on which it
rested; but it is soft, yielding, and flabby in the hand, almost as
much so as if it was jelly. The nest contained two almost full-grown
nestlings and one addled egg.
This egg is a very regular oval, slightly broader at one end, the
shell fine and fairly glossy; the ground-colour is pale greenish
white; round the large end there is an irregular imperfect zone of
blackish-brown specks and tiny spots, and round about these is more or
less of a brown nimbus, and over the rest of the egg a very few
specks and spots of blackish, dusky, and pale brown are scattered. It
measures 0·68 by 0·53.
Another nest was found about 15 feet up a tree. It was partly seated
on and partly wedged in between the fork of two thick oblique
branches, to the rough bark of which the bottom only was firmly
cemented with cobwebs, the sides, as in the case of the first nest,
being quite free and detached from its surroundings. As regards
dimensions and composition, the latter nest was an exact counterpart
of that first taken. It contained two partially fledged nestlings.