Graminicola bengalensis, _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 177.
Drymoica bengalensis (_Jerd.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 542.
Long ago the late Colonel Tytler gave me the following note on this
species:--"I shot these birds at Dacca in 1852, and sent a description
and a drawing of them to Mr. Blyth. They were named after my esteemed
friend Jules Verreaux, of Paris. They are not uncommon at Dacca in
grass-jungle. I think the bird Dr. Jerdon gives in his 'Birds of
India' as _Graminicola bengalensis_, Jerdon, No. 542, p. 177, vol.
ii., is meant for this species. The genus _Graminicola_, under which
he places this bird, appears to be a genus of Dr. Jerdon's own, for
it is not in Gray's 'Genera and Subgenera of Birds in the British
Museum,' printed in 1855. If it is the same bird as Dr. Jerdon's, then
my name, which I communicated in 1851-52 not only to Mr. Blyth
but also to Prince Bonaparte and M. Jules Verreaux, and which was
published in my Fauna of Dacca, has, it seems to me, the priority."
The birds _are_ identical. Jerdon gave me one of his Cachar specimens,
and I compared it with Tytler's types, and certainly Tytler's name was
published ten years before Jerdon's (_vide_ Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist.,
Sept. 1854, p. 176); but no description was published, and I fear
therefore that the name given by Colonel Tytler cannot be maintained,
unless indeed, which I have been unable to ascertain, either Bonaparte
or Verreaux figured or described the specimens Tytler sent them in
some French work.
I have only one supposed nest of this species, brought me from Dacca
by a native collector who worked there for me under Mr. F.B. Simson.
He did not take it himself; it was brought to him with one of the
parent birds by a shikaree. The evidence is, therefore, very bad, but
I give the facts for what they are worth.
The nest is a rather massive and deep cup, the lower portion prolonged
downwards so as to form a short truncated cone. It is fixed between
three reeds, is constructed of sedge and vegetable fibre firmly wound
together and round the reeds, and is lined with fine grass-roots.
It measures externally 5 inches in height and nearly 4 inches in
diameter, measuring outside the reeds which are incorporated in the
outer surface of the nest. The cavity is about 2½ inches in diameter
and nearly 2 inches deep. It contained four eggs, hard-set; only one
could be preserved, and that was broken in bringing up-country; so I
could not measure it, but the shell was a sort of pale greenish grey
or dull greenish white, rather thickly but very faintly speckled and
spotted with very dull purplish and reddish brown, with some grey
spots intermingled. The nest was obtained (no date noted) between the
middle of July and the middle of August. I note that the eggs were
on the point of hatching, so that the fresh egg would probably be
somewhat brighter coloured.