Megalurus palustris, _Horsf., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 70; _Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E._ no. 440.
Nothing has hitherto been recorded of the nidification of the Striated
Marsh-Warbler, although it has a very wide distribution and is very
common in suitable localities.
The Striated Marsh-Babbler, as Jerdon calls it, has nothing of the
Babbler in it. It rises perpendicularly out of the reeds, sings rather
screechingly while in the air, and descends suddenly. It has much more
of a song than any of the Babblers, a much stronger flight, and its
sudden, upward, towering flight and equally sudden descent are unlike
anything seen amongst the Babblers.
Mr. E.C. Nunn procured the nest and an egg of this species (which
along with the parent birds he kindly forwarded to me) at Hoshungabad
on the 4th May, 1868. The nest was round, composed of dry grass, and
situated in a cluster of reeds between two rocks in the bed of the
Nerbudda. It contained a single fresh egg.
Writing from Wau, in the Pegu District, Mr. Oates remarks:--"I found
a nest on the 19th May containing four eggs recently laid. The female
flew off only at the last moment, when my pony was about to tread on
the tuft of grass she had selected for her home.
"The nest was placed in a small but very dense grass-tuft about a
foot above the ground. It was made entirely of coarse grasses, and
assimilated well with the dry and entangled stems among which it lay.
The nest was very deep and purse-shaped. It was about 8 inches in
total height at the back, and some 2 inches lower in front, the upper
part of the purse being as it were cut off slantingly, and thus
leaving an entrance which was more or less circular. The width is 6½
inches, and the breadth from front to back 4 inches. The interior is
smooth, lined with somewhat finer grass, and measures 4 inches in
depth by 3 inches from side to side, and by 2 inches from front to
back.
"_Megalurus palustris_ is very common throughout the large plains
lying between the Pegu and Sittang Rivers. At the end of May they were
all breeding. The nest is, however, difficult to find, owing to the
vast extent of favourable ground suited to its habits. Every yard of
the land produces a clump of grass likely enough to hold a nest, and
as the female sits still till the nest is actually touched, it becomes
a difficult and laborious task to find the nest."
He subsequently remarks:--"May seems to be the month in which these
birds lay here. The nest is very often placed on the ground under the
shelter of some grass-tuft."
Mr. Cockburn writes to me:--"I found a nest of this bird on the north
bank of the Bramaputra, near Sadija. One of the birds darted off the
nest a foot or two from me in an excited way, which led me to search.
The nest was almost a perfect oval, with a slice taken off at the top
on one side, built in a clump of grass, and only 9 or 10 inches from
the ground. It was made of sarpat-grass, and lined internally with
finer grasses. The grass had a bleached and washed-out appearance,
while the clump was quite green. This was on the 29th May. I noticed
at the same time that the nest was not interwoven with the living
grass. I removed it easily with the hand."
Mr. Cripps says:--"They breed in April and May in the Dibrugarh
district, placing their deep cup-shaped nests in tussocks of grass
wherever it is swampy, in some instances the bottoms of the nests
being wet. Four seems to be the greatest number of eggs in a nest."
The eggs are much the same shape and size as those of _Acrocephalus
stentoreus_. They have a dead-white ground, thickly speckled and
spotted with blackish and purplish brown, and have but a slight gloss;
the speckling, everywhere thick, is generally densest at the large
end, and there chiefly do spots, as big as an ordinary pin's head,
occur. At the large end, besides these specklings, there is a cloudy,
dull, irregular cap, or else isolated patches, of very pale inky
purple, which more or less obscure the ground-colour. In the peculiar
speckly character of the markings these eggs recall doubtless some
specimens of the eggs of the different Bulbuls, but their natural
affinities seem to be with those of the _Acrocephalinae_.
The eggs vary from 0·8 to 0·97 in length, and from 0·61 to 0·69 in
breadth; but the average of twelve eggs is 0·85 by 0·64.