Phyllopneuste rama (_Sykes), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 189.
Iduna caligata, _Licht., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 553.
I have never myself obtained the nest and eggs of Sykes's
Tree-Warbler, _P. rama, apud Jerd._[A] On the 1st April, at Etawah, my
friend Mr. Brooks shot a male of this species off a nest; and I saw
the bird, nest, and eggs within an hour, and visited the spot later.
The nest was placed in a low thorny bush, about a foot from the
ground, on the side of a sloping bank in one of the large dry ravines
that in the Etawah District fringe the River Junina for a breadth of
from a mile to four miles. The nest was nearly egg-shaped, with a
circular entrance near the top. It was loosely woven with coarse
and fine grass, and a little of the fibre of the "sun" (_Crotalaria
juncea_), and very neatly felted on the whole interior surface of
the lower two thirds with a compact coating of the down of
flowering-grasses and little bits of spider's web. It was about 5
inches in its longest and 3½ inches in its shortest diameter. It
contained three fresh eggs, which were white, very thickly speckled
with brownish pink, in places confluent and having a decided tendency
to form a zone near the large end. Three or four days later we shot
the female at the same spot.
[Footnote A: I reproduce the note on this bird as it appeared in the
'Rough Draft,' but I think some mistake has been made, as Mr. Hume
himself suggests. Full reliance, however, may be placed on Mr. Doig's
note, which is a most interesting contribution.--ED]
A similar nest and two eggs, taken in Jhansi on the 12th August, were
sent me with one of the parent birds by Mr. F.R. Blewitt, and, again,
another nest with four eggs was sent me from Hoshungabad.
There ought to be no doubt about these nests and eggs, the more so
that I have several specimens of the bird from various parts of the
North-Western Provinces and Central Provinces killed in August and
September, but somehow I do not feel quite certain that we have not
made some mistake. Beyond doubt the great mass of this species migrate
and breed further north. I have never obtained specimens in June
or July; and if these nests really, as the evidence seems to show,
belonged to the birds that were shot on or near them, these latter
must have bred in India before or after their migration, as well as in
Northern Asia.
Though one may make minute differences, I do not think either of the
three nests or sets of eggs could be certainly separated from those of
_Franklinia buchanani_, which might well have eggs about both in April
and August; and I am not prepared to say that in each of these three
cases _Hypolais rama_, which frequents precisely the same kind of
bushes that _F. buchanani_ breeds in, may not accidentally have been
shot in the immediate proximity to a nest of the latter, the owner of
which had crept noiselessly away, as these birds so often do.
Dr. Jerdon says:--"I have obtained the nest and eggs of this
species on one occasion only at Jaulnah in the Dekhan; the nest was
cup-shaped, made of roots and grass, and contained four pure white
eggs."
I do not attach undue weight to this, for Dr. Jerdon did not care
about eggs, and was rather careless about them; but still his
statement has to be noted, and the whole matter requires careful
investigation.
Mr. Doig found this species breeding on the Eastern Narra in Sind. He
writes:--"I first obtained eggs of this bird in March 1879. The first
nest was found by one of my men, who afterwards showed me a bird close
to the place he got the eggs, which he said was either the bird to
which the nest and eggs belonged or one of the same kind. This I shot
and sent to Mr. Hume with one of the eggs to identify. Some time after
I again came across a lot of these birds breeding, and this time lay
in wait myself for the bird to come to the nest and eggs, and when it
did I shot it. This I also sent to Mr. Hume to identify. Some time
after I beard from Mr. Hume, who said that there must be some mistake,
as the birds sent belonged to two different species, viz. _Sylvia
affinis_ and _Hypolais rama_, and were both, he believed, only
cold-weather visitants. This year I again 'went for' these birds and
again sent specimens of birds and eggs to Mr. Hume, who informed me
that the birds now sent were _H. rama_, and that the eggs must belong
to this species soon after this Mr. Brooks saw the eggs with Mr. Hume
and identified them as being those _H. rama_ and identical with eggs
he saw at home collected by, I think, Mr. Seebohm of this species
in Siberia. Only fancy a bird breeding on the Narra of all places,
especially in May, June, and July, in preference to Siberia! Locally
they are very numerous, as I collected upwards of 90 to 100 eggs in
one field about eight acres in size. They build in stunted tamarisk
bushes, or rather in bushes of this kind which originally were cut
down to admit of cultivation being carried on, and which afterwards
had again sprouted. These bushes are very dense, and in their centre
is situated the nest, composed of sedge, with a lining of fine grass,
mixed sometimes with a little soft grass-reed. The eggs are, as a
rule, four in number, of a dull white ground-colour with brown spots,
the large end having as a rule a ring round it of most delicate, fine,
hair-like brown lines, something similar to the tracing to be seen on
the eggs of _Drymoeca inornata_. The egg in size is also similar to
those of that species."
The eggs of this species vary from broad to moderately elongated
ovals, but they are almost always somewhat pointed towards the small
end; the shell is fine but as a rule glossless; here and there,
however, an egg exhibits a faint gloss. The ground-colour is whitish,
never pure white, with an excessively faint greenish, greyish, creamy,
or pinky tinge. The markings are very variable in amount and extent,
but they are always black or nearly so and pale inky grey; perhaps
typically the markings consist of a zone of black hair-lines twisted
and entangled together, in which irregular shaped spots and small
blotches of the same colour appear to have been caught, which zone is
underlaid and more or less surrounded by clouds, streaks, and spots of
pale inky grey. This zone is typically about the large end, but in one
or two eggs is near the middle of the egg and in one or two is about
the small end. Outside this zone a few small specks and spots, and
rarely one or two tiny blotches, of both black and grey are thinly
scattered; occasionally, however, the hair-lines so characteristic of
this egg are almost entirely wanting, there is no apparent zone, and
the markings, spots, and specks are thinly and irregularly distributed
about the entire surface; here and there the whole of the dark
markings on the egg are entirely confined to the zone, elsewhere
only pale lilac specks are visible. Occasionally together with
a well-defined zone numerous specks, spots, and a few hair-line
scratches of black are intermingled with faint purplish-grey spots,
and pretty thinly scattered everywhere.
The eggs vary from 0·53 to 0·68 in length and from 0·46 to 0·51 in
breadth; but the average of a very large number is 0·61 by 0·49.
402. Sylvia affinis (Blyth). _The Indian Lesser White-throated
Warbler_.
Sylvia curruca (_Gm.), apud Jerd. B.I._ ii, p. 209.
Sterparola curruca (_Lath.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 583.
Of the nidification of the Lesser Whitethroat within our limits, I
only know that it was found in May, breeding abundantly in Cashmere
in the lower hills, by Mr. Brooks. He did not notice it comparatively
high up; for instance at Goolmerg, which, though not above 9000 feet
high, is at the base of a snowy range, he did not see it at all.
It builds a loose, rather shallow, cup-shaped nest, composed chiefly
of grass, coarser on the exterior and finer interiorly, which it
places in low bushes and thickets at no great elevation from the
ground. The nest is more or less lined with fine grass and roots.
It lays four or sometimes five eggs.
Mr. Brooks writes:--"I found this Whitethroat tolerably numerous in
Cashmere, where it appears generally distributed, occurring at from
5500 to 6500 feet elevation or thereabouts, It frequents places where
there is abundance of brushwood or underwood, especially along the
banks of rivers or near them.
"I found several nests, and they were all placed in small bushes, and
from 4 to 6 feet above the ground. One was in a bush on a small island
in the Kangan River, which runs into the Sind River; and this nest
I well remember was just so high that I could not look into it as I
stood. The nests precisely resembled in size and structure those of
_C. garrula_ which I have seen at home, being formed of grasses,
roots, and fine fibres, and I think scantily lined with a few black
horsehairs; but I forget this now. They were slight, thinly formed
nests, very neat but strong, and had bits of spider's web stuck about
the outside here and there. This appears to be the decoration this
bird and _C. garrula_ are partial to. They were not added, I think,
for the purpose of rendering the nest inconspicuous, for there were
just enough to give the nest a spotted appearance.
"The song of this species strongly resembles that of its congener, and
is full, loud, and sweet. I found the nests by the song of the male,
for he generally sings near the nest. The eggs don't differ from those
of _C. garrula_ in my collection."
Major Wardlaw Ramsay says, writing of Afghanistan:--"This Warbler was
very common and was breeding by the 27th May. All the nests found were
shallow cups, composed entirely of dried grass, and situated in small
bushes, frequently juniper, about 2½ feet from the ground. The eggs
vary much both in size and colour--some being long ovals, nearly pure
white, spotted with pale brown towards the larger end, and others of
a much rounder form and a pale greenish white, thickly spotted in a
broad zone near the thicker end and smeared with very pale brown,
or else spotted and smeared with olive-brown over the whole of the
thicker end."
The eggs are somewhat broad ovals, typically a good deal pointed
towards the lesser end. They vary, however, much both in size and
shape: some are short and broad, decidedly pointed at the small end;
others are more elongated, and some are almost regular ellipsoids. The
eggs have little or no gloss; the ground-colour is white, with a more
or less perceptible though very faint greenish tinge. Typically they
are very Shrike-like in their markings, the majority of these being
gathered together in a more or less dense zone near the large end.
The markings consist of small spots, blotches, and specks of pale
yellowish brown, more or less intermingled with spots and specks of
dull inky purple or grey; in many eggs there are very few markings,
and these are mere spots except in the zone, while in others
full-sized markings are scattered, though thinly, more or less over
the whole surface of the egg. In some the zone is confluent and
blurred; in others composed of small sharply defined specks and spots.
Here and there a pretty large yellowish-brown cloud may be met with
partially or entirely bounded by a narrow hair-like black line. Tiny
black specks now and then occur, and little zigzag lines that might
have been borrowed from a Bunting's egg; but these are not met with in
probably more than one out of ten eggs.
In length the eggs vary from 0·6 to 0·75, and in breadth from 0·48 to
0·55; but the average of sixteen eggs is 0·66 by 0·5.