Lanius hardwickii (_Vigors), Jerd. B. Ind._ i, p. 405.
Lanius vittatus, _Dum., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 260.
The Bay-backed Shrike breeds throughout the plains of India and in the
Sub-Himalayan Ranges up to an elevation of fully 4000 feet.
The laying-season lasts from April to September, but the great
majority of eggs are found during the latter half of June and July; in
fact, according to my experience, the great body of the birds do not
lay until the rains set in.
The nests are placed indifferently on all kinds of trees (I have notes
of finding them on mango, plum, orange, tamarind, toon, &c.), never at
any great elevation from the ground, and usually in _small_ trees, be
the kind chosen what it may. Sometimes a high hedgerow, such as our
great Customs hedge, is chosen, and occasionally a solitary caper or
stunted acacia-bush.
The nests (almost invariably fixed in forks of slender boughs) are
neat, compactly and solidly built cups, the cavities being deep and
rather more than hemispherical, from 2·25 to fully 3·5 inches in
diameter, and from 1·5 to 2 inches in depth. The nest-walls vary from
0·5 to 1·25 inch in thickness. The composition of the nest is various.
The following are brief descriptions which I have noted from time to
time:--
"Compactly woven of grass-stems and a few fine twigs, but with more
or less wool, rag, cotton, or feathers incorporated; there _is no
lining_.
"The nest was rather massive, externally composed of wool, rags,
cotton, thread, and feathers, and a little grass; the cavity rather
neatly lined with fine grass.
"Composed almost entirely of cobweb, with a few soft feathers, wool,
string, rags, and a few pieces of very fine twigs compactly woven. The
interior was lined with fine straw and fibrous roots."
Elsewhere I have recorded the following note on the nidification of
this species:--
"This bird, or rather birds of this species, have been laying ever
since the middle of April, but nests were then few and far between,
and now in July they are common enough. The nest that we had just
found was precisely like twenty others that we had found during the
past two months. Rather deep, with a nearly hemispherical cavity; very
compactly and firmly woven of fine grass, rags, feathers, soft twine,
wool, and a few fine twigs, the whole entwined exteriorly with lots of
cobwebs; and the interior cavity about 1¾ inch deep by 2¼ in diameter,
neatly lined with very fine grass, one or two horsehairs, shreds of
string, and one or two soft feathers. The walls were a good inch in
thickness. The nest was placed in a fork of a thorny jujube or ber
tree (_Zizyphus jujuba_), near the centre of the tree, and some 15
feet from the ground. It contained four fresh eggs, feebly coloured
miniatures of the eggs of _L. lahtora_, which latter so closely
resemble those of _L. excubitor_ that if you mixed the eggs, you could
never, I think, certainly separate them again. The eggs exhibit the
zone so characteristic of those of all Shrikes. They have a dull pale
ground, not white, and yet it is difficult to say what colour it is
that tinges it; in these four eggs it is a yellowish stone-colour, but
in others it is greenish, and in some grey; near the middle, towards
the large end, there is a broad and conspicuous, but broken and
irregular zone of feeble, more or less confluent spots and small
blotches of pale yellowish brown and very pale washed-out purple.
There are a few faint specks and spots of the same colour here and
there about the rest of the egg. In some eggs previously obtained the
zone is quite in the middle, and in others close round the large end.
In some the colours of the markings are clear and bright, in others
they are as faint and feeble as one of our modern Manchester
warranted-fast-coloured muslins, after its third visit to a native
washerman. In size, too, the eggs vary a good deal.
"The little Shrike had a great mind to fight for his _penates_, and
twice made a vehement demonstration of attack; but his heart failed
him, and he retreated to a neighbouring mango branch, whence a few
minutes after we saw him making short dashes after his insect prey,
apparently oblivious of the domestic calamity that had so recently
befallen him."
Mr. F.R. Blewitt, then at Gurhi Hursroo, near Delhi, sent me some
years ago the following interesting note:--
"Breeds from March to at least the middle of August. It builds its
nest in low trees and high hedgerows, preferring the former.
"In shape the nest is circular, with a diameter, outside, of from 5½
to 6½ inches, and from 1·5 to 2 in thickness.
"For the exterior framework thorny twigs, old rags, hemp,
thread-pieces, and coarse grass are more or less used, and compactly
worked together. The egg-cavity is deep and cup-shaped, lined with
fine grass and khus; pieces of rag or cotton are sometimes worked up
with the former.
"Five to six is the regular number of eggs. In colour they are a light
greenish white, with blotches and spots generally of a light, but
sometimes of a darker, reddish brown. The spots and blotches vary much
in size, and they are mostly confined to the broad end of the eggs.
"I had frequently noticed on a tree in the garden an _old_ Shrike's
nest. It was in the beginning of May that a male bird suddenly made
his appearance and established himself in the garden, and morning and
evening without fail did he sit and alternately chatter and warble
away for hours. His perfect imitation of the notes of other birds was
remarkable.
"In the beginning of June his singing suddenly ceased, the secret of
which I soon discovered. He had secured a mate, and daily did I watch
for the nest, which I thought they would prepare. Late on the evening
of the 23rd June, happening to look up at the _old_ nest, to my
surprise I found it occupied by the female, the male the while sitting
on a branch near her. Next morning on searching the nest I found four
eggs. Whether this nest was prepared the year previous by these birds
or by another pair I cannot tell.
"That day, the day of the robbery, the female disappeared. The male
followed next day, but only to return after two or three days and
recommence with renewed energy his chattering and warbling. This
he continued daily till near the end of July, when, as before, he
suddenly ceased to sing. I then found that he had again secured a
mate, whether the old female or a new bride I am not certain; they
soon set about making a nest on a neighbouring tree, very cunningly,
as I thought, selected; and now the young birds reared are nearly
full-fledged. An old nest, evidently of last year's make, was brought
me the other day with five eggs, but the _lining_, as by the way was
done in the one in the garden, had been wholly removed and _new_ grass
and khus substituted."
Major C.T. Bingham writes:--"Breeds both at Allahabad and at Delhi in
May, June, and July. At the former place I never got the eggs, but
have seen some that were taken; but at Delhi I found numbers of their
nests in June and July, and one in May. It makes a much softer nest
than either of the two above-mentioned Shrikes. One nest I took on the
15th June was composed wholly of tow, but generally they have an outer
foundation of twigs, and are lined with tow, bits of cotton, human
hair, or rags. Some eggs are a yellow-white, with very faint marks,
others are miniatures of the eggs of _L. lahtora_.
"Five is the greatest number I have found in one nest."
Mr. W. Theobald makes the following note of this bird's breeding in
the neighbourhood of Pind Dadan Khan and Katas in the Salt Range:--
"Lays from the commencement of May to the middle of June. Eggs
three or four in number; shape varies from ovato-pyriform to blunt
ovato-pyriform, and measuring from 0·73 to 0·87 inch in length
and from 0·55 to 0·65[A] inch in breadth. Colour, same as _L.
erythronotus_, also creamy or yellowish white, spotted with darker.
Nest compact, in forks of thorny trees; outside fibrous stalks,
bound with silk or spider-web, and covered with lichens or cocoons,
imitating a weathered structure; inside lined with fine grass and
vegetable down."
[Footnote A: I think that there must be some error in these
dimensions, for mine are taken from forty-five specimens, the largest
and smallest, out of some hundreds of eggs.--A.O.H.]
Colonel C.H.T. Marshall, writing from Murree, says:--"These little
Shrikes breed in the hills, as well as the plains, up to 5000 feet
high."
Colonel Butler has the following notes on the breeding of this Shrike
in Sind:--
"Kurrachi, 7th May, 1877.--I found two nests on this date, one in the
fork of a babool tree, the other on the stump of a broken-off branch
of a tree between the stump and the trunk of the tree. The former
contained four incubated eggs, exact miniatures of many eggs I have
of _L. erythronotus_, the latter two small chicks.--May 12th, same
locality, a nest containing two fresh eggs, and another containing
two fully fledged young ones.--June 20th, same locality, one nest
containing three fresh eggs, another containing four young birds. Eggs
most typical are those which have a well-marked zone near the centre."
"Hydrabad, Sind, 19th June, 1878.--A nest on the outer bough of a
babool tree about ten feet from the ground, containing three fresh
eggs."
And he further notes:--"The Bay-backed Shrike breeds in the
neighbourhood of Deesa at the end of the hot weather. The nest is a
very firm and compactly built cup, usually placed in the fork of some
low thorny tree at heights varying from seven to ten feet from the
ground.
"June 15th, 1875. A nest containing 3 fresh eggs.
July 1st, 1876. " " 4 " "
July 15th, " " " 5 incubated eggs.
July 29th, " " " 4 young birds.
"These birds always retire from the more open parts of the country to
low thorny tree-jungle to breed."
Mr. R.M. Adam says:--"This species breeds about Sambhur in July. On
the 1st August I saw numbers of nests and fledglings in the Marot
jungle."
Messrs. Davidson and Wenden, writing of the Deccan, say:--"Abundant,
and breeds all over the Deccan."
And the former gentleman informs us that this species is also very
common in Western Khandeish, and that it breeds in the plains in June
and July, and in the Satpuras in March.
Mr. Benjamin Aitken writes:--"This is a very familiar bird, and builds
readily in some roadside tree, where men and carts are passing all day
long. I have the following notes of its nests:--
"1st-8th May, 1869. Nest and three eggs taken at Khandalla, above the
Bhore Ghât.
"12th May, 1871. Nest and four eggs at Poona.
"16th-18th May, 1871. Nest and four eggs at Khandalla. This nest was
in a corinda bush, placed about 1½ feet from the ground.
"13th May, 1873. A clutch of young birds left the nest this morning at
Poona.
"19th May, 1873. I found a nest of half-fledged young birds this day
at Poona. The tree was almost denuded of leaves, and the heat of the
sun being very intense, the parent bird was nevertheless sitting
close. Its eyes were closed, and it was gasping hard. One of the young
ones had crawled out from under the parent, and was sitting on the
edge of the nest, also gasping hard.
"I do not exactly gather from your notes in the 'Rough Draft' what
form the spots usually take. In my nest taken on the 12th May all
four eggs had the zone quite as distinct as the eggs of a Fan-tailed
Flycatcher. The seven eggs taken from two nests at Khandalla, on the
other hand, had not the least appearance of a zone, but were spotted,
after the manner of Sparrows' eggs. In both the latter cases I saw the
old bird fly off the nest and alight on a tree a few yards off.
"I remember one little Shrike of this species which used to come down
every day to pick up crumbs of bread and pieces of potatoe put out for
the Sparrows. (Being a true naturalist I love Sparrows.)
"My brother on one occasion saw one of these Shrikes trying to catch a
garden lizard--not a gecko.
"Of course you know that the young of this handsome and brightly
coloured Shrike have a plain and curiously marked plumage, reminding
one a little of the _pateela_ Partridge. I never saw this Shrike in
Bombay."
The eggs of this, the smallest of all our Indian Shrikes, differ in no
particular, so far as shape, colour, and markings go, from those of
its larger congeners; that is to say, for every egg of this species
an exactly similar one might be picked out from a large series of _L.
lahtora_ or _L. erythronotus_; but at the same time there is no doubt
that pale-creamy and pale-brownish stone-coloured grounds predominate
more amongst the eggs of this species than in those of the two
above-named. The markings are also, as a rule, more minute and less
well-defined; indeed, in the large series I possess there is not one
which exhibits the bold sharp blotches common in the eggs of _L.
lahtora_, and not uncommon in those of _L. erythronotus_.
In length they vary from 0·75 to 0·95 inch, and in breadth from 0·62
to 0·71 inch; but the average of forty-five eggs is 0·83 by 0·66 inch
nearly.