Tephrodornis pondiceriana (_Gm.), Jerd B. Ind._ i, p. 410; _Hume,
Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 265.
The Common Wood-Shrike lays during the latter half of March and April.
This at least is, I think, the normal season, but Mr. W. Blevutt found
a nest at Hansee on the 2nd of June containing two fresh eggs.
I have only taken one nest myself (though I have had many others
sent me), and that was on the 2nd of April at Chundowah in Jodpoor,
Rajpootana. The nest was in the fork of a ber tree (_Zizyphus
jujuba_), on a small horizontal bough, about 5 feet from the ground.
It was a broad shallow cup, somewhat oval interiorly, with the
materials very compactly and closely put together. The basal portion
and framework of the sides consisted of very fine stems of some
herbaceous plant about the thickness of an ordinary pin. It was lined
with a little wool and a quantity of silky fibre; exteriorly it was
bound round with a good deal of the same fibre and pretty thickly
felted with cobwebs. The egg-cavity measured 2·5 inches in diameter
one way and only 2 the other way, while in depth it was barely ·86.
The exterior diameter of the nest was about 4 inches and the height
nearly 2 inches. It contained three fresh eggs, of a slightly
greyish-white ground, very thickly spotted and speckled with yellowish
brown, dark umber-brown, and a pale washed-out inky-purple. In all,
the spots were thickest in a zone round the large end, where they
became more or less confluent. I have, however, a large series of
these nests, and taking them as a whole, although much more massive,
they remind one no little of those of _Rhipidura albifrontata_ and
_Terpsiphone paradisi_ and even _Aegithina tiphia_. They are broad
shallow cups, measuring internally 2¼ inches across and about 7/8 inch
in depth. They are placed in a horizontal fork of a branch, and are
composed of vegetable fibre and fine grass-roots, thickly coated
externally with cobwebs, by which also they are fixed on to branches,
and lined internally with silky vegetable down or fibre. Externally
their colour always approximates closely to the bark of the branch on
which they are placed; they are not thin, basket-like structures like
those of _Aegithina_ or _Rhipidura_, but are fully ½ inch thick at the
sides and probably ¾ inch thick at the bottom.
Colonel G.F.L. Marshall writes:--"The Common Wood-Shrike builds in
the Saharunpoor district in the latter half of March, the young being
hatched early in April. The bird is common; but owing to the small
size and bark-like colour of its nest, the latter is very difficult to
find. On the 8th April I fired at a specimen and missed it; it then
flew off and settled in a fork of another tree about 30 feet from the
ground. On looking carefully with an opera-glass, I found that it was
sitting on its nest. I drove it off and shot it. The nest was very
small and shallow, cup-shaped, and wedged in between two small boughs
at their junction, and not appearing either above or below. The
egg-receptacle was 2¼ inches in diameter. The nest was made of grass
and bits of bark, beautifully woven together and bound with cobwebs,
and exactly resembling the boughs between which it was placed, or, I
might say, wedged in. The eggs, four in number, were slightly set;
they were small for the bird, and of a rather round oval shape; the
colour was a creamy-yellow ground, thickly spotted and blotched with
the different shades of brown and sienna, the bulk of the spots
tending to form a zone near the thick end, as in the typical form,
of the eggs of the _Laniidae_ and a number of faint purple blotches
underlying the zone."
Major C.T. Bingham says:--"I have only found three nests of this bird,
and these at Delhi. At Allahabad it was not very common. It is a
difficult nest to find, being generally well hidden in the forks of
leafy trees. All three nests I got were of one type--shallow saucers,
made of vegetable fibre matted together into a soft felt-like
substance. In two of the nests I found three and in the third one egg.
These are thickly spotted and blotched with brown and a washed-out
purple, on a pale greyish-yellow ground. The average measurements of
the seven eggs are--length 0·77, breadth 0·61."