FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314  
315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323   324   325   326   327   328   329   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   337   338   339   >>   >|  
4 fresh eggs. Aug. 15, 1876. " " 2 fresh eggs. Sept. 3, 1876. " " 4 incubated eggs. "All of the above nests were exactly alike, being composed of fine dry grass without any lining, felted here and there exteriorly with small lumps of woolly vegetable down, and built between two leaves carefully sewn to the nest in the same way as the nests of _Orthotomus sutorius_. The eggs, three or four in number, are white, sparingly speckled with light reddish chestnut, with a cap more or less dense of the same markings at the large end. All of the eggs in the above-mentioned nests were of this type. I found the nests in a grass Beerh near Deesa, studded over with low ber bushes (_Zizyphus jujuba_), generally about 2 or 3 feet from the ground, and in similar situations to those selected by _Prinia socialis_, often amongst dry nullahs overgrown with low bushes and long grass." Mr. Vidal notes in his list of the Birds of the South Konkan:--"Common in mangrove-swamps, reeds, hedgerows, thickets, and bush-jungle throughout the district. Breeds during the rainy months." Mr. Oates writes from Pegu:--"Nest with three fresh eggs on the 19th August; no details appear necessary except the colour of the eggs, since this bird appears to lay two kinds of eggs. My eggs are very glossy, of a light blue speckled with minute dots of reddish brown, more thickly so at the large end than elsewhere." The nests sent by Mr. Blewitt are regular Tailor-birds' nests, composed chiefly of very fine grass, about the thickness of fine human hair, with no special lining, carefully sewn with cobwebs, silk from cocoons, or wool, into one or two leaves, which often completely envelop it, so as to leave no portion of the true nest visible. The eggs belong to at least two very distinct types. Both are typically rather slender ovals, a good deal compressed towards one end; but in both somewhat broader and more or less pyriform varieties occur. In both the shell is exquisitely fine and glossy; in some specimens it is excessively glossy. In both the ground-colour is a very delicate pale greenish blue, _occasionally_ so pale that the ground is all but white--in one type entirely unspeckled and unspotted, in the other finely and thickly speckled everywhere, and towards the large end more or less spotted, with brownish or purplish red. The markings are densest towards the large end, where they either actually form, or exhibit
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314  
315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323   324   325   326   327   328   329   330   331   332   333   334   335   336   337   338   339   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

glossy

 

ground

 

speckled

 

reddish

 

composed

 

bushes

 

markings

 

lining

 
leaves
 
carefully

colour

 

thickly

 
visible
 

belong

 

cocoons

 

portion

 

envelop

 
completely
 

chiefly

 
exhibit

minute

 
Blewitt
 

special

 

cobwebs

 

thickness

 

regular

 

Tailor

 

compressed

 

excessively

 

purplish


delicate
 

greenish

 
specimens
 

densest

 

exquisitely

 

brownish

 

spotted

 

unspeckled

 

unspotted

 

occasionally


slender

 

typically

 

finely

 

varieties

 

pyriform

 

broader

 
distinct
 

mangrove

 

mentioned

 

chestnut