Mr. Blanford, who saw the eggs, which I never did, describes them (and by analogy, I should infer more correctly) as "of an olive-brown colour, darker at the larger end, measuring 0·93 by 0·63 inch."
An egg of this species sent me by Dr. Fairbank, measuring 0·93 by 0·66, is a somewhat elongated oval, slightly pointed towards the small end. The shell is fine and fairly glossy; the ground-colour, so far as this is discernible, is greyish green, but it is so thickly clouded and mottled all over with a warm, brown, that but little of the ground-colour is any where traceable, and the general result when the egg is looked at from a short distance is that of a nearly uniform olive-brown.
Captain Horace Terry also found the nest of this bird on the Pulney Hills. He says:—"I met with it a few times in the big shola at Kodikanal, and got two nests, each with two fresh eggs; the first on the 7th June in a hole in a tree between 4 and 5 feet from the ground, a deep cup of green moss; the other, in a hole in the bank of a path running through the shola was of green moss and a few fine fern-roots. Inside 1·75 inch deep and 2·5 inches across; outside a shapeless mass of moss filling up the hole it was built in. The nest was very conspicuous to any one passing by."
194. Brachypteryx rufiventris (Blyth). The Rufous-bellied Short-wing.
Callene rufiventris, Blyth. Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 496: Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E. no. 339.
I have been favoured with nests of the Rufous-bellied Short-wing by Mr. Carter, who took them from holes or depressions of banks in the Nilghiris in April and May. They closely resemble nests of Niltava macrigoriae from Darjeeling. They are soft masses of green moss, some 4 or 5 inches in diameter externally, with more or less of a depression towards one side, lined with very fine dark moss-roots. This depression may average about 2½ inches across and ¾ inch in depth; but they vary a good deal. Mr. Carter says:—"I have found the nests of this species about Conoor in May, in holes of banks, on roads running through thick sholas (i.e. jungles not amounting to forests). The nests are of moss, shallow, lined with fine root-fibres, the cavity about 3-5 inches in diameter. They lay two eggs, pale olive, shading into a decided brownish red at the larger end. The old birds are very shy in returning to the nest when watched; indeed, they are always shy, hiding in the brushwood of jungles or amongst fallen timber, along which they almost creep."
Mr. Davison informs me that "this species breeds on the Nilghiris from about 5500 feet to about 7000 during April and May, building in holes of trees, crevices of rocks, &c., seldom at any great elevation above the ground. The nest is composed of moss, lined with moss and fern-roots. Two or three eggs are laid."
The few eggs I possess, which I owe to Messrs. Carter and Davison, and which were taken by them in the Nilghiris, have a pale olive-brown ground with, at the large end, an ill-defined mottled reddish-brown cap. In some specimens the mottling extends more or less over the whole egg, though always most dense about the larger end. Though much larger and of a more elongated shape, they not a little resemble some specimens of the eggs of Pratincola indica that I possess. In shape they are long ovals, recalling in that respect those of Myiophoneus temmincki; they have less gloss than the eggs of most of the Thrushes.
In length they vary from 0·97 to 1·02 inch, and in breadth from 0·65 to 0·69 inch.
197. Drymochares cruralis (Blyth). The White-browed Short-wing