It was placed on the branches of a medium-sized tree, at a height of only about 5 feet from the ground.
The nest was a compact, rather shallow saucer, 5·5 inches in diameter and about 2 inches in height externally. The cavity was about 3·5 in diameter and an inch in depth. The greater portion of the nest was composed of dead leaves bound together firmly by fine brown roots; inside the leaves was just a lining of rather coarser brown roots, and again an inner lining of black horsehair-like roots and fine steins of the maiden-hair fern.
The nest contained three fresh eggs. These eggs vary from broad to somewhat elongated ovals, are more or less pointed towards the small end, and exhibit a fine gloss.
The ground is a beautiful salmon-pink, and it is thinly spotted, blotched, and marked with irregular lines of deep maroon-red. Most of the markings in one egg are gathered into a very irregular straggling zone round the large end, and the other egg exhibits a tendency to form a similar zone. Besides these primary markings a few spots and clouds of dull purple, looking as if beneath the surface of the shell, are thinly scattered about the egg, chiefly in the neighbourhood of the zone.
These eggs vary from 0·9 to 1·0 in length, and from 0·7 to 0·72 in breadth.
Several nests of this species sent me by the late Mr. Mandelli and obtained by him in British and Native Sikhim during July and the early part of August are all precisely of the same type. They each contained two fresh eggs; they were all placed in the branches of small trees in the midst of dense brushwood or heavy jungle, at heights of from 4 to 10 feet from the ground. The nests are broad and saucer-like, nearly 5 inches in diameter, but not much above 2 in height externally; the cavities average about 3·25 in diameter and about 1 in depth. The body of the nest is composed of dead leaves, the sides are more or less felted round with rich brown fibrous, almost wool-like roots; inside the leaves fine twigs and stems of herbaceous plants, all of a uniform brown tint, are wound round and round, apparently to keep the leaves in their places interiorly, and then the cavity is lined with jet-black horsehair-like vegetable fibres. What these are I do not know, but they are precisely like horsehair to look at, only they are comparatively brittle. The contrast of colour between the jet-black lining and the rich brown of the lip of the saucer, which is constant in all the nests, is very striking.
The eggs of this species sent me by Mr. Mandelli, obtained by him in Sikhim at elevations of from 2000 to 4000 feet in July and the early part of August, possess a very distinctive character. They are broad ovals, much pointed towards the small end, and they are more glossy than the eggs of any other of this family with which I am acquainted. The ground-colour is pink. The markings consist of curious hair-line scratches, clouded blotches, and irregular spots—in some eggs all very hazy and ill-defined, in others more scratchy and sharp. The great majority of the markings seem to be gathered together into an irregular and imperfect zone round the large end. In colour the markings vary from a deep brownish maroon to a dull brickdust-red, sometimes they are slightly more purplish. In some eggs a few faint clouds or small spots of subsurface-looking dusky purple may be noticed mingled with the rest of the markings.
These eggs are totally unlike the eggs of Criniger ictericus. I have never had an opportunity of verifying the eggs myself, but as three different nests have now been taken, all containing precisely similar eggs, I believe there can be no doubt of their authenticity.
269. Hypsipetes psaroides, Vigors. The Himalayan Black Bulbul.
Hypsipetes psaroides (Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind ii, p. 77; Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E. no. 444.