The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1

by Allan Octavian Hume

The Indian Ashy Drongo, a species that, with the really large series before me from all parts of India, I find it impossible to subdivide into two or more species, breeds alike in the plains, in well-watered and wooded districts, and in the Himalayas up to an elevation of 6000 to 7000 feet, and lays during the months of May and June.

They build generally in large trees, at a considerable height from the ground, placing their somewhat shallow cup-shaped nests in some slender fork towards the summit or exterior of the tree.

The nest is neatly and firmly built, of fine grass-stems, slender twigs, and grass-roots, closely interwoven, and externally bound together with cobwebs, in which, as in the body of the nest, lichens of several species are much intermingled. Exteriorly the nests are from 4 to 5 inches in diameter, and from 2 to 2½ in height. Interiorly they are lined with moss, roots, hairs, and fine grass; the cavity measuring from 3 to 3·5 inches in breadth, and from 1·1 to 1·4 inch in depth. The normal number of the eggs is four.

Mr. Brooks says:—"The nest is usually fixed on the upper surface of a thin branch about 15 to 20 feet from the ground, and at its junction with another branch, the nest being partly embedded in the fork of two horizontal branches. It is composed of grass, fibres, and roots, and lined with finer grasses and a few hairs. The nest is broader and much shallower than that of D. ater; outside it is covered with spiders' webs and small bits of lichen.

"The eggs are four in number, sometimes only three, and vary much in size, shape, and colour; size 1·0 by 0·7 inch: some are buff, blotched with light reddish brown and pale purple-grey; others are lighter buff, almost white in fact, spotted and marked more sparingly than the first described with the same two colours, but each of a darker tint; others are white, marked sparingly with spots and blotches of dark purple-brown and reddish brown, and intermixed with larger blotches of deep purple-grey, the markings principally forming a zone at the larger end. Others, again, are pale purplish white, spotted with dark and light purple-brown, and intermixed with spots and blotches of purple-grey. The shape of the egg varies as much as the colouring, some being of a fine oval form, while others are quite pyriform. Laying in Kumaon from the middle to end of May."

As I shall notice further on, I think that Mr. Brooks is mistaken about some of his eggs.

Captain Hutton remarks:—"This species, the only one that visits Mussoorie, arrives from the Doon about the middle of March, and retires again about September. It is abundant during the summer months, and breeds from the latter end of April till the middle of June, making a very neat nest, which is placed in the bifurcation of a horizontal branch of some tall tree, usually an oak tree; it is constructed of grey lichens gathered from the trees, and fine seed-stalks of grasses, firmly and neatly interwoven; with the latter it is also usually lined, although sometimes a black fibrous lichen is used; externally the materials are kept compactly together by being plastered over with spiders' webs. It is altogether a light and elegant nest. The shape is circular, somewhat shallow; internal diameter 3 inches. The eggs are three or four, generally the latter number, and so variable in colour and distribution of spots that until I had got several specimens and compared them narrowly, I was inclined to think we had more than one species of Dicrurus here. I am, however, now fully convinced that these variable eggs belong to the same species. Sometimes they are dull white with brick-red spots openly disposed in form of a rude ring at the larger end; at other times the spots are rufescent claret, with duller indistinct ones appearing through the shell; others are of a deep carneous hue, clouded and coarsely blotched with deep rufescent claret; while again some are faint carneous with large irregular blotches of rufous clay with duller ones beneath the shell."

Some of Captain Hutton's eggs which he sent me were clearly those of Hypsipetes psaroides (of which also be sent me specimens), and the fact is that in thick foliage where the Red-bill is not seen nothing is easier than to mistake this bird for D. longicaudatus. I have taken a great many of these nests, and I never found eggs other than of the two types to be below described.

Colonel G.F.L. Marshall writes:—"In Kumaon this species breeds from 4000 to 5000 feet above the sea; the eggs are laid in the last week of May. I have never seen a nest at Naini Tal itself (6000 to 7000 feet), but at Bheem Tal (4000 feet) I found numerous nests within three days, in the first week of June; all without exception had young. The next season I visited the place in the last week of May, and found the eggs just laid.

"The nests were of the usual Dicrurus type, wedged in a fork at heights varying from fifteen to fifty feet from the ground, but as far as my experience goes always in conspicuous places and generally on trees almost or quite bare of leaves. The nests are usually only to be obtained by sawing off the bough they are built on."