Dr. Jerdon says:—"I have obtained the nest and eggs of this species on one occasion only at Jaulnah in the Dekhan; the nest was cup-shaped, made of roots and grass, and contained four pure white eggs."
I do not attach undue weight to this, for Dr. Jerdon did not care about eggs, and was rather careless about them; but still his statement has to be noted, and the whole matter requires careful investigation.
Mr. Doig found this species breeding on the Eastern Narra in Sind. He writes:—"I first obtained eggs of this bird in March 1879. The first nest was found by one of my men, who afterwards showed me a bird close to the place he got the eggs, which he said was either the bird to which the nest and eggs belonged or one of the same kind. This I shot and sent to Mr. Hume with one of the eggs to identify. Some time after I again came across a lot of these birds breeding, and this time lay in wait myself for the bird to come to the nest and eggs, and when it did I shot it. This I also sent to Mr. Hume to identify. Some time after I beard from Mr. Hume, who said that there must be some mistake, as the birds sent belonged to two different species, viz. Sylvia affinis and Hypolais rama, and were both, he believed, only cold-weather visitants. This year I again 'went for' these birds and again sent specimens of birds and eggs to Mr. Hume, who informed me that the birds now sent were H. rama, and that the eggs must belong to this species soon after this Mr. Brooks saw the eggs with Mr. Hume and identified them as being those H. rama and identical with eggs he saw at home collected by, I think, Mr. Seebohm of this species in Siberia. Only fancy a bird breeding on the Narra of all places, especially in May, June, and July, in preference to Siberia! Locally they are very numerous, as I collected upwards of 90 to 100 eggs in one field about eight acres in size. They build in stunted tamarisk bushes, or rather in bushes of this kind which originally were cut down to admit of cultivation being carried on, and which afterwards had again sprouted. These bushes are very dense, and in their centre is situated the nest, composed of sedge, with a lining of fine grass, mixed sometimes with a little soft grass-reed. The eggs are, as a rule, four in number, of a dull white ground-colour with brown spots, the large end having as a rule a ring round it of most delicate, fine, hair-like brown lines, something similar to the tracing to be seen on the eggs of Drymoeca inornata. The egg in size is also similar to those of that species."
The eggs of this species vary from broad to moderately elongated ovals, but they are almost always somewhat pointed towards the small end; the shell is fine but as a rule glossless; here and there, however, an egg exhibits a faint gloss. The ground-colour is whitish, never pure white, with an excessively faint greenish, greyish, creamy, or pinky tinge. The markings are very variable in amount and extent, but they are always black or nearly so and pale inky grey; perhaps typically the markings consist of a zone of black hair-lines twisted and entangled together, in which irregular shaped spots and small blotches of the same colour appear to have been caught, which zone is underlaid and more or less surrounded by clouds, streaks, and spots of pale inky grey. This zone is typically about the large end, but in one or two eggs is near the middle of the egg and in one or two is about the small end. Outside this zone a few small specks and spots, and rarely one or two tiny blotches, of both black and grey are thinly scattered; occasionally, however, the hair-lines so characteristic of this egg are almost entirely wanting, there is no apparent zone, and the markings, spots, and specks are thinly and irregularly distributed about the entire surface; here and there the whole of the dark markings on the egg are entirely confined to the zone, elsewhere only pale lilac specks are visible. Occasionally together with a well-defined zone numerous specks, spots, and a few hair-line scratches of black are intermingled with faint purplish-grey spots, and pretty thinly scattered everywhere.
The eggs vary from 0·53 to 0·68 in length and from 0·46 to 0·51 in breadth; but the average of a very large number is 0·61 by 0·49.
402. Sylvia affinis (Blyth). The Indian Lesser White-throated Warbler.
Sylvia curruca (Gm.), apud Jerd. B.I. ii, p. 209.
Sterparola curruca (Lath.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 583.
Of the nidification of the Lesser Whitethroat within our limits, I only know that it was found in May, breeding abundantly in Cashmere in the lower hills, by Mr. Brooks. He did not notice it comparatively high up; for instance at Goolmerg, which, though not above 9000 feet high, is at the base of a snowy range, he did not see it at all.
It builds a loose, rather shallow, cup-shaped nest, composed chiefly of grass, coarser on the exterior and finer interiorly, which it places in low bushes and thickets at no great elevation from the ground. The nest is more or less lined with fine grass and roots.
It lays four or sometimes five eggs.