[Footnote B: The two birds are now considered distinct by all ornithologists.—ED.]
He adds:—"Since writing the above, which appeared in 'The Ibis,' I have discovered that this species breeds in September and October, as well as in February and March, so some of them probably have two broods in the year. I took a nest on the 9th October at Futtegurh, which contained two callow young and one (fresh) egg, which I send you, and which is exactly similar to all the others I have taken from time to time."
The egg sent me by Mr. Anderson is a very broad oval in shape, a good deal compressed however, and pointed towards the small end. The shell is very fine and has a decided gloss. In colouring the egg is exactly like those of some of the Blackbirds—a pale green ground, profusely freckled and streaked with a bright, only slightly brownish, red; the markings are densest round the large end, where they form a broad, nearly confluent, well-marked, but imperfect and irregular, zone. It measures 0·55 by 0·41.
Colonel C.H.T. Marshall says:—"The Streaked Wren-Warbler breeds in great numbers near Delhi in March; Mr. C.T. Bingham has found several of them in the clumps of surpat grass that had been cut within three feet of the ground on the alluvial land of the Jumna. It was when out with him in the end of March 1876 that I first saw the nest of this species. The locality of the nest is exactly that described by Mr. Anderson; it is oval in shape, with a large side entrance near the top; it is built of fine grass and seed-down, no cobweb being employed in the structure; it is loosely made, and there are always a few feathers in the egg-cavity. The whereabouts is generally pointed out by the cock bird, who, seated on the top of the highest blade of grass he can find near where his hen is sitting, pours out with untiring energy his feeble monotonous song, little knowing that by so doing he has betrayed the spot where he has fixed his nest to the marauder. The eggs, of which I have seen about fifteen or twenty, answer the description given in 'Stray Feathers' exactly."
Major C.T. Bingham tells us:—"Between the 12th and 31st March this year I found ten nests of this bird, which is very common in the grass-covered land of the Jumna. These nests were all alike, of fine dry grass mixed with the down of the surpat, which also thickly lined the inside. In shape the nests are blunt ovals, with a tiny hole for entrance a little above the centre. Seven out of the ten nests contained four eggs each, the rest three each. The eggs in colour are a pale yellowish white with a tinge of green, thickly speckled with dashes rather than spots of rusty red, tending in some to form a cap, in others a zone round the large end. The average of twenty eggs measured is 0·53 by 0·44 inch. The nests were all, with one exception, supported by stems of the grass being worked into the sides. The one exception was a nest I found in the fork of a tamarisk bush. It is not a difficult nest to find, for when you are in the vicinity of one, one of the birds will flit about the stems of the surrounding clumps of grass and above you freely, opening its tiny mouth absurdly wide, but giving forth the feeblest of feeble sounds."
Writing on the Avifauna of Mt. Abu and N. Guzerat, Colonel E.A. Butler says:—"I found a nest in a tussock of coarse grass in the sandy bed of a river, amongst a number of tamarisk-bushes, on the 8th July, 1875, in the neighbourhood of Deesa. It was composed of fine dry fibrous roots and grass-stems exteriorly, and lined with silky vegetable down. It was a long bottled-shaped structure with a small entrance on one side. The nest, eggs, situation, locality, &c. all agree so exactly with the descriptions quoted by Dr. Jerdon and with Mr. Anderson's note in 'Nests and Eggs,' Rough Draft, that I should have found it difficult to avoid copying these two gentlemen in describing my own nest.
"The nest contained three hard-set eggs and one young one just hatched."
Referring to its occurrence in the Eastern Narra District, Mr. Doig tells us:—"This little Warbler is very common. I took the first nest in March and again in May; they build in stunted tamarisk-bushes; the nest is circular dome-shaped, with the entrance on one side the top, the inside being very beautifully and softly lined with the pappus of grass-seeds. Four is the usual number of eggs in one nest."
The Blackbird type of egg above described is by no means the commonest one; the great mass of the eggs have the ground greyish, greenish, or pinkish white, and they are very thickly and finely freckled and speckled all over, but most densely about the large end, with a slightly brownish, rarely a slightly purplish grey. Occasionally when the markings are very dense in a cap at the large end there is a distinct purplish-grey tinge there, and on the rest of the surface of the egg the markings are somewhat less thickly set, leaving small portions of the ground-colour clearly visible. Typically the eggs are moderately broad ovals, a little compressed towards the small end, and though none are very glossy, the great majority have a fair amount of gloss.
463. Prinia flaviventris (Deless.). The Yellow-bellied Wren-Warbler.