The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1

by Allan Octavian Hume

"August 8th.—At Bichpoori found a number of nests, and some of them of a strangely different type. One was inside a tiny hut on the line, about 3 feet above the head of the chaprassie's bed. It had no leaves about it, and was composed of thread, wool, and a few very fine grass-stems, and lined thinly with fine grass-stems and a little black horsehair. It was about two thirds of a sphere, the external diameter of which was about 3¼ inches, and the internal 2½ inches. The bird was on the nest, so that there could be no mistake, otherwise it would have been impossible to believe that it belonged to P. stewarti, of which we have taken so many sewn in leaves. A little further on another nest of the same species, built in the ragged eaves of a thatch, externally composed almost entirely of cotton-wool, with a little tow-fibre binding the structure together, internally as usual lined with very fine grass-roots with a few horsehairs. Another nest of the Prinia was in one respect even more remarkable. It was built in the usual situation in a low herbaceous plant, sewn to and suspended from two leaves, and two or three others worked into its sides. It was constructed almost entirely of fine grass-roots and fibres, with a few tiny tufts of cotton-wool, and the leaves as usual firmly tacked on with threads and cobweb fibres. It would seem that, after constructing the nest, but before laying, a large female spider took possession of the bottom of the nest, and shut herself in by constructing a diaphragm of web horizontally across the nest, thus occupying the whole of the cavity of the nest. The little bird accepted this change of circumstances, built the nest a little higher at the sides, and over the spider's web placed a false bottom of fine grass-roots, on which she laid her four eggs, and there she was sitting when the nest was taken, the spider, alive and apparently happy in the cell below, plainly visible through the interstices of the grass, with a huge sac of eggs which she was incubating. Her chamber is fully one half of the nest."

I may add that this latter nest, with the now dead spider, in situ, is still in our museum.

In number the eggs are sometimes four, sometimes five, and I have heard of six being found.

They rear usually two broods; if their eggs are taken they will lay three or four sets; sometimes they use the same nest twice; sometimes, directly the first brood is at all able to shift for themselves, the parents leave them in the old nest, and commence building a new one at no great distance.

The late Mr. A. Anderson remarked:—"Owing to the inclemency of the weather (August) the geranium-pots in the garden were placed in the verandah of the house I am at present living in, and, strange to say, a pair of these Warblers commenced building in the leaves of one of the plants immediately under my window.

"When the nest was about half-finished the birds' forsook it without apparently any reason, as they were never molested in any way. On examining the nest, however, the cause was evident, and afforded a remarkable instance of instinct on the part of the little architects. The leaves that had been pierced and sewn together had actually commenced to wither, and in the course of a few days later the whole structure came down bodily.

"This is the only Prinia to be found at Futtehgurh, and they are one of our most common garden-birds. Their beautiful brick-red eggs and neatly-sewn nests are too well known to require description.

"Four generally, and five frequently, is the number of eggs they lay. I have one record of six on the 17th August, 1873; in this case one egg was laid daily, the first having been laid on the 12th, and the sixth on the 17th."

Captain Hutton remarks:—"This is a true Tailor-bird in respect to the construction of the nest, which is composed of one leaf as a supporting base stitched to two others meeting it perpendicularly, the apices of all three being neatly sewn together with threads roughly spun from the cottony down of seeds. Between or within these leaves is placed the nest, very slightly and loosely constructed of fine roots, grass-stalks, and seed-down, the latter material being interwoven to hold the coarser fibres of the nest together. There is no finer lining within, and the edges of the exterior leaves are drawn together round the nest and held there partly by roughly-spun threads of down, and partly by the ends of the stiff fibres being thrust through them. The whole forms a very light and graceful fabric. Within this nest were four beautiful and highly polished eggs of a deep brick-red colour, darkest at the larger end, faint specks and blotches of a deeper colour being indistinctly discernible beneath the surface of the shell, which shines as if it had been varnished. The nest is not closed above, but is open and deeply cup-shaped. This was taken in the Dhoon on the 30th May."

Major C.T. Bingham says:—"Breeds at Allahabad in June, July, and August. At Delhi I have not yet found its nest. I once found in July three nests all attached together in a sort of triangle, but whether built by separate pairs of birds I cannot say. Only one nest contained eggs."