468. Prinia blanfordi (Walden). The Burmese Wren-Warbler.
Drymoeca blanfordi, Wald., Hume, cat. no. 543 ter.
Mr. Oates, who found this bird very common in Pegu, writes:—"The
Burmese Wren-Warbler is perhaps the commonest bird of the Pegu plains.
From Myitkyo on the Sittang, and possibly from further north, down to
Rangoon, it is to be found in all the low tracts covered with grass.
"Where it occurs it is a constant resident and breeds from May to
August. I have found the nest in the middle of May, but it is not till
July that the bulk of the birds lay.
"The nest is never more than 4 feet from the ground, and is attached either to two or more stalks of elephant-grass or to the stem of a low weed, or to the blades of certain tender grasses which grow in thick tufts. There is little or no attempt at concealment. The materials forming the nest are entirely fine grasses, of equal coarseness or fineness throughout, gathered green, and so beautifully woven together that it is almost impossible to destroy a nest by tearing it asunder, although it may be looked through. In shape it is somewhat of a cylinder, with a tendency to swell out at the middle. Its length, or rather height (for its longer axis, being invariably parallel to the stalks to which the nest is attached, is generally upright), is from 6 to 8 inches, and its extreme width 4. The entrance is placed at the top of the nest, the sides of which are produced an inch or two above the lower edge of the entrance. The thickness of the walls is very small, seldom reaching half, and generally being only a quarter, of an inch. Occasionally the nest is almost globular, but the back of the entrance is in every case produced upwards some inches. There is no lining at all.
"The eggs never exceed four, and frequently are only three, in number, and the female does not commence sitting till the full number is laid. She deserts the nest on the slightest provocation; and if a nest with only one or two eggs is found, and the fingers inserted, it is useless to leave the eggs in hopes of getting more. She will lay no more. I have tested this in at least ten cases."
Major C.T. Bingham tells us:—"About Kaukarit, on the Houndraw river in Tenasserim, I found this species, in June 1878, very common. They were then breeding, and I found several nests, all, however, unfinished; these were, in material and make, very like the nests of P. inornata which I had taken years ago in India."
The eggs of this species recall in many respects those of P. inornata, but the ground-colour is much more variable, and the markings are more blotchy and less intricate in shape. They are pretty regular ovals, and while some are very glossy others exhibit but little of this. The ground-colour is perhaps typically pale greenish blue, but in a great many specimens this is more or less obliterated by a reddish or pinkish tinge, as if the colour of the markings had run; in some the ground is a sort of reddish olive, in some pinky white. The markings are large blotches and spots, often forming zones or caps about the larger end, where they seem almost always to be most conspicuous, as they vary in colour from an intense burnt-sienna which is almost black, through a dingy maroon, and again to a dull, somewhat pale reddish brown; here and there individual eggs exhibit a hair-line or two, or a hieroglyphic-like mark, but these are the exceptions.
The eggs vary in length from 0·53 to 0·64 inch, and in breadth from 0·42 to 0·45; but the average of fourteen eggs is 0·58 by 0·44.
Very constantly smears or clouds of a paler shade than the blotches cover large portions of the surface between these. Occasionally all the markings are smeared and ill-defined, and in some eggs they are almost entirely wanting, and nothing but a scratch or two about the large end is to be seen.