Family LANIIDAE
Subfamily LANIINAE.
469. Lanius lahtora(Sykes). The Indian Grey Shrike.
Lamus lahtora (Sykes), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 400.
Collyrio lahtora, Sykes, Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 256.
The Indian Grey Shrike lays from January to August, and occasionally up to October, but the majority of my eggs have been obtained during March or April.
It builds, generally, a very compact and heavy, deep, cup-shaped nest, which it places at heights of from 4 to 10 or 12 feet from the ground in a fork, towards the centre of some densely growing thorny bush or moderate-sized tree, the various carounders, capers, plums, and acacias being those most commonly selected.
As a rule it builds a new nest every year, but it not unfrequently only repairs one that has served it in the previous season, and even at times takes possession of those of other species.
The nest is composed of very various materials, so much so that it is difficult to generalize in regard to them. I have found them built entirely of grass-roots, with much sheep's wool, lined with hair and feathers, or solidly woven of silky vegetable fibre, mostly that of the putsun (Hibiscus cannabinus), in which were incorporated little pieces of rag and strips of the bark of the wild plum (Zizyphus jujuba); but I think that most commonly thorny twigs, coarse grass, and grass-roots form the body of the nest, while the cavity is lined with feathers, hair, soft grass, and the like.
Generally the nests are very compact and solid, 6 or 7 inches in diameter, and the egg-cavity 3 to 4 in diameter, and 2 to 2½ in depth, but I have come across very loosely built and straggling ones.
They have at times two broods in the year (but I do not think that this is always the case), and lay from three to six eggs, four or five being the usual number.