Artamus leucorhynchus (Gm.), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 287 bis.
The White-rumped Swallow-Shrike breeds, we know, in the Andamans and Great Cocos, and that is nearly all we do know. Mr. Davison says:—"On the 2nd of May I saw a bird of this species fly into a hollow at the top of a rotten mangrove stump about 20 feet high. The next day I went, but did not like to climb the stump, as it appeared unsafe, so I determined to cut it down, and after giving about six strokes that made the stump shake from end to end, the bird flew out. I made sure that as the bird sat so close the nest must contain eggs, so I ceased cutting and managed to get a very light native, who voluntered to climb it; but on his reaching the top, he found, to my astonishment, that the nest, although apparently finished, was empty. The nest was built entirely of grass, somewhat coarse on the exterior, finer on the inside; it was a shallow saucer-shaped structure, and was placed in a hollow at the top of the stump."
Family ORIOLIDAE.
518. Oriolus kundoo, Sykes. The Indian Oriole.
Oriolus kundoo, Sykes, Jerd. B. Ind. ii. p. 107; Hume, Rough Draft
N. & E. no. 470.
The Indian Oriole breeds from May to August (the great majority, however, laying in June and July) almost throughout the plains country of India and in the lower ranges of the Himalayas to an elevation of 4000 feet. In Southern and Eastern Bengal it only, so far as I know, occurs as a straggler during the cold season, and I have no information of its breeding there. It does not apparently ascend the Nilghiris, and throughout the southern portion of the peninsula it breeds very sparingly, if at all; indeed, it is just at the commencement of the breeding-season, when the mangoes are ripening, that Upper India is suddenly visited by vast numbers of this species migrating from the south.
The nest is placed on some large tree, I do not think the bird has any special preference, and is a moderately deep purse or pocket, suspended between some slender fork towards the extremity of one of the higher boughs. From below it looks like a round ball of grass wedged into the fork, and the sitting bird is completely hidden within it; but when in the hand it proves to be a most beautifully woven purse, shallower or deeper as the case may be, hung from the fork of two twigs, made of fine grass and slender strips of some tenacious bark and bound round and round the twigs, and secured to them much as a prawn-net is to its wooden framework. Some nests contain no extraneous matters, but others have all kinds of odds and ends—scraps of newspaper or cloth, shavings, rags, snake-skins, thread, &c.—interwoven in the exterior. The interior is always neatly lined with fine grass-stems.
Very commonly the bird so selects the site for its nest that the leaves of the twigs it uses as a framework form more or less of a shady canopy overhead; in fact, as a rule, it is from very few points of view that even a passing bird of prey can catch sight of the female on her eggs. Possibly the brilliant plumage of the bird (which has endowed it amongst the natives with the name of Peeluk, or "The Yellow One") may have had something to do with the concealment it so generally affects.
The nests vary a good deal in size. I have seen one with an internal cavity 3½ inches in diameter and over 2½ deep. I have seen others scarcely over 2½ inches in diameter and not 2 in depth, which you could have put bodily, twigs and all, inside the former. As a rule, the purse is strong and compact, the material closely matted and firmly bound together; but I have seen very flimsy structures, through which it was quite possible to see the eggs.
Four is the greatest number of eggs I have ever found in one nest, but it is quite common to find only three well-incubated ones.