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50. Conostoma aemodium, Hodgs. Red-billed Crow-Tit
Conostoma aemodium. (Hodgson), Jerdon B. Ind. ii, p. 10; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 381.
A nest of the Red-billed Crow-Tit was sent me from Native Sikkim, where it was found at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, in a cluster of the small
Ringal bamboo. It contained three eggs, two of which were broken in blowing them.
The nest is a very regular and perfect hemisphere, both externally and internally. It is very compactly made, externally of coarse grass and strips
of bamboo-leaves, and internally very thickly lined with stiff but very fine grass-stems, about the thickness of an ordinary pin, very carefully curved to
the shape of the nest. The coarser exterior grass appears to have been used when dry; but the fine grass, with which the interior is so densely lined, is
still green. It is the most perfectly hemispherical nest I ever saw. Exteriorly it is exactly 6 inches in diameter and 3 in height; internally the
cavity measures 4.5 in diameter and 2·25 in depth.
The egg is a regular moderately elongated oval, slightly compressed towards the smaller end. The shell is fine and thin, and has only a faint gloss. The
ground-colour is a dull white, and it is sparsely blotched, streaked, and smudged with pale yellowish brown, besides which, about the large end, there
are a number of small pale inky purple spots and clouds, looking as if they were beneath the surface of the shell.
The single egg preserved measures 1·11 by 0·8.
A nest sent me by Mr. Mandelli was found, he says, in May, in Native Sikkim, in a cluster of Ringal (hill-bamboo) at an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet.
It is a large, rather broad and shallow cup, the great bulk of the nest composed of extremely fine hair-like grass-stems, obviously used when green,
and coated thinly exteriorly with coarse blades of grass, giving the outside a ragged and untidy appearance. The greatest external diameter is 5.5, the
height 3·2, but the cavity is 4·5 in diameter and 2.2 in depth, so that, though owing to the fine material used throughout except in the outer coating
the nest is extremely firm and compact, it is not at all a massive-looking one.
60. Scaeorhynchus ruficeps (Bl.). Larger Red-headed Crow-Tit
Paradoxornis ruficeps, (Blyth), Jerdon B. Ind. ii, p. 5.
Mr. Gammie writes from Sikkim: "In May, at 2000 feet elevation, I took a nest of this bird, which appears to have been rarely, if ever, taken by any
European, and is not described in your Rough Draft of 'Nests and Eggs.' It was seated among, and fastened to, the spray of a bamboo near its top, and is
a deep, compactly built cap, measuring externally 3·5 inches wide and the same in depth; internally 2·7 wide by 1·9 deep. The material used is
particularly clean and new-looking, and has none of the secondhand appearance of much of the building-stuffs of many birds. The outer layer is of strips
torn off large grass-stalks and a very few cobwebs; the lining, of fine fibrous strips, or rather threads, of bamboo-stems. There were three eggs,
which were ready for hatching-off. They averaged 0·83 in. by 0·63 in. I send you the nest and two of the eggs.
"Both Jerdon and Tickell say they found this bird feeding on grain and other seeds, but those I examined had all confined their diet to different sorts of
insects, such as would be found about the flowers of bamboo, buckwheat, etc. Probably they do eat a few seeds occasionally, but their principal food is
certainly insects. Very usually, in winter especially, they feed in company with Gampsorhynchus rufulus. Rather curious that the two Red-heads
should affect each other's society."
The eggs are broad ovals, rather cylindrical, very blunt at both ends. The shell fine, with a slight gloss. The ground is white, and it is rather thinly
and irregularly spotted, blotched, and smeared in patches with a dingy yellowish brown, chiefly about the larger end, to which also are nearly
confined the secondary markings, which are pale greyish lilac or purplish grey.
61. Scaeorhynchus gularis (Horsf.). Hoary-headed Crow-Tit
Paradoxornis gularis, (Horsf.), Jerdon B. Ind. ii, p, 5.
A nest sent me by Mr. Mandelli as belonging to this species was found, he tells me, at an elevation of 8000 feet in Native Sikkim on the 17th May. It
was placed in a fork amongst the branches of a medium-sized tree at a height of about 30 feet from the ground. The nest is a very massive cup, composed of
soft grass-blades, none of them much exceeding ·1 inch in width, wound round and round together very closely and compactly, and then tied over exteriorly
everywhere, but not thickly, with just enough wool and wild silk to keep the nest perfectly strong and firm. Inside, the nest is lined with extremely fine
grass-stems; the nest is barely 4 inches in diameter exteriorly and 2·5 in height; the egg-cavity is 2·4 in diameter and 1·2 in depth.
Mr. Mandelli sends me an egg which he considers to belong to this species, found near Darjeeling on the 7th May. It is a broad oval, very slightly
compressed at one end; the shell dull and glossless; the ground a dead white, profusely streaked and smudged pretty thickly all over with pale yellowish
brown; the whole bigger end of the egg clouded with dull inky purple and two or three hair-lines of burnt sienna in different parts of the egg. The egg
measures 0·8 by 0·61.
Two eggs of this species, procured in Sikkim on the 17th May, are very regular ovals, scarcely at all pointed towards the lesser end. The
ground-colour is creamy white, and the markings consist of large indistinct blotches of pale yellow; round the large end is an almost confluent zone or
cap of purplish grey, darker in one egg; they have no gloss, and both measure 0·82 by 0·61.
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