174 CEATEROPODID^i. 



282. Molpastes bengalensis (Blyth). The Bengal Bedr-vented 



Bulbul. 



Pycnonotus pygeeus (Hodgs,), Jerd. B. Ind. i\, p. 93. 



Molpastes pygmseus (Hodgs.), L.ume, Rough Draft N.fyE. no. 461. 



I have taken many nests of the Bengal B.ed-vented Bulbul in 

 many localities, and while the birds vary, getting less typical as 

 you go westwards, the nests are all pretty much the same, though 

 the eastern birds go in rather more for dead leaves than the western. 

 Sikhim birds are very typical, and I will therefore confine myself 

 to quoting a note I made there. 



Several nests taken at Darjeeling in June, at elevations of from 

 2000 to 4000 feet, each contained three or four, more or less 

 incubated, eggs. The nests were mostly very compact and rather 

 deep cups about 3| inches in diameter and 2 inches in height, very 

 firmly woven of moss and grass-roots, but with a certain quantity 

 of dry and dead leaves, and here and there a little cobweb worked 

 into the outer surface. Sometimes a little fine grass was used as a 

 lining ; hut generally there was no lining, only the roots that were 

 used in finishing off the interior of the nests were rather finer 

 than those employed elsewhere. The egg-cavity is very large for 

 the size of the nest, the sides, though very firm and compact, 

 being scarcely above half an inch in thickness. The nests differ 

 very much in appearance, owing to the fact that in some all the 

 roots used are black, in others pale brown. 



Mr. Grammie says : — " I took two or three nests of this species 

 in the latter half of May at Mongpho, in Sikhim, at elevations of 

 3500 feet or thereabouts. They contained three eggs each, hard- 

 set. The nests were in trees, at a moderate height, and rather 

 flimsy structures ; shallow cups, composed externally of fine twigs 

 and vegetable fibre, and generally some dead leaves intermingled, 

 especially towards their basal portions, and lined with the fine 

 hair-like stem portion of the flowering tops of grass. One nest 

 measured internally 2| inches in diameter by nearly 1J inch in 

 depth ; externally it was nearly 4 inches in diameter and 2 inches 

 in height. The eggs were of the usual type." 



Mr. J. E. Cripps, writing from Fureedpore, Eastern Bengal, 

 says : — " Excessively common and a permanent resident ; commits 

 great havoc in gardens amongst tomatoes and chillies, the red 

 colour of which seems to attract them. Builds its nest in very 

 exposed places and at all heights from two to thirty feet off the 

 ground, in bushes and trees. One nest I saw containing two 

 young ones, on the 28th June, was built on a small date-tree 

 which stood on the side of a road along which people were passing 

 all day, and within six feet of them. The nest was only five feet 

 from the ground, but the materials of which it was made and the 

 colour of the bird assimilated so perfectly with the bark of the 

 tree that detection was difficult. I have found the nests with 

 eggs from the 3rd of April to the end of June ; dead leaves and 

 cobwebs were incorporated with the twigs and grasses in all nests 



