PTCNONOTUS. 187 



299. Pycnonotus filllaysoni, Strickl. Finhyson's Stripe-throated 



Bulbul. 

 Ixus finlaysoni (Strickl.), Hume, Cat. no. 452 ter. 



Major C. T. Bingham says :— " On the 22nd May, 1877, while 

 wandering about collecting in the jungles below the Circuit-house 

 at Maulmain, I came across a neat, though thinly made, cup-shaped 

 nest in the fork of a lall sapling, some 12 feet above the ground. 

 Coming closer, I perceived it contained eggs, which were plainly 

 visible through the frail structure of the sides. On looking about 

 to find the owner, I saw a couple of Pycnonotus finlaysoni flitting 

 about uneasily in a tree close at hand ; so I hid myself a few yards 

 off, and was almost immediately rewarded by seeing one of them 

 (it turned out to be the female) fly down on to the nest, and seat 

 herself on the eggs. Approaching cautiously, I managed to shoot 

 her as she slipped off ; but, on taking down the nest, I found 1 had 

 fired too soon, as one of the eggs (there were but two) was smashed 

 by a pellet of shot. The nest was rather a deep cup, and, notwith- 

 standing its flimsy sides, strongly made of grass-roots, lined with very 

 fine black roots of fern. The one unbroken egg was rather roundish 

 in shape, of a dull whitish and claret colour, mixed and spotted and 

 clouded with deeper vinous red, chiefly at the larger end." 



Mr. J. Darling, Junior, found the nest of this Bulbul on more than 

 one occasion at Taroar in the Malay peninsula. He writes : — " I 

 shot this bird off a nest with two eggs on the 8th February ; the 

 nest was in a bush 5 feet from the ground ; the foundation was of 

 leaves and fine grass, lined with tine grass and a few cocoanut fibres. 

 The nest was 3 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep. The eggs 

 were too hard-set to blow. 



" On the 10th February I took another nest of Pycnonotus finlay- 

 soni at Taroar. The nest was built in a small shrub 3 feet from the 

 ground, in a fork ; foundation of dead leaves, built of fine twigs and 

 fibrous bark ; lined with fine grass-bents and moss-roots. Egg-cavity 

 2| inches in diameter, 1 j deep ; walls | inch thick, bottom | inch. 



with line grass-bents. There was a good deal of cobweb in the construction. 

 It was an exact facsimile of many nests of Otoeompsa fuscicaudata from the 

 Nilgherry Hills. The egg-cavity was 3 inches in diameter and 2% inches deep ; 

 the walls were £ inch thick, the bottom 1 inch." 



The eggs are of the usual variable Bulbul type, some broader and more regular, 

 some more elongated, some more or less pyriform. The shell as in others, and 

 apparently rarely showing any very perceptible gloss. The ground-colour pinky 

 white to a warm pink ; the markings, specks, and spots, or, when three or four 

 of these latter have coalesced, occasionally small blotches of a rich maroon-red 

 intermixed with spots and specks and clouds of pale purple. The markings 

 always apparently pretty thickly set everywhere, but almost invariably most 

 densely in a zone about the larger end, where they become at times more or less 

 confluent. Of course as in others of the genus, in some eggs all the markings 

 are very fine and speckly, while in others they are somewhat bolder. In some 

 the red greatly predominates ; in others, again, the grey underlying clouds are 

 Tery widely extended, and form by far the most conspicuous part of the 

 markings, giving a grey tinge to the entire egg. The eggs vary from 082 to 

 0-91 in length and from 061 to 065 in breadth. 



