275.  Hemixus macclellandi (Horsf.). The Rufous-bellied Bulbul.

Hypsipetes mclellandi, Horsf., Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 79.  Hypsipetes m’clellandii, Horsf., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 447.

The Rufous-bellied Bulbul, according to Mr. Hodgson’s notes, breeds in the central region of Nepal, and low down nearly to the Terai, from April to June.  Its nest is a shallow saucer suspended between a slender horizontal fork, to the twigs of which it is firmly bound like an Oriole’s with vegetable fibres and roots.  It is composed of roots and dry leaves bound together with fibres, and lined with fine grass or moss-roots.  The bird is said to lay four eggs, but these are neither figured nor described.

Dr. Scully writes from Nepal:—­“This Bulbul is common throughout the year on the hills round the valley of Nepal, but never tenants the central woods.  It is generally found in bushes and bush trees, not in high tree-forest; and is commonly seen in pairs.  The breeding-season appears to be May and June.  A nest was taken on the 6th June, which contained two fresh eggs.  The nest was somewhat oval in shape, measuring 3.35 inches in length and 2.5 across; the egg-cavity was about 1 inch deep in the centre, and the bottom of the nest 1.25 thick.  It was attached to a slender fork of a tree, and was composed externally of ferns, dry leaves, roots, grass, and a little moss, bound together with fine black hair-like fibres, which were wound round the prongs of the fork so as regularly to suspend the nest like an Oriole’s.  There was a regular lining, distinct from the body of the nest, composed of fine long yellowish grass-stems, and a little cobweb was spread here and there over the branches of the fork and the outside of the nest.  The eggs are rather long ovals, smaller at one end, and fairly glossy; they measure 1.0 by 0.7, and 0.97 by 0.7.  The ground-colour is pure pinkish white, abundantly speckled and finely spotted with reddish purple; the spots closely crowded together at the large end, but not confluent, forming in one egg a broadish zone, and in the other a cap; in the latter egg there are a few faint underlying stains of purplish inky at the large end.”

Two eggs sent me by Mr. Mandelli from Darjeeling, said to belong to this species, are elongated ovals, much pointed towards the small end.  The shell is fine and fairly glossy; the ground-colour a dull salmon-pink, and they are profusely and minutely freckled, speckled, and streaked (so densely at the large end that the markings there are almost confluent) with dull reddish purple.

The eggs measure 1.06 and 1.11 by 0.67.

277.  Alcurus striatus (Bl.). The Striated Green Bulbul.

Alcurus striatus (Bl.), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 81.