484.  Hemipus picatus (Sykes). The Black-backed Pied Shrike.

Hemipus picatus (Sykes), Jerd.  B. Ind. i, p. 412; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no 267.

I quite agree with Mr. Gray that this bird is a Flycatcher and not a Shrike; no one in fact who has watched it in life can have any doubt on this subject; but yet, except for their being more strongly marked, its eggs have no doubt a very Shrike-like character, at the same time that they exhibit many affinities to those of Rhipidura albifrontata and other undoubted Flycatchers.

Mr. W. Davison says:—­“About the first week in March 1871, I found at Ootacamund a nest of this bird placed in the fork of one of the topmost branches of a rather tall Berberis leschenaulti.  For the size of the bird this was an exceedingly small shallow nest, and from its position between the fork, its size, and the materials of which it was composed externally, might very easily have passed unnoticed; the bird sitting on it appeared to be sitting only on a small lump of moss and lichen, the whole of the bird’s tail, and as low down as the lower part of the breast, being visible.  The nest was composed of grass and fine roots covered externally with cobweb and pieces of a grey lichen, and bits of moss taken apparently from the same tree on which the nest was built:  the eggs were three in number.  The tree on which this nest was built was opposite my window, and I watched the birds building for nearly a week; and, again, when having the nest taken, the birds sat till the native lad I had sent up put out his hand to take the nest.  I am absolutely certain, as to the identity of this nest and these eggs.”

The eggs brought me by Mr. Davison, of the authenticity of which he is positive, are very Shrike-like in their appearance; they are rather elongated ovals, somewhat obtuse at both ends, and entirely devoid of gloss.  The ground-colour is a pale greenish or greyish white, and they are profusely blotched, spotted, and streaked with darker and lighter shades of umber-brown; in both eggs these markings are more or less confluent along a broad zone, which in one egg encircles the larger, in the other the smaller end:  these eggs measure 0.7 by 0.5 inch and 0.69 by 0.49 inch.

Captain Horace Terry writes from the Palani Hills:—­“Pittur Valley.  I had a nest brought me which from the description of the bird must, I think, have belonged to this species.  Nest rather a shallow cup placed in a thorny tree about ten feet from the ground, neatly made of grass and moss, lined with fine grass and a few feathers, covered a great deal on the outside with dusky-coloured cobwebs, 2.5 inches across and 1.5 inch deep inside, and 3.25 inches to 3.5 inches across, and 2.25 inches deep outside:  contained five very much incubated eggs; shape and marking exactly like those of L. caniceps, having a well-defined zone round the larger end; size about the same or rather smaller than those of Pratincola bicolor.”