The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds (Volume 1)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ... banks, crevices in rooks, under stones, under clods of earth, amongst the timbers of bridges, in drains, holes in walls, on roofs, and in fact anywhere except on shrubs or bushes. The nests are always down on something solid, and that is about all that can be said. In the middle of the River Jumna, at Agra, there is an iron buoy attached to the pontoon bridge, which is surmounted by an iron ring, which lies down nearly horizontal, and in this ring for several successive seasons a pair of Pied Wagtails nested, within 5 yards of the roadway, and in full view of the thousands of passengers who daily cross the bridge. In the Chumbul, a little above its junction with the Jumna, a pair built in the clumsy old ferry boat which was but seldom used, and when the female was sitting she allowed herself to be ferried backwards and forwards, the male all the while sitting on the gunwale singing, making from time to time short jerky nights over the water and returning fearlessly to his post. In this latter case the nest was nothing but one of those small circular ring-pads, say 4 inches in external diameter, and an inch thick at the circumference, which the women place on their heads to enable them to carry steadily their round-bottomed earthen water-vessels; a dozen tiny soft blades of grass had been laid across the central hole, and on these, of course bending them down to the surface of the massive boat-knee on which the pad had been accidentally left lying, the eggs were laid. The character and materials of the nest are quite as various as are the situations in which it is placed; as to character it varies from nothing (for they will lay in a tiny depression on the bare earth) up to a neat well-formed saucer or shallow cup; as to materials, nothing...