Nidification. Breeds principally during the rains but at different places at different times and in some, as in Assam and Bengal, at almost any time of the year. It prefers marshy land, where it makes its nest in the reeds, like that of a large Reed-Warbler, or it makes a larger, more untidy nest of grasses and reed-blades in a low bush or thicket of grass. The eggs are either three or four in number, of the usual bright, rather deep blue-green typical of the genus, in shape a rather broad oval with fine texture and considerable gloss. Sixty eggs average 22.8 × 17.6 mm.
Habits. This Babbler is a bird of wide grass-plains, marshy tracts and sub-montane grass-covered hills; wherever conditions are suitable it is sure to be abundant. It is very gregarious, according to Marshall, being found in flocks even in the breeding season. They are very noisy birds and have the same follow-my-leader style of clambering through grass and bushes and fluttering from one patch of cover to another as have the better-known species. On the other hand, probably on account of their semi-aquatic habits, they do not descend as much to the ground as do the other birds. They are chiefly insect feeders.
(192) Argya caudata caudata.
The Common Babbler.
Cossyphus caudatus Dumont, Dict. Sci. Nat., xxix, p. 266 (1823).
Argya caudata. Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 106.
Vernacular names. Dumri (Hindi in the South); Huni (Tam.); Heddo and Lailo (Sind); Chil-chil (Hind. in the N. W. P.); Peng or Chota-penga (Hindi): Sor (in the N.W.); Chinna sida (Tel.).
Description. Whole upper plumage fulvous-brown, each feather with a dark brown shaft-streak; wing and tail-coverts with only the shafts dark; quills brown, lighter on the outer webs; tail olive-brown, cross-rayed and the shafts very dark; chin and throat fulvous-white; lores brown; ear-coverts rufescent; lower plumage pale fulvous, albescent on the abdomen and the sides of the breast faintly streaked.
Colours of soft parts. Bill light brown, yellow at base below; legs and feet yellow; claws fleshy-brown; iris brown or yellow (Bingham); iris red-brown (Jerdon).
Measurements. Total length about 230 mm.; wing 78 to 84 mm.; tail about 120 to 125 mm.; tarsus about 28 mm.; culmen about 19 to 20 mm.
Distribution. Every portion of India proper, from Sind to E. Bengal and Calcutta; from the foot of the Himalayas to the Palni Hills; the Laccadives and in Rameswaram Island. Not Burma.
Nidification. This Babbler breeds practically throughout the year, certainly having two broods and sometimes possibly three.
