Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS

THE SONG BIRDS

THE BABBLING THRUSHES

Scimitar Babblers

Presumably belonging here is another considerable group known as the Scimitar Babblers, from the long, very slender, and compressed decurved bill, which is as long as, and frequently much longer than, the head. They have much the same habits as the Laughing Thrushes, being sociable birds, going about in the same noisy companies, though their notes are rather more pleasant. They construct their nests on or very near the ground and lay white unspotted eggs. The principal genus (Pomatorhinus) comprises upward of thirty species and extends throughout the Himalayas and mountains of China, Formosa, and Hainan, down the Malay Peninsula to Java, Sumatra, and Borneo and even to New Guinea and Australia, from which latter country we may select one for more extended mention. The Babbler, or Chatterer (P. temporalis), as it is there called, is quite generally spread over the eastern half of Australia, frequenting bushes and open forests, where it is often to be seen on the ground, but on the slightest alarm takes to the trees. It is gregarious and exceedingly noisy and garrulous, being constantly on the move. Commencing with the branches nearest the ground it gradually ascends in a series of hops to the very tops of the tree, whence with elevated tail it peers down and continually utters its peculiar chattering cry.”These birds,”says Mr. Lau,”perform their business — feeding, nest building, sleeping — together. The nest is a large, dome-shaped edifice, and with so many helping hands, or rather bills, is constructed in a day or two; I have myself observed every bird in a flock having a dry stick carrying it to the same nest. In this way three or four snug houses are built, one of them serving as a dormitory wherein the whole company take their night's rest, save those busy incubating during the nesting season. The formidable nest with hole inside possesses a cozy interior made up of dry grass rootlets and fur from different animals. Its site is about ten feet from the ground, either in a little tree or in the hanging branches of a eucalypt.”The size of this curious structure is about twelve inches in outside, and five or six inches in inside, diameter, with entrance about two inches across. The eggs, usually four or five or occasionally more, are buff, clouded with purplish or brownish gray, and covered with curious interlacing hair lines of brown. In coloration this species is dark or blackish brown, with the throat, center of the breast, and a broad superciliary stripe of white; its length is ten inches, of which the finely pointed bill takes up one and three eighths inches and the tail four and a half inches.
The Slender-billed Scimitar Babbler (Xiphorhamphus superciliaris) of India, the only member of its genus, is remarkable chiefly for its extremely slender, much-curved bill, which is nearly two and one half inches long, the total length of the bird being only nine inches. It constructs its large, globular nest of leaves and grass on the ground or in dense bushes, and lays white eggs.

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