Pitta megarhyncha, schleg.
The Larger Blue - winged Pitta.
Pitta megarhyncha, Schleg., Hume, Cat. no. 345 ter.
Mr. J. Barling found the nest of this Pitta at Tapraw in the island of Tongkah, not far south of Tenasserim. This was on the 17th April. The nest was of the usual type, and contained no eggs. The female to which the nest belonged, however, proved on examination to have a fully - formed egg within her.
This egg is too broken to permit of its being measured or its shape correctly described, but it appears to have been a very broad short oval. The shell is very fine, and though the egg was taken from the oviduct it is fairly glossy, so that, laid in the natural way, it would have probably been highly glossy. The ground is white, with a faint lilac tinge, and it is richly but not very thickly streaked and marbled everywhere with dull maroon and pale inky purple. whole surface of the egg, but are always much denser towards one end, to which in some eggs they are entirely confined, and here alone the secondary markings are at all conspicuous. Here they often form a sorb of nimbus round all the spots, blotches, and lines, all the interstices between which they occupy and unite to form an irregular mottled cap. There is something about the character of the egg which indicates to me that the Pittas should be placed nearer the Bulbuls and the Orioles than the true Thrushes. I should note that there is one not uncommon type in which the whole egg is devoid of markings, except within a broad zone near one end, and even here they only consist of widely scattered and minute specks of maroon and pale lilac.
The eggs vary from 0.96 to 1.07 inch in length, and from 0.81 to 0.9 inch in breadth; but the average of fifty eggs is l.01 by 0.86 inch nearly.
The Larger Blue - winged Pitta.
Pitta megarhyncha, Schleg., Hume, Cat. no. 345 ter.
Mr. J. Barling found the nest of this Pitta at Tapraw in the island of Tongkah, not far south of Tenasserim. This was on the 17th April. The nest was of the usual type, and contained no eggs. The female to which the nest belonged, however, proved on examination to have a fully - formed egg within her.
This egg is too broken to permit of its being measured or its shape correctly described, but it appears to have been a very broad short oval. The shell is very fine, and though the egg was taken from the oviduct it is fairly glossy, so that, laid in the natural way, it would have probably been highly glossy. The ground is white, with a faint lilac tinge, and it is richly but not very thickly streaked and marbled everywhere with dull maroon and pale inky purple. whole surface of the egg, but are always much denser towards one end, to which in some eggs they are entirely confined, and here alone the secondary markings are at all conspicuous. Here they often form a sorb of nimbus round all the spots, blotches, and lines, all the interstices between which they occupy and unite to form an irregular mottled cap. There is something about the character of the egg which indicates to me that the Pittas should be placed nearer the Bulbuls and the Orioles than the true Thrushes. I should note that there is one not uncommon type in which the whole egg is devoid of markings, except within a broad zone near one end, and even here they only consist of widely scattered and minute specks of maroon and pale lilac.
The eggs vary from 0.96 to 1.07 inch in length, and from 0.81 to 0.9 inch in breadth; but the average of fifty eggs is l.01 by 0.86 inch nearly.
