Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/120

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This genus closely resembles Parus but differs in having a proportionately shorter, smaller bill and a square or very slightly forked tail; plumage greenish with no ventral band. There is only one species.


 * Sylviparus modestus Burton, P. Z. S., p. 154 (1835) (Nepal); Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 53.

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Upper plumage, sides of the neck, the wings and tail olive-green, the feathers of the crown centred with brown; sides of the head yellowish green slightly mottled with brown; a ring of feathers round the eye and a short eye-brow yellow; lower plumage yellow tinged with ochraceous; edge of wing and under wing-coverts bright yellow.

Colours of soft parts. Bill dark plumbeous, palest along the commissure and at base of the lower mandible; legs and feet plumbeous; iris very dark brown (Davison).

Measurements. Total length about 100 mm.; tail about 35 mm.; wing 00 to 64 mm.; tarsus about 15 mm.; culmen about 5 mm.

Distribution. Garhwal, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and hills N. of the Brahmaputra at least as far East as the Abor Hills.

Nidification. Nothing known.

Habits. A bird of the hills above 6,000 feet. In winter it apparently comes mucb lower, possibly on rare occasions into the plains.


 * Sylviparus modestus simlaensis Stuart Baker, Bull. B. O. C, xxxviii, p. 8 (1917) (Simla).

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Differs from the true modestus in being a much brighter yellower green above and in being paler and purer yellow below.