Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/145

Rh lined with finer grass and a few horse-hairs; measuring about 4" × 3½" outside and 2" × 2" inside." The nests were all extremely well concealed and were only discovered by carefully watching the birds. They were placed in clumps of reeds or grass, or in thick bushes and tangles of creepers, in each case quite low down, less than three feet from the ground.

The eggs number 2 to 4, the former number having been taken much incubated, but 3 is the usual full clutch. In colour they are a rather deep, unspotted hedge-sparrows' egg-blue and in shape broad ovals, very little compressed at the smaller end. Twenty-four eggs average 16·3 × 12·8 mm.

The breeding season is from the end of April to early June.

Habits. Anderson's Suthora keeps principally to reed and grass cover, where they creep about but seldom fly. As they hunt for insects they keep up a continuous twittering, and they are more often heard than seen.


 * Temnoris fulvifrons Hodgs., P.Z.S., xiii, p. 31 (1845) (Nepal).
 * Suthora fulvifrons. Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 66.

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Forehead, middle portion of the crown, a very short supercilium), cheeks, chin, throat, breast, sides of the neck and the under tail-coverts bright fulvous; a broad band from the lores over the eye to the nape, the back, rump and lesser wing-coverts olive-yellow; upper tail-coverts fulvous; greater wing-coverts edged with chestnut; quills with the outer webs chestnut, hoary on the basal halves of the primaries; tail blackish, the outer webs more or less bright chestnut except at the tips; abdomen deep grey.

Colours of soft parts. Irides brown; bill pale fleshy yellow, horny above; legs fleshy brown.

Measurements. Total length about 150 mm.; wing about 54 to 56 mm.; tail about 66 mm.; culmen about 5 mm.; tarsus about 20 to 22 mm.

Distribution. Nepal and Sikkim.

Nidification and Habits. Practically nothing known. Masson found it breeding on the Singlo Ridge about 8,500 feet, but failed to find the nest. This was in May. It probably keeps to high elevations and dense forest in which it is not easily observed.