Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/149

Rh the finest grasses but, under these, were a few scraps of bamboo leaves. It was bound together with cobwebs and placed in a bamboo clump growing on a grass-covered hillside.

The single egg contained in the nest was a pale hedge-sparrow blue and measured 19·0 × 15·2 mm. A nest with three eggs taken by a Naga were similar but the latter measured only about 18·4 × 13·6 mm.

Habits. An inveterate little skulker in long grass and scrub-jungle, never taking to flight unless actually forced, but creeping in and out low down and out of sight, though its constant twittering may be heard the whole time. They go about in large parties numbering a dozen or more and, when they think they are not being watched, every now and then one climbs to a tall grass, chirps loudly and immediately descends again. They consort frequently with both Psittiparus ruficeps and Paradoxornis and it is very curious to watch these three Red-heads in company.

The Black-browed Suthora is found in winter practically in the plains and in summer breeds between 2,000 and 4,500 feet. I found in the stomachs of those examined by me small grass-hoppers, Coleoptera, and a few hard seeds.

 

This genus differs from Suthora in having the tail less graduated and much shorter, not more than three-fourths the length of the wing; the bill is larger and much deeper in proportion; the wing is still more rounded, the 4th to the 7th being subequal. It contains but one species, Neosuthora davidiana, of which a subspecies, N. d. thompsoni, comes within our limits.


 * Suthora thompsonii Bingham, Bull. B. O. C, xiii, p. 63 (1903) (Kyat-pyin, Shan States).

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Top and sides of the head bright cinnamon-rufous; hind neck, back and rump pale slate-grey, more or less washed with olive; wings and tail grey-brown, the quills edged with bright rufescent brown; chin and throat black; breast grey tinged with buff, more especially on the centre; flanks, abdomen and lower tail-coverts clear brownish ochraceous.

Colours of soft parts. Bill fleshy horny; irides hazel; legs plumbeous grey.

Measurements. Total length about 95 to 100 mm.; wing 50 to 52 mm.; tail 36 to 38 mm.

Distribution. Southern Shan States.

Nidification and Habits. Not recorded. 