Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/300

258 Distribution. Peninsular Burma and Siam and N. Malay Peninsula.

Nidification. Nothing recorded.

Habits. According to Davison this Babbler is almost entirely arboreal, hunting about in trees and bushes in small parties or in pairs and never descending to the ground. It is said to be a purely forest bird and to be entirely insectivorous in its diet.


 * Alcippe magnirostre Moore, P. Z. S., 1854 p. 277 (Malacca).
 * Malacopterum magnirostre. Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 151.

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Forehead, crown, nape and back olive-brown, the feathers of the forehead with black shafts; wing-coverts and exposed parts of quills rufescent olive; upper tail-coverts and tail bright chestnut-brown; feathers round the eye white; lores and an obsolete stripe over the eye grey; cheeks and ear-coverts deep ashy, the latter with paler shafts; entire lower plumage dull white, washed with ashy on breast, flanks, thighs and under tail-coverts.

Colours of soft parts. Iris cinnabar-red to lake; bill, legs and feet as in the last bird but less blue.

Measurements. Length about 160 to 170 mm.; wing 80 to 85 mm.; tail about 55 to 57 mm.; tarsus about 21 mm.; culmen about 15 to 16 mm.

Distribution. Extreme South of Tenasserim, extending South down the Malay Peninsula and East to Cochin China.

Nidification. Nothing recorded. Two eggs from the Waterstradt collection, said to have been taken on 14. 2. 1901 in East Malacca, are very pale yellow-creamy white with a few specks of light red principally in the centre of the egg-shell. In shape they are almost ellipses, with fine, close texture but almost glossless. They measure 21·8 × 16·0 and 21·3 × 15·5.

Habits. As far as is known similar to those of the last bird.

This genus is very close to the last but differs in its shorter wing and it is apparently a ground bird.


 * Brachypteryx bicolor Less., Rev. Zool., 1839, p. 138 (Sumatra).
 * Erythrocichla bicolor. Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 152.

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Whole upper plumage ferruginous, the crown and