Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/385

 tEGithina. 341 secondaries and primaries very narrowly edged with white; ear- coverts, sides of liead and whole lower plumage yellow, washed with green on the flanks, vent and under tail-coverts, brightest on throat and npper breast.

Colours of soft parts. Iris yellowish white to bright pale yellow; bill slaty-blue, the culmen blackish; legs and feet clear slaty-blue to dull plumbeous.

Measurements. Length about 1-10 mm.; wing 59 to 68 mm.; tail about 50 mm.; tarsus about 18 to 19 mm.; culmen about 12 to 13 mm. Female. Above green or yellowish green, the tail rather darker and faintly edged with yellowish white, the black of the wings in the male replaced by brown; entire under plumage yellow, tinged with greyish green on flanks. Male in winter plumage is similar to the female but has the tail black and the undersides rather brighter. The description of the inale given above is quite exceptional, j more green and mucli less black being the rule and many breeding -fvue males have practically no black on the upper parts other than the wings and tail.

Distribution. All India, except 8. Travancore, East of a line, roughly speaking, drawn from the head of the Gulf of Cambay through Abu to Simla and excluding that portion of South, Central India occuj^ied by ^E. t. Jiumei. It extends through Assam, Burma, certainly to the north of the Malay Peninsula, east to A¥estern Siam, Annam (Robinson <i- Kloss) and the Kachin Hills. There is a specimen in the British Museum collection received from Khorasan in Persia.

Nidification. The Common lora breeds from April to July, making a very neat, cup-shaped nest of line, soft grasses lined with the same and well matted outside with cobwebs and spiders' egg-bags. It measures about 2|" (62-3 mm.) in diameter by about. 2" (50 mm.) deep, the walls~being very thin, only some 3 or 4 mm. thick. It may be placed in either a horizontal or vertical fork of any bush or small tree at any height from 2 to 30 feet from the ground. The eggs lunuber two to four, most often three, and are very unusual in coloration; they are of two types — one with a pale creamy or greyish-white ground-colour, with a few irregular longitudinal marks of grey and underlying ones of neutral tint. The second type has the ground-colour a beautiful pink and the markings are reddish. Eggs from Siam are much more speckly in their character. 60 eggs average 17*6 x 13-9 mm., the greatest and least length and breadth being 19-0 X 14-3; 18-1 X 15-0; 16-2 x 14-0 and 18-2 x 13-2 mm.

Habits. The lora is a bird of the plains and lower hills, seldom being found much over 2,000 feet, though stragglers may rarely wander up as high as 8,000 feet (Simla). It is a faraihar little bird, haunting gardens, orchards and the outskirts of villages as