Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/421

Rh 'Measurements. This is the largest race of the three, having a wing between 100 and 105 mm.

Distribution. Salween and Karen Hills.

Nidification and Habits. Nothing recorded. Three eggs sent me with the bird from Karen Hills measure 22.1 × 17.0 mm. The nest is in appearance just like that of H. fl. flavala and was said to have been placed in a thick bush in scrub-jungle.

(394) Hemixus macclellandi macclellandi.

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Vernacular names. Chinchiok-pho (Lepcha); Chinchiam(Lepcha); Dao-bulip-gadeba (Cachari).

Description. Forehead, crown and nape bright vandyke-brown, the shafts pale reddish while, giving a streaky appearance; remainder of upper plumage, wing-coverts and inner secondaries olive-green, brightest and sometimes more yellow on the upper tail-coverts; tail bright olive-green; quills brown edged with olive-green; lores and cheeks grey or grey and white; ear-coverts, sides of neck, breast and flanks chestnut; abdomen white, more or less suffused with rufous; under tail-coverts yellowish rufous.

Colours of soft parts. Iris hazel, red-brown to red; bill, upper mandible dark blue-grey, culmen, tip and base of lower mandible dusky, remainder fleshy-white; legs dull yellowish- to purplish-brown.

Measurements. Total length about 240 mm.; wing 106 to 110 mm.; tail about 110 mm.; tarsus about 19 mm.; culmen 20 mm.

Distribution. Himalayas from Mussoorie to E. Assam both North and South of the Brahmaputra River, Chin Hills, Manipur, Lushai and Arrakan.

Nidification. The Rufous-bellied Bulbul breeds between 3,000 and 7,000 feet, from the end of May to the beginning of August. The nest is a large, rather shallow cup of grass, bamboo leaves, shreds of bark and long roots which are wound round the branches of the horizontal fork from which it is always suspended. It is generally an untidy, loosely-built nest but very strong. The lining is of fine grasses only, very rarely a few roots being added. The site selected is the outer branch of a tree at some height between 20 and 40 feet from the ground, the chosen tree standing either on the outskirts of forest, in scattered tree and bamboo jungle or sometimes in dense forest when this is broken by a stream or some natural clear space.

The eggs are generally two only in number and are very like those of the genus Microscelis but on the whole are duller, less