Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/463

 PYCNONOTVS. 417 Colours of soft parts. Iris dark brown, dark plumbeous slat^ and grey-brown; bill black; legs and feet very dark plumbeous, claws liorny-brown, sometimes almost black.

Measurements. Total length about 165 mm.; wing 68 to 78 mm.; tail about 66 mm.; tarsus about 15 mm.; culmen 12 to 13 mm.

Distribution. Peninsular Burma and Siam to Sumatra.

Nidification. Nest and eggs collected by Mr. W. A. T. Kellow near Taiping in the Federated Malay States are just like small ones of Otocompsa. The nests were all in low bushes and con- tained two or three eggs which measured about 20*4 x 15'4 mm. They seem to breed in April, May and June.

Habits. Davison found them either singly or in pairs on the outskirts of forest or in deserted clearings. He remarks : — " They live, so far as have been observed, entirely upon small berries of various sorts. They are rather shy, and on being alarmed beat a hasty retreat to the forest and other dense cover. Their note is a sharp, lively chirrup." Mr. Kellow found them very cominou about Taiping and apparently took many nests there.


 * Htematoniis Juteohts Less., Rev. Zool., 1840, p. 354 (India, Bombay).
 * Fycmnotus luteolus. Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 290.

Vernacular names. Poda-pu/U (Tel.); Guluguluwa (Ceylon).

Description. Upper plumage dull olive-green, tinged with ashy on the head and with fulvous on the rump and upper tail-coverts; wings and tail brown, washed with green on the outer webs of the feathers; front of forehead, a broad streak from the nostril oyer the eye and partly over the ear-coverts and an indistinct ring round the eye, white; lores mingled black and white; a stripe from the base of the lower mandible and the point of the chin yellow; lower plumage ashy, tinged and faintly striped with pale yellow, the breast washed with brown; vent and under tail- coverts pale yellow; under wing-coverts and edge of wing yellow.

Colours of soft parts. Iris blood-red; bill blackish or horny- black; legs dark plumbeous.

Measurements. Length about 200 mm.; wing 72 to 89 mm.; tail about 80 to 85 mm.; tarsus about 22 mm.; culmen 15 to 17 mm. Ceylon birds are certainly smaller than those from India; the wings run from 72 to 83, rarely to 85 mm., those from Travau- core northwards measure from 85 to 89 mm. I can see no corresponding variation in colour and as they overlap in measure- ments, these "done seem hardly well-de(ined enough to constitute a separate subspecies. 2'e TOL. I.