Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/464

 418 PTCNONOTID^.

Distribution. The Peninsula of India, from Baroda on the West and Midnapore on the East down to Cape Comorin; Ceylon, liare or absent on the Deccan table-land and throughout the Central Provinces,

Nidification. This bird breeds very commonly in Ceylon, the AVest coast of Soutli India and again in West Bengal and parts of Orissa. The nest is not, I think, distinguishable from that of Otocompsa but is on the average more untidy, flimsy and unfinished. The sites selected are low, thick bushes in scrub- jungle, the outskirts of forest and jjartly cultivated country and the nest is seldom more than 4 feet from the ground. Hume says the eggs are unlike those of Molpastes or Otocompsa. Whilst, hovvever, richly marked, handsome eggs such as are so often obtained of Molpastes are very rare in this species, the eggs as a series are like weakly marked, rather long-shaped eggs of that bird. Normally only two eggs are laid, sometimes tliree, and the average of sixty eggs is 22*9 x lo-8 mm., the extremes being 25-5 X 15-6, 24-6 x 17-0, 19-0 X 156 and 23-8 x 15-0 mm. The birds la}^ in almcyt every month of the year in Cejdon but chiefly in February and March, whilst in Bombay they lay from April to July. Habits, The White-browed Bulbul is a bird neitlier of actual forest nor of compounds and gardens. It prefers scrub- and bush- jungle, thin rather than dense, the outskirts of forest and country which is partly cultivated and partly wooded. It does not enter gardens but may be seen in the vicinity of villages. It is found only in the plains and lower hills. Pycnonotus plumosus. The birds of this species are spread over a very wide area through East and .South Burma, the Malay Peninsula and many of the islands and again East through tSiam, Yunnan, Annain, etc. There are three races separable but they do not occupy very well-defined areas and it is not easy to say exactlv where P. p. hlanfordi and P. p. plumosus meet. Between P.p. robinsoni and P. 2>- plumosus I cannot lix anything definite but throughout the Northern Peninsula they probably represent Eastern and Western races. They may eventually have to be treated as species. Key to Subspecies. A. Ear-coverts brown with silvery-white stripes. P. 2^lumosus 2>hu)iosiis, B. Ear-coverts entirely silverj'-white. fp. 419. a. Paler both above and below ... P.j}. blimfordi^^. 420. b. Darker both above and below P.p. robinsoni, p. 420.