Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/477

 CERTHIA. 431 course, only found in heavily-forested areas but it does not keep entirely to the interior of forest, wandering freely itito the more open country wherever there are large trees forming suitable hunting-ground-i. They are intensely active, restless little birds, never still for a minute, scuttHng hither and thither, now racing over the trunk of the tree, now scrambling along the under surface of one of the smaller boughs. They, unHke the Wood- peckers and Barbets, are just as fond of running down as running up the trunks of trees, but their general method is to work a tree upwards before taking flight to the next. Their ordinary note is a very feeble little squeak, which develops into a louder, fuller series of notes in the breeding season. They are entirely insectivorous. (^45) Certhia himalayana taeniura.* The Turkestan Tbee-Creeper. Certhia tceniura Severtz., Turk. Jevotn., p. 1.38 (187;i) (Turkestan).

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. This race differs from the preceding bird in being much paler, more brown, less black; the under parts, except the chin and throat, are all smoky-brown with no tinge of fulvous.

Colours of soft parts as in the Himalayan Tree-Creeper.

Measurements. Wing 65 to 73 mm.; tail about 52 to 65 mm.; tarsus about 18 mm.; culmen about 18 to 21 mm. Blanford remarks that heniura has a much longer bill than Idmalayuna; the British Museum series does not confirm this.

Distribution. Turkestan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Gil<^it, jS^'orth and Central Kashmir, Chitral, Karam Valley, etc.

Nidification. The Turkestan Tree-Creeper is found breeding between 5,000 and 12,000 feet over all the mountains of extreme North- West India. Whitehead found it breeding in some numbers in the Safed Koh up to 9,0U0 feet and in North Kashmir it breeds in great numbers up to 10,000 feet. The nest differs in no way from that of the Himalayan Tree-Creeper and the ego-s cannot be distinguished from those of that bird. Forty eggs average 15-0 x 11"9 mm. and the extremes of lengtii and breadth are 17"5 X 12-3 unn. and 14-9 X 11-3 mm. It breeds later than the preceding bird, most eggs being laid during the first week in June or the last few days of May. between hhnalaijana and tceniura under the name of miles (Bull. B. O. C. xlii June, 1922). It is true that the birds from Central Kashmir and N.W. India are so;nevhat iutermediate between the two but tiie great majority seem to nie to be easily referable to one or the other race and a third race appears to be unnecessary, lor on the dividing linos of all subspecies intermediate birds must occur. Meinert/.hagen is wrong in crediting tceiiiura with a longer culmen thau hinialaijuna.
 * Meiiiertzhagen has recently separated auotlier form as iutermediate