Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 2).djvu/119

Rh wings olive-green ; median pair of tail-feathers olive-green, the others golden yellow, broadly tipped, and margined on the outer webs, with olive-green ; a yellowish-white ring round the eye ; ear-coverts olive-brown, with pale shafts ; lores and an indistinct supercilium olive-yellow ; the whole lower plumage ochraceous yellow, most of the feathers with tiny dusky fringes and the flanks washed with olivaceous.

The young have the whole plumage dark olive-brown, the feathers streaked with fulvous and tipped with black. Lower mandible and edge of the upper along the commissure yellow ; rest of the bill black ; iris very dark brown ; legs, feet, and claws fleshy, tinged with brown (Hume).

Length about 6; tail 2-3; wing 2-7; tarsus 1-2; bill from gape -7.

Distribution. The Himalayas from Chamba to Sikhim, apparently up to 5000 feet ; the Khasi hills; the Niiga hills ; Manipur. This species extends into Western China.

Habits, &c. Nests on the ground from May to August, in holes of rocks and banks, and lays three or four eggs, which are pale blue, and measure about '8 by '53.

Genus IANTHIA, Blyth, 1847.

The genus lantliia contains three species of Indian birds, in which the males are very brightly coloured and the females are dull. They inhabit the Himalayas, and migrate locally according to season.

Fig. 30. Tail of /. indica.

This genus differs from Tarsiyer and Calliope in having a much longer tail, the feathers of which are moreover pointed at the tips. Very little is on record about the habits of the members of this genus, but they probably do not differ in any important particular from those of the Blue-throats and Ruby- throats.