Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 2).djvu/121

Rh Some females have a well-marked bluish-grey supercilium, and others are without it.

The young resemble the female, and have the orange patch 011 each side of the body and also a blue tail and rump, but the upper plumage is everywhere streaked with fulvous as well as the sides of the head and the throat. Bill black ; legs and feet deep brown ; iris brown (Hume). Length nearly 6 ; tail 2-6 ; wing 3'3 ; tarsus 1/05 ; bill from gape -6.

I. cyanura is an allied species from Northern Asia.

Distribution. The Himalayas from Gilgit and Kashmir generally to Sikhim ; the Khasi hills ; Tipperah ; Manipur. This species is found up to 11,000 feet in the Himalayas in summer, and descends to lower levels in winter.

Habits, $c. Breeds in May and June, constructing a nest of moss and grass in holes in banks and under tree-roots, and laying four eggs, which are white with a green tinge, spotted sparingly round the larger end with minute specks of reddish brown, and measuring about '71 by '56.

655. lanthia indica. The White-browed Bush-Robin.

Sylvia indica, Vieill. N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xi, p. 267 (1817). Nemura flavo-olivacea, Hodys. P. Z. S. 1845, p. 27. Tarsiger supevciliaris, Hodffs., Moore, P. Z. S. 1854, p. 76 ; Horsf. # M. Cat. i, p. 311 ; Hume, Cat. no. 510. Erythaca flavo-olivacea, Blyth, Cat. p. 171. lauthia superciliaris (Hodys.), Jerd. B. I. ii, p. 148 ; Blanf. J. A. S. B. xli, pt. ii, p. 161.

Tarsiger iudicus ( Vieill.), Sharps, Cat. B. M. iv, p. 259.

The Rufous-bellied Bush- Chat, Jerd.

Coloration. Male. The whole upper plumage dull slaty blue ; a very well-defined supercilium from the point of the forehead to the nape white ; lores and in front and under the eye black ; sides of the head blackish blue; coverts and quills dark brown, edged with olive-yellow, the coverts next the body more or less suffused illi blue ; tail black, suffused with blue on the outer webs ; lower plumage orange-rufous, the sides of the throat mottled with white and the middle of the abdomen whitish.

Female. The whole upper plumage olive-brown, tinged with fulvous on the rump ; a partially-concealed white supercilium extending to the nape ; sides of the head and a ring round the eye ochraceous, mottled with whitish ; wings and tail brown, edged with the colour of the back ; entire lower plumage ochraceous, tingi-d with rufous on the breast and paler on the abdomen.

1 have not been able to examine a young bird of this species. Bill black; legs pale horny-brown : iris brown (Jerdou).

Length about 6; tuil 2 <( J ; wing 3-2 ; tarsus 1/15; bill from gape 7.

Distribution. Nepal and Sikhim, rfrmlmj into Western China. There are few birds about which so little is known as this species.