Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 2).djvu/170

156 grey on the sides of the breast and body ; the cheeks, sides of the throat and neck, the whole breast, and the upper half of the abdomen with fan-shaped or triangular black spots ; axillaries

Fig. 39. Head of Cr. sjj

white, tipped with dark brown ; under wing-coverts dark brown, tipped with white.

Iris brown ; eyelid leaden grey ; bill blackish, pale at gape ; legs and feet dusky bluish grey or greyish fleshy ; claws dusky horn (Legge).

Length about 8-5 ; tail 3*2 ; wing 4 ; tarsus 1-4 ; bill from gape 1-15.

Distribution. Confined to Ceylon up to 4000 feet. Habits, $c. A nest of this bird was found by Legge in January containing two eggs bluish green freckled with rufous, and measuring 1*19 by '79.

Genus ZOOTHERA, Vigors, 1831.

In the genus Zoofhera the sexes are alike, the under wing-coverts and axillaries of two colours, the colours in the one part transposed or reversed in the other, the lower plumage squamated, not distinctly barred nor spotted, and the rictal bristles very numerous and long. The anterior or supplementary bristles extend over the nostrils as in the Flycatchers, and Zoothera is the only genus of Thrushes in which this feature is present. The bill is very long and strongly curved near the tip, and the edges of the mandibles are frequently serrated by wear and tear, but never originally so.

The Thrushes of this genus are non-migratory, and they are found in thickly-wooded tracts.

Key to the Species.

a. Upper plumage dark slaty ; feathers of breast tipped with brown ; wing- 5'5 Z. tnonticolo, p. 157. b. Upper plumage olive-brown ; feathers of breast margined with brown ; wing 5 Z. marginata, p. ]57.