seen, for though they will sit on the nest until an elephant or buffalo almost touches them, they slink away amongst the grass long before a man on foot can get near them. I obtained nests in the months of April and July, but presume they are principally "Rains" breeders when their food—grasshoppers—are most numerous. The few eggs I have seen are very beautiful, having a pale or bright pink ground-colour, with handsome blotches and smears of reddish brown or light red with secondary markings of neutral tint. Fourteen eggs average about 18·1 × 14·6 mm.
Habits. This little Babbler seems to be found only in the plains or in the rolling stretches of "sun-grass" lands on the foot-hills of the Himalayas. It is found always in pairs and always in grass of some kind though this may be anything from two to twenty feet high. It has a sweet little song of some dozen notes or so which it sings from the highest piece of grass near its nest."
(239) Pyctorhis altirostris scindicus.
The Sind Babbler.
- Pyctorhis altirostris scindicus Harington, Jour. B. N. H. S., xxiii, p. 424 (1918) (Sukkur in Scind).
Vernacular names. Mullala (Sind).
Description. Differs from Jerdon's Babbler in having the upper plumage fulvous, chin and throat white, breast and remainder of lower plumage ochraceous.
Colours of soft parts as in P. a. altirostris.
Measurements. Wing 65 mm.; culmen 12 mm.
Distribution. Sind only.
Nidification and Habits. Nothing recorded.
Genus PELLORNEUM Swainson, 1831.
In this genus I include Harington's three genera—Pellorneum, Scotocichla and Drymocataphus, the last and first only of which Oates recognized in the Avifauna. These genera have generally been divided on account of the alleged difference in the comparative length of wing and tail, but a glance at the measurements of the various species suffices to show that this does not form a sufficient ground for their separation. Thus Pellorneum palustre has always been accepted as a typical Pellorneum, yet this is the only species or race in the three genera in which the tail exceeds the wing in length. In all the other species the tail is always shorter than the wing, and the three genera only differ in this respect in degree.
In Pellorneum, as now accepted, the tail is shorter than the wing, with the one exception of P. palustre, but is equal to or longer than twice the length of the tarsus; the bill is about equal to, or
