94 



Genus Ploceus, Cuv. Weaver Bird. 



106. Ploceus Philippensis, Cuv. Philippine Grosbeak, Lath. 



The Weaver Bird is very common in Dukhun, and there are few 

 wells overhung by a tree where their nests are not seen pen-, 

 dent. They live in small communities, and are very noisy in 

 their labours. They associate so readily with the common 

 Sparrow that at the season of the falling of the grass seeds 

 Colonel Sykes, in firing into a flock of Sparrows on the grass 

 plats in his own grounds, killed as many Weaver Birds as 

 Sparrows- Fruit of the Ficus Indica and grass seeds have been 

 found in the stomach. Irides intense brown. 



107. Ploceus flavicollis. Fringilla Jlavicollis, Frankl. 



This bird has so nearly the bill, tongue, irides, size and aspect of 

 Ploc. Philippensis, that Colonel Sykes has considered it a 

 Ploceus. Grass seeds and a few grains of rice found in the 

 stomach. Very rare in Dukhun. 



Genus Fringilla, Auct, Finch. 



108. Fringilla crucigera, Temm., PI. Col. 269. fig. 1. Duree Finch, 



Lath. 

 This minute bird has the strange habit of squatting on the high 

 roads and almost allowing itself to be ridden over ere it rises. 

 Smaller than a Sparrow. Irides red brown. Coleopterous 

 insects, maggots, and seeds of Panicum spicatum found in the 

 stomachs of many specimens. This bird has the straight hind 

 claw of a Lark, and should therefore neither be classed as a 

 Fringilla, agreeably to M. Temminck, nor as a Passer, agree- 

 ably to Brisson. Its habits also separate it from both these 

 genera. M. Temminck in his Plate has placed it on a twig, 

 but it never perches. 



Genus Lonchura. 



Rostrum forte, breve, latum, altitudine ad basin longitudinem 

 sequans; mandibulis integris, superiori in frontem angulariter exten- 

 dente, cumque eo circuli arcum formante. 



Alee mediocres, subacuminatse; remigibus, lma brevissima sub- 

 spuria, 2da 3tia 4taque fere aequalibus longissimis. 



Cauda gradata, lanceolata; redricibus mediis cseteras paullo Ion- 

 gitudine superantibus. 



Pedes mediocres, subgraciles. 



The peculiar spear-head form of the tail, and the ridge of the 

 upper mandible and the forehead, forming a segment of the same 

 circle, together with the habits of the following species, afford suf- 

 ficient characteristics to justify their separation from the genus 

 Fringilla of M. Temminck. The Gros-bec longicone of the PI. Col. 96. 

 (Emb. quadricolor, Lath.) belongs to the same group. 



109. Lonchura nisoria. Fringilla nisoria, Temm. Gros-bec epervin, 



PI. Col. 500. Fig. 2. 

 .. Found only in the Ghauts. Grass seeds in the stomach. Length 

 5 T 4 o inches : tail 1 A to 2 inches. Sexes alike. 



