31 



the ' Mungul,' Loxia atricapiUa, of India, figured and described by Vieillot 

 in his ' Oiseaux Chanteurs,' published in 1805. 



The ti-ue habitat of this pretty Munia appears to be the islands of 

 Pinang, Sumatra, Java, and probably the smaller islands in close prox- 

 imity, and the Malayan Peninsula. Mr. R. Swinhoe includes it in his 

 birds of China, but remarks : " I almost doubt whether this is a Chinese 

 bird, as I have never yet met with it in a wild state. It is occasionally to 

 be seen in cages, but I think it comes from the Straits." 



To distinguish this Munia, which is almost exclusively a Sumatran 

 bird, ajid not an indigenous species of China, only having been introduced 

 as a cage bird to that country, I propose to call it the Sumatran Munia, 

 Munia sumatrensis, the appellation Munia sinensis being inappropriate. 



We are indebted Lo Dr. H. A. Bernstein for his observations " On the 

 Nests and Eggs of the Birds of Java," which appeared in the ' Journal fiir 

 Ornithologie ' for 1861, from which I transcribe the details respecting this 

 bird : " Burung Prit of the Malays and Sundanese. This smaller species 

 appears as numerously as the two preceding {Munia ferruginea and M. 

 oryzivora) everywhere in western Java, in inhabited neighbourhoods, as 

 well as in places overgrown with alang-mang, glagah, in short in bushy 

 places. On the other hand, in high forests you will seek in vain for one 

 bird, as also for the species related to it. It is a dear, harmless little bird, 

 who lives, except during the breeding season, in small companies or 

 families, whose members are friendly together, and who are seldom far apart 

 from one another. It is so tame that it will allow a person to come quite 

 close up to it, and one often, therefore, has an opportunity of observing 

 its ways and mode of living from a near point of view. Its voice, which 

 is often heard, especially when it first takes flight, sounds delicate and 

 gentle, '^)/e^,' or rather 'jyiuht,^ and has given rise to its Malayan name. Its 

 food is composed of all kmds of small seeds and grain ; grains of rice are too 

 hard and large for it when they are ripe ; it probably, therefore, visits the 

 fallow-lying rice-fields only on account of the numerous plants which spring 

 up very rapidly between the stubble and soon bear seed. When caged it 

 is easily fed on rice boiled in water, or, even better, on small seeds and 

 grains. It usually builds its nest at a slight elevation from the ground, in 

 the twigs of a bush or low tree, often close to much-trodden roads and 

 paths. In form the nest is more or less round, with an entrance at the side 



