REICHENOWIA. 693 



706. REICHENOWIA BRUNNEI VENTRIS (Grant). 



BAMBOO WEAVER, 



Chlorura brunneiventris Gkant, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club (1894), 3, 50;* Ibis 

 (1894), 518; Whitehead, Ibis (1899), 242 (habits and notes); Mc- 

 Gregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 105. 



Luzon (Whitehead); Mindoro (Whitehead, McGregor) . 



Adult. — -Above including tail-coverts dark grass-green : head green ; 

 forehead blue with a narrow black band along base of bill; lores, sides 

 of face, car-coverts, and under parts tawny-rufous, paler posteriorly; 

 sides of breast green, washed with Ijlue; sides of body and flanks 

 grass-green; primaries edged with olive-yellow; tail-feathers green at 

 ends; center ones green, washed with orange. "Iris dark brown; bill 

 black; feet tiesh-color." (Whitehead.) Length, 106; wing, 58. 



This curiously colored weaver appears to be very rare or, at any rate, 

 to be dithcult to collect. 'Wliitehead's interesting notes on this species 

 follow : 



"These small bamboo sparrows are always difficult to obtain ; being 

 wary and of swift flight, they disappear in a second when alarmed. 

 Amongst the baml)Oo-flowers, on which tliey feed, their movements are 

 very slow and quiet, and it is only after one has found a number of 

 bamboo-clumps in full flower, by carefully hiding and watching the 

 flowers, tbat any success is obtained. My first specimens were collected 

 in Benguct at an elevation of only 2,000 feet [610 meters], and we 

 next met with the species again at 7,600 feet [2,300 meters] on Monte 

 Data, where a single specimen was secured. In Mindoro I shot a 

 Chlorura [=^ Reich enowia'] in a pine tree close to my camp, and noticed 

 another some days previously feeding at the end of a pine branch; this 

 was at an elevation of 4,500 feet [1,370 meters]. The note, which 

 seems only to be uttered when the bird is on the wing, is 'tsit, tsit,' and 

 is a somewhat hissing sound." 



Family ORIOLID^. 



Bill as long as head, the terminal balf decidedly compressed; culmen 

 slightly curved throughout; gonys straight or slightly curved; a small 

 but distinct notch near tip of bill ; nostril oval, exposed, and nearer to 

 cutting edge of mandible than to culmen ; rictal bristles short ; wing 

 long, covering one-half or more of the tail; primaries ten. the first more 

 than one-half and less than two-thii'ds of second, the latter shorter tban 



* Grant's diagnosis of Chlorura brunneiventris follows: "C. similis C. borneensi, 

 Sharpe, sed abdomine quoque rufescente, pectore concolore; pectoris lateribus 

 caeruleo lavatis; fronte caerulea laetiore et minus e.xtensa. Long. tot. 4.2 poll., 

 alae 2.3." 



