on the Himalayan Black Bulbul.



211



almost touches its back, and the bill fully opened till the points

are nearly an inch apart, and so produced the call, usually

repeated several times in succession, and is exactly like the bleat

of a young goat ; my bird had no other, save a subdued

clucking sound, a sort of shrill whispered imitation of an

ordinary fowl.


It is not brightly coloured, yet is a handsome bird, of fine

contour, and of a good upstanding carriage: the black feathers

on the head being very fine and lustrous; each one stands

separately from the other and is finely formed ; these, when the

bird is at all excited, are erected in the form of a semi crest.


When I first received the bird it was in the thick of the

moult, and could scarcely fly from one end of the aviary to the

other, but it came through the same very rapidly, and was soon

in fine plumage and very strong on the wing. It was fed on

Arthur’s Finch Mixture, mixed with double its bulk of mashed

potato or stale bread crumbs, plenty of fruit and mealworms,

being especially fond of orange, eating a good sized one each

day, though of course the fruit was varied, apple, banana, pear,

etc., being also given. It also paid short visits to the seed pans

and swallowed a little canary and millet whole ; it was very fond

of mealworms, and its companions had to be very sharp to

get any of them.


I believe Mr. Harper also presented one of these birds to

the Rev. C. Farrar ; and I venture to hope he will be more

fortunate with it than myself, and kindly supplement these

rough notes with a fuller account a little later.


It seems rather strange why some of these fairly common

(in their native wilds) birds are not more often imported. So

far as I can trace, last summer there were only three of these

birds in England, the two aforementioned and one at the Zoo.


I shall certainly avail myself of the first opportunity of

acquiring another specimen.



