38 GARDEN AND AVIARY BIRDS. 
birds than this species, plumaged in French-grey black, 
white, and chestnut, but with an unmistakeable family 
resemblance to their sombre relative. They all have 
similar habits, solitary and sedentary, with harsh voices 
and a deadly grip of bill. They are most useful birds in 
either field or garden, and should be rigidly protected 
for their services in destroying grass-hoppers, mice, 
&c. Those that breed with us make large open nests 
in trees or bushes, and lay greenish-white eggs with 
brown spots. 
Tue SHoRT-BILLED Miniver (Pericrocotus brevirostris), 
figured on Plate IV (Fig. 1) is a type of a quite different 
style of Shrike. The Minivets, often called Rajah Lal, 
are birds of a harmless disposition only preying on in- 
sects; their bills and feet are weak, their wings rather 
long, and their tails decidedly so, with the centre pairs 
of feathers much the longest. They go about in parties, 
fluttering from bough to bough, and clinging to the twigs 
in search of insects. In most species the sexes are ab- 
solutely different in colour, though both are very pretty, 
the males being red-and-black and the females yellow- 
and-grey. The young are like the hens, but barred like 
other young Shrikes. 
The Short-billed Minivet is a very widely-spread and 
common species, being found all along the Himalayas and 
parts of the plains adjacent to them. It ranges up to 
10,000 feet and extends south to Karennee, Arrakan 
and the Salween River. Eastern male specimens are 
a deeper and richer red than western ones. The male is . 
the sex represented in the Plate : the hen is yellow 
