184 ” PYCNONOTIN &. 
it breeding at Belgaum amongst long grass in September. _It 
is probably only a seasonal visitant. 
Genus, Laticilla, Blyth. 
Bill of moderate length, compressed, slender, nearly straight : 
culmen gently curved, barely hooked at tip; a few distant, short 
rictal setze; wings short, rounded; fourth and fifth quills 
longest ; tail long, graduated; the feathers very broad and soft ; 
tarsus long ; middle-toe elongated; lateral toes unequal; hind- 
toe rather short. 
Laticilla burnesii, Blyth. 
443.—Eurycercus burnesit.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. IT, 
p. 74; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p, 134. 
THE LonG-TAILED REED Birp. 
Length, 625; wing, 2°13; tail, 3°75; tirsus, 0°8 ; bill at front, 
0-4. 
Bill horny above, yellowish beneath ; irides brownish-yellow ; 
legs yellow-brown. 
Above brownish-grey, with dark central streaks, mostly on 
the scapulars and back; tail faintly barred; under parts 
whitish, tinged with fulvescent on the flanks, and a shade of the 
same on the side of the neck, where also a few mesial streaks 
are distinct ; under tail-coverts ferrugmous. 
Within our limits, the Long-tailed Reed Bird has only been 
recorded from Sind, where in certain localities it is by no means 
uncommon, especially in reed and tamarisk thickets. 
It breeds from March to September ; the nest is placed in the 
eentre of a tussock of grass, and is composed of coarse grass, lined 
with finer grass. ‘The eggs, three or four m number, are of a 
pale-greenish ground color, covered with irregular blotches of 
purplisk-brown, but they vary a good deal. The eggs in my pos- 
session average 0°72 inches m length by 0°53 in breadth. 
Famizy, Brachypodide. 
Legs and feet very short, only suited for perching; wings 
moderate or rather long; bill various, long and Thrush-like in 
some, short and somewhat depressed in others. 
Sus-FAMILY, Pycnonotine. 
Bill generally short, straight and depressed ; rictal bristles 
well developed ; nostrils exposed. 
Genus, Hypsipetes, Vigor's. 
Bill moderately strong, lengthened, nearly straight; culmen 
very slightly arched ; nostrils long, with some short tufts and a 
few hairs at their base ; wings long, fourth and fifth quills longest, 
third nearly as long ; tail rather long, square or emarginate; feet 
