Black Bulbuls 



in appearance. Take a king-crow (Dicruriu 

 ater), dip his bill and legs in red ink, cut down 

 his tail a little, dust him all over so as to make 

 his glossy black plumage look grey and shabby, 

 ruffle his feathers, apply a little fomade bon- 

 groise to the feathers on the back of his head, 

 and make some of them stick out to look like 

 a dilapidated crest, and you may flatter your- 

 self that you have produced a very fair imita- 

 tion of a black bulbul as it appears when flitting 

 about from one tree summit to another. 

 Closer inspection of the bird reveals the fact 

 that " black" is scarcely the right adjective to 

 apply to it. Dark grey is the prevailing hue 

 of its plumage, with some black on the head 

 and a quantity of brown on the wings and tail. 

 The Himalayan species has a black cheek 

 stripe, which the other forms lack ; but it is 

 quite unnecessary to dilate upon these minute 

 differences. I trust I have said sufficient to 

 enable any man, woman, or suffragette to 

 recognise a noisy black bulbul, and, as the 

 distribution of each species is well defined and 

 does not overlap that of the other species, the 

 fact that a bird is found in any particular place 

 at once settles the question of its species. 



The South Indian bird occurs only in Ceylon 



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