104 PARADOXORNITHID®. 
(89) Conostoma semodium. 
Tur Great Parrot-Bitu. 
Conostoma emodius Hodgs., J. A.S. B., x, p. 857 (1841) (Nepal). 
Conostoma emodium. Blanf, & Oates, i, p. 61. 
Vernacular names. The Red-billed Jay-Thrush (Jerdon); The 
Red-tilled Crow-Trt (Oates); Lho-ranaio-pho (Lepeha). 
Description. Lores and feathers in front of the eye dark 
brown; forehead greyish white ; upper plumage olive-brown with 
a rufous tinge; outer edges of primaries ashy ; of the secondaries 
rufous, their tips and the whole of the innermost secondaries 
ashy; tail ashy grey, more or less washed-.with rufous along the 
middle of the feathers; chin, throat, and sides of the head brown, . 
with a vinous tinge, becoming paler on the rest of the lower 
plumage. 
Fig. 21.—Head of C. emodium. 
Colours of soft parts. Bill horny or dull orange; legs pale to 
plumbeous or slate-grey ; iris brown. 
Measurements. Length about 200 mm.; wing about 130 to 
133 1nm.; tailabout 140 mm.; tarsus about 37 mm.; culmen about 
20 mm. and from gape 25 mm. 
Distribution. From Nepal, through Sikkim and the higher 
ranges of hills of North Assam into Tibet and W. China. 
Nidification. Breeds in Sikkim in May. Hume describes the 
nests as shallow, almost hemispheral cups very compactly made of 
grass and lined with the finest grass-stems. A nest sent to me 
was similar but deeper in shape, measuring about 130mm. in 
breadth and about 105mm. in external depth. All the nests 
were placed in clumps of ringal bamboo at elevations of over 
10,000 feet, except one sent me which had been built in high 
reeds. 
The egg is a dull white sparsely spotted, speckled and smudged 
with yellowish brown and inky purple. The only two eggs known 
both measure about 27°8 x 20-4 mm. 
Habits. The Great Parrot-Bill is a bird of very high elevations 
breeding between 10,000 and 12,000 and descending in winter 
