110 PARA DOXORNITHID#. 
Colours of soft parts. Iris brown; legs slate-grey or bluish 
slaty ; bill fleshy yellow. 
Measurements. Length about 100 mm.; wing 44 to 46 mm.; ° 
tail about 52 mm.; culmen about 5 mm. 
Distribution. Hills south of the Brahmaputra from the Khasia 
Hills to the Eastern Naga Hills. 
Nidification. This little bird breeds in the Khasia and 
N. Cachar Hills in May and June, making a very neat little, 
cup-shaped nest of fine grasses and shreds of bamboo-leaves 
well fastened together with cobwebs and lined with the finest 
grass-stems. It is placed low down in thick bushes or tangles of 
creepers, both in scrub jungle and evergreen forest. The eggs 
are generally three in number and are of a rather deep hedge- 
sparrow’s egg-blue, unspotted. In shape they are rather broad 
ovals with the smaller end broad and blunt. Twenty eggs average 
1a: 7 x19 mm. 
Habits. Blyth’s Suthora seems to be found at elevations 
between 2,000 and 4,000 feet, wandering about in small flocks 
in the denser undergrowth in evergreen forest or, less often, in 
scrub and secondary growth. They are great skulkers and very 
hard to get a shot at as they climb and scramble through the 
lower parts of the bushes, only showing themselves for a second 
or two as they feebly flit from one bush to another. Their call- 
note is a very plaintive little bleat, constantly uttered by each 
member of the flock, and they also have a variety of low cheeps 
and ‘‘chirrs.” They feed both on insects and grass-seeds, etc. 
Helimayr (‘Genera Avium,’ p. 73) considers daflaensis separable 
from true poliotis in that it has the feathers of the chin and 
throat with longer white fringes than has the latter bird. I 
cannot separate the two races with the material available. 
(95) Suthora poliotis humii. 
Tun BLACK-FRONTED SuTHORA. 
Suthora humit Sharpe, Cat. B. M., vii, p. 487 (1883) (Darjeeling) ; 
DBlanf. & Oates, i, p. 64. 
Vernacular names. None recorded. 
Description. Similar to S. p. poliotis, but has the ear-coverts 
orange-chestnut and the flanks and vent orange-fulvous. 
Colours of soft parts as in poliotis. 
Measurements. Wing trom 46 to 48 mm. 
Distribution. Native Sikkim extending to the hills about 
Darjeeling. 
Nidification unknown. 
Habits similar to those of poltotis. 
