934 TIMALIID®. 
bill black, yellowish at the nostrils; legs pale orange-yellow ; 
claws pinkish ; mouth yellow in winter, black in summer. 
Measurements. Length about 170 to 180mm.; wing 65 to 
70 mm.; tail about 85 to 90 mm.; tarsus about 25 mm.; culmen 
about 12 mm. 
Distribution. Whole of Indiaand Burma, except those portions 
noted as the habitat of the next form, South to Tenasserim and 
extending into Siam and Annam. 
Nidification. In Assam this Babbler breeds principally between 
the 15ti May and 15th July, but in India, further south, they 
breed trom June to September, whilst Col. Sparrow took them 
in Trimulgherry in October. The nest is a beautifully built cup 
or inverted cone of fine soft grass and fibre lined with the same 
and well bound with cobwebs. It may be placed in a bush, 
a weed, a clump of grass or in sugar-cane or crops. In Assam 
they build in the centre of the great seas of sun-grass which run 
for miles over the undulating plateaus between 1,000 and 3,000 
feet and are never found elsewhere, but in other parts of India 
they build in all kinds of scrub- and grass-land and even in 
gardens. The eggs number three to five and vary greatly in 
colour. The most common type is pale yellowish or pink 
in ground-colour, rather densely marked all over with light red 
speckles and spots or more rarely blotches. Another type has 
bold smears and blotches of pale pinky-red, reddish brown or 
deep purple-brown, sometimes with a few irregular streaks and 
lines and generally with some underlying marks of a dull neutral 
tint. <A third type has a pure white ground with bold blotches 
of deep purple-brown at the larger end. 100 eggs average 17-9 x 
14:9 mm.; the maxima are 20°3x 16:5 and 20-1 x16°6 mm., and 
the minima 16°8 x 15:0 and 17:0 x 13°6 mm. 
Habits. Found at all elevations from the plains up to nearly 
6,000 feet, but is most common under 2,500 feet. It is not a 
gregarious bird, but keeps in pairs, wandering about in grass, 
scrub, secondary growth and even in gardens and the bushes 
surrounding villages, but never in forest. It clambers about 
much as the typical Babblers do in the lower growths, but does 
not feed on the ground and flies better and more freely than 
they do. It has a sweet note, almost a song, in the breeding 
season, which it frequently utters from the top of some high 
piece of grass or other perch elevated above its surroundings. 
(235) Pyctorhis sinensis saturatior. 
Tur Baouran YELLOW-EYED BABBLER. 
Pyctorhis sinensis saturatior Ticehurst, Bull. B. O. C., xlii, p. 57 
(1922) (Bhutan Doars). 
Vernacular names. None recorded. 
