3a4 TIMALIID&. 
Description—Male. Upper plumage greenish yellow; tail, 
central tail-feathers green, tipped vlack, next four pairs black 
tipped white, these white tips increasing in size outwardly until 
the outermost are wholly white ; a white ring round the eye; ear- 
coverts yeliow; a black spot behind the ear-coverts ; a broad 
supercilium bluish white ; nape bluish-ashy ; lores and lines above 
and below the eye meeting behind it black; chin, throat and 
upper breast deep chestnut ; remaining lower plumage bright yeilow. 
Wings brown, the feathers edged with bluish grey and the inner 
secondaries wholly of this colour and all the quills but a few of the 
first primaries tipped with white; lesser wing-coverts black edged 
with grey; greater coverts black, broadly tipped with white ; 
primary-coverts and winglet black. 
Colours of soft parts. Iris hazel or hight brown; bill plumbecus ; 
legs and feet fleshy-white. 
Measurements. Length about 120 mm.; wing 60 to 63 mm.; 
tail about 45 to 46 mm.; tarsus about 20 mm.; culmen about 
7 to 8 mm, 
Female. Differs from the male in having salmon-pink tips to 
the wing instead of white, the chestnut of the throat not reaching 
the breast, and in having the lores and lines through the eyes brown 
and not black. 
The young are like the female but the upper plumage is olive- 
brown and the lower plumage is yellowish white; the nape is con- 
colorous with the back and there are no black lines through the eyes. 
Distribution. The Himalayas from Nepal to E. Assam both 
North and South of the Brahmaputra; Manipur. 
Nidification, This beautiful little Babbler breeds from 4,000 feet 
upwards in the hills of 8S, Assam and according to Hodgson at 
6,000 or 7,000 feet in Nepal. It makes a lovely little cradle-like 
nest of fine roots, a little moss and lichen, occasionally an odd twig 
or leaf or two, scantily lined with rhizomorph from a fungus or 
very fine moss roots. It may be placed either in a horizontal fork 
or pendent between two or more small twigs and at any height 
from the ground from 5 to 16 feet, in bush or small sapling. 
They breed from the middle of April to the middle of June, laying 
four or five, or even six eggs. ‘These are of two types—a delicate 
pinky-lilae with fine specks and tiny blotches of dark purple, mostly 
confined to the larger end,or a pale pink with similar marks of 
pale reddish brown with others underlying of pale lilac and neutral 
tint. The shape is a regular or rather broad oval and the texture 
soft and fine, glossless and rather fragile. Thirty-four eggs 
average 17°9X13°5 mm. and the extremes are 19°1 x 14°4 mm. and 
16°8 x 13:0 mm, and 17:4 12°6 mm. 
Habits. This little bird seems to be invariably found in pairs 
only, frequenting both lofty trees and the higher bushes and 
brushwood. It is essentially a forest bird but at the same time 
keeps to the more open parts and to the vicinity of jungle-tracks, 
