356 TIMALIID2. 
grey-brown to greenish-leaden, with a wax-yellow tinge on toes, 
more decided in males than foeee soles wax-yellow (Hume). 
Measurements. Length about 140 mm.; wing 62 to 65 mm. ; 
tail about 55 mm.; tarsus about 21 mm.; culmen about 10 toll mm. 
Female and young male differ from the adult male in having the 
back, rump, scapulars and upper t tail-coverts vinaceous brow n; 
the crimson on the wing is replaced by pinkish white and on the 
tail by pale red. 
Distribution. The Himalayas from Nepal to Eastern Assam in 
the Miri Hills, South to Manipur, Cachar, Naga Hills, ete. 
Nidification, The Red-tailed Minla breeds throughout its 
range between 5,000 and 10,000 feet, making a most lovely little 
pendent cup or deep purse of fine green moss, lined plentifully 
with wool, hair or vegetable down, sometimes hair and down 
being mixed. They are placed in small forks of bushes 4 to 
10 feet from the ground in evergreen forest. The eggs are two 
or three in number—Hodgson says four—and in colour just like 
the eggs of Propasser or Siva, that is to sav. deep Hedge- 
Sparrow’s ego-blue with a few spots and specks of black or 
reddish. Fifteen eggs average 19°3 x 14°6 mm. 
The breeding season is May and June. 
Habits. The Minla is found up to at least 10,000 feet and 
possibly still higher in the upper forested portions ‘of the Chambi 
Valley and Native Sikkim. It is said to go about in small parties, 
having much the habits of the Sivas, but in the Assam Hills it 
was very rare and I only saw it in pairs. In these hills it keeps 
much to the oak and rhododendron forest at about 6,000 feet. 
Genus HYPOCOLIUS Bonap., 1850. 
Since Blanford and Oates’s first edition of the Avifauna was 
published, Mr. W. D. Cumming has written in the Bombay 
Natural History Society’s Journal (vol. xil, pp. 760-765, 1900) 
some most interesting notes on this curious bird, whici tend 
rather to confirm than to disprove its position in the Liotrichine. 
The young are practically the same as the female in plumage and 
show no signs of barring, so that they cannot be placed in the 
Laniide or Campephagide. It has two moults but the plumage 
does not seem to differ, except that it is said to be brighter and 
clearer in the summer than in the winter. 
The sexes are dissimilar. 
In Hypocotius the bill is stout and broad at the base and about 
half the length of the head; the nostrils are small exposed ovals; 
the rictal bristles are weak but always clearly visible; the wing is 
short but pointed, the first primary being minute and the second 
reaching to the tip of the wing. The tail is long and slightly 
eraduated. The tarsus is very short and stout, shorter than the 
middie toe and claw and is coarsely scutellated, 
