PYCNONOTIDA, 259) 
Grtttirenee 
“te 
Fig. 69.—Molpastes leucotis. 
Family PYCNONOTIDZ. 
Oates in the first edition of the Avifauna retained the Bulbuls 
as a Subfamily, Brachypodine, of the Timaliide but they seem to 
me to be sufficiently well differentiated to warrant them being 
treated as a separate family. They form a very numerous group 
of birds, which are found throughout Southern Asia, practically 
the whole of Africa, and also the extreme South-West of Europe. 
The two principal features by which the Pycnonotide can be 
distinguished from the Timaliide are the comparatively short 
tarsus and the presence of some hairs which grow from the 
nape. These hairs are often long, fairly numerous and con- 
spicuous, sometimes short, few and inconspicuous but never 
entirely absent. It is this latter character which separates them 
from the Timaltide, which have short tarsi, such as Chloropsis, 
Hgithina ete., in addition to which the sexes are alike in the 
Bulbuls but different in those genera. 
In the Bulbuls the young are practically like the adults but 
sometimes paler and duller and sometimes darker and duller as in 
Hemivus. 
