364 PYCNONOTID®. 
site was low down in some thick tangle of canes and bushes 
growing amongst palm-ferns. The nests are very heavily made, 
hemispherical cups of leaves, bamboo- spathes ete., wound round 
with roots, grass and stems of weeds; the inner lining is generally 
of bamboo leaves but there is alw ays also a true lining of coarse, 
red roots of ferns and bracken. Roughly the nests average 
about 5" x 23” externally and 33! x13” internally. Oates men- 
tions ace ‘these nests 10 feet up in small trees but nearly all 
mine were less than 4 feet from it. The birds lay in May and 
June and often during the early rains of July and August, and in 
North Assam and Sikkim, where the rains do not break 1 until June, 
few nests will be found before that month. The normal clutch 
of eggs is two only, sometimes three and very rarely four. They 
are extremely beautiful eggs ; the ground-colour is a deep salmon, 
rarely with a lilac tinge, and the. markings consist of irregular 
lines, specks and blotches of different shades of blood- red and 
maroon with secondary markings, sometimes absent, of grey and 
neutral tint. The markings are generally rather profuse every- 
where, but in some are confined to the larger end and the lines 
are generally on this part of the egg. The surface is hard, fine 
and intensely glossy and the shape is a long oval, distinctly 
pointed at the smaller end. 
One hundred eggs average 26°9x18°6 mm. and the extremes 
are 27°5 x 186 mm.; 26°1 x 20:0 mm.; 23°3 x 18:3 mm. and 24°8 x 
18:0 mm. 
Habits. Though this Bulbul may be found up to 6,000 feet, it 
is typically a bird of the humid forests of valleys between 1 000 
and 3,000 feet. On rare occasions it may wander into bamboo- 
jungle but it is essentially a resident of tree-forest with the most 
thickly grown underwood. It is, unlike most Bulbuls, really 
gregarious, wandering about the bushes, cane-brakes and scrub in 
small parties of half-a-dozen to a dozen, creeping and clambering 
about them very much in the same manner as do the Laughing- 
Thrushes. It is, however, a good flyer when forced to take wing, 
though it prefers pedestrian work when possible. It feeds on 
both insects and seeds and fruit, and in North Cachar was very 
partial to the berries of a babool-like tree (Phyllanthus emlica), 
swallowing them whole although they were as big as marbles. 
They are noisy birds with a few sweet calls and many dis- 
cordant ones. 
(381) Criniger tephrogenys burmanicus. 
Tue Burmese WHITE-THROATED BULBUL. 
Criniger burmanicus Oates, Fauna B. I., Birds, i, p. 256 (1889) 
(Tounghoo). 
Vernacular names. None recorded. 
Description. Similar to C. ¢. faveolus but with the upper parts 
less olive-green and more greyish, especially on the head and 
crest; the upper breast is white as well as the chin and throat. 
