370 PYCNONOTID®. 
of wings and tail black; ear-coverts, chin, throat, breast and 
flanks grey ; abdomen and vent paler, the feathers being grey with 
white edges ; under tail-coverts grey with broad white margins. 
Fig. 74.—Head of M. p. psaroides. 
Colours of soft parts. Iris dark or hazel-brown ; bill and legs 
bright coral-red, the claws horny-brown. 
Measurements. Length about 250 mm.; wing 120 to 130 mm.; 
the females, as usual, being decidedly the smaller; tail about 112 to 
120 mm.; tarsus about 18°5 to 19°5 mm.; culmen about 21 mm. 
Distribution. Western Himalayas to Bhutan. How far this 
bird extends East in Assam is not yet known, A specimen 
obtained by Dr. Falkiner in the Abor Hills is nearer the next 
form; one of the big tributaries of the Brahmaputra such as the 
Subansiri or the Dihang will probably be the dividing line 
between the two. 
Nidification. The Himalayan Black Bulbul breeds in con- 
siderable numbers at all heights between 2,000 and 7,000 feet, 
occasionally even higher than this. The principal breeding 
months are May and June but eggs are laid both earlier and later 
by at least a month. The nest is generally a rather shallow cup, 
made of almost any vegetable material but for the main part of 
fine elastic twigs, lichen, roots and a few leaves well plastered 
with cobwebs where it is attached to the horizontal fork in which 
it is cradled. Often it is placed at very great heights from the 
eround, 50 or 60 feet up on the outer branches of some great 
forest tree; at other times it is placed in a small sapling and 
yet again, though but very rarely, ina tall bush. It is usually a 
very difficult nest to find and an even harder one to obtain when 
found. ‘The site selected is most often in thin forest on the out- 
skirts of heavier forest but it does now and then build well inside 
the interior of very dense forest. 
The eggs number two or three or, according to Hodgson, four 
and are very like the eggs of the common forms of Jolpastes 
though so much bigger. The ground varies from pure white to 
pale pink or even a fairly warm salmon-pink and are covered, 
generally densely, sometimes only sparingly, with specks, spots 
and small blotches of various shades of red, reddish brown or 
umber-brown with others underlying these of neutral tint and 
