136 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



shortest sea -route from South India to the north of the Island 

 in October. It then makes its way to the central hills. Many 

 of our visitors are yearling birds. The species occurs over 

 the greater part of India, being a resident on many of the 

 hill ranges and visiting the plains in winter. 



Habits. — A skulking bird, which keeps almost entirely 

 to the undergrowth in forest, appearing for short periods 

 at the edge of the jungle, or by the side of jungle paths, 

 and searching actively on the ground for the insects on 

 which it feeds. 



Sub-family Turdinse. 



Thrushes. 



The true Thrushes are larger and, as a rule, more gregarious 

 than the other sub-families of the Turdidse. Their food is 

 not wholly insectivorous, and berries form a considerable 

 part of their diet. The eight species found in Ceylon are all 

 of fairly stout build and of medium size from 8 to 10^ inches 

 in length. None of them are very familiar, as they are all 

 local in their distribution ; most of them are rare, and all, 

 save one or two, are met with only in the hills. Four species 

 are peculiar to this Island, while the others are, with one 

 possible exception, rare migrants. The first six species on 

 the list are structurally much alike, and there has been 

 considerable diversity of opinion in dividing them into 

 genera. The wing is moderate, and generally somewhat 

 pointed ; the tail is never of great length, and in Geocichla 

 and Oreocincla is distinctly short ; the rictal bristles are feeble ; 

 the tarsus is moderately long, stout, and serviceable. The 

 birds spend a good deal of their time on the ground. There 

 is one moult a year, in the autumn, but in many species there 

 is a partial change of plumage in spring, due to the dropping 

 off of the margins of the feathers. In the young the lower 

 plumage is more or less barred or spotted, and in some 

 species this characteristic is maintained in the adults. As 

 regards the last two species, Arrenga blighi and Ire7ia puella, 

 I have followed Stuart Baker in transferring them from the 

 Crateropodidee to the Turdinse, although the young are no 

 longer spotted. Arrenga blighi is Thrush-like in its general 



