110 



Colours of soft parts. Iris brown ; legs slate-grey or bluish 

 slaty ; bill fleshy yellow. 



Measurements. Length about 100 mm.; wing 44 to 46 mm.; 

 tail about 52 mm.; culmen about 5 mm; 



Distribution. Hills south of the Brahmaputra from the Khasia 

 Hills to the Eastern ]S T aga Hills. ' 



Nidification. This little bird breeds in the Khasia and 

 N. Cachar Hills in May and June, making a very neat little, 

 <mp-shaped nest of tine grasses and shreds of bamboo-leaves 

 well fastened together with cobwebs and lined with the finest 

 grass-stems. It is placed low down in thick bushes or tangles of 

 creepers, both in scrub jungle and evergreen forest. The eggs 

 are generally three in number and are of a rather deep hedge- 

 sparrow's egg-blue, unspotted. In shape they are rather broad 

 ovals with the smaller end broad and blunt. Twenty eggs average 

 15'7 X 11*9 mm. 



Habits. Blyth's Suthora seems to be found at elevations 

 between 2,000 and 4,000 feet, wandering about in small flocks 

 in the denser undergrowth in evergreen forest or, less often, in 

 scrub and secondary growth. They are great skulkers and very 

 "hard to get a shot at as they climb and scramble through the 

 lower parts of the bushes, only showing themselves for a second 

 or two as they feebly flit from one bush to another. Their call- 

 note is a very plaintive little bleat, constantly uttered by each 

 member of the flock, and they also have a variety of low cheeps 

 and "chirrs." They feed both on insects and grass-seeds, etc. 



Hellmayr ('Genera A.vium,' p. 73) considers daflaensis separable 

 from true poliotis in that it has the feathers of the chin and 

 throat with longer white fringes than has the latter bird. I 

 .cannot separate the two races with the material available. 



(95) Suthora poliotis humii. 

 THE BLACK-FKOXTED SUTHOJIA. 



Suthora humii Sharpe, Cat. B. M., vii, p. 487 (1883) (Darjeeling); 

 Blanf. & Gates, i, p. 64. 



Vernacular names. None recorded. 



Description. Similar to S. p. poliotis, but has the ear-coverts 

 orange-chestnut and the flanks and vent orange-fulvous. 



Colours of soft parts as in poliotis. 



Measurements. Wing from 46 to 48 mm. 



Distribution. Native Sikkim extending to the hills about 

 Darjeeling. 



Nidification unknown. 



Habits similar to those of poliotis. 



