PYCNONOTIDJE. 



o 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 130mm.; 

 the females, as usual, being decidedly the smaller ; tail about 1 12 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 J une 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 

 ground, 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, in a 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 Molpastes 

 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 



