THE BARBETS 1749 



There are thirteen of these tiny birds (Barbatula}, the largest of 

 " R f h which is only six inches in length, while the majority of the species 



scarcely exceed three inches. They are all inhabitants of tropical 

 Africa, occurring everywhere from Senegambia and Abyssinia south to the 

 Cape Colony. Of the little tinker barbet of Natal (B. pusilla) Mr. Ayres writes 

 that ' ' the note of this curious little bird so much resembles the tapping of a ham- 

 mer on an anvil (having that peculiar metallic ring) that it is called in Natal the 

 tinker bird. It is silent during the winter months, commencing its monotonous 

 cry in the spring, and continuing it throughout the summer. The color of the 

 tinker birds is black, streaked or spotted with yellow; the forehead being red or yel- 

 low. In some of them, there is a white or yellow eyebrow, and a band of red or 

 yellow across the rump. 



Like the preceding, this barbet ( Calorhamphus hayf) is a member 



of the smooth-billed section of the family. It ranges from Southern 



Tenasserim, through the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra, and is remark- 

 able for its sombre plumage, being dark brown, washed with olive yellow on the 

 upper parts and yellowish white below, with the throat tinted with red. The bill is 

 black in the male, and reddish or ochre brown in the female. The length of the 

 bird is about six and one-half inches. In Borneo a second species occurs, with a 

 brighter and more brick-red throat (C. fuliginosus], 



This genus (Megalcema) contains only two species, which are the 

 e * largest of the whole family, measuring over a foot in length; one (M. 



marshallorum) inhabiting the Himalayas, while the other {M. virens} 

 extends from Burma to Southern China. The color is green, with a brownish 

 mantle, and the hind-neck streaked with yellow; the head is blue, as is also the 

 under surface, except on the sides of the body, which are green, and the fore-neck, 

 which is dark brown marked with greenish blue; the bill is pale yellow. The Him- 

 alayan species is a well-known feature of the hill country, where its curious wailing 

 cry is often heard, especially in all the warmer and well- wooded valleys. Accord- 

 ing to Mr. Thompson, the hillmen have a story that a person who suffered unjustly 

 from lawsuits, and who died in consequence, was changed into this bird whose cry 

 is un-nee ow, tin-nee ow, meaning, "Injustice, injustice." This species and its 

 Burmese ally both appear to make their own nest holes, which they drill into a tree 

 like a woodpecker, many of the barbets laying their eggs in holes on the under side 

 of a branch. All the larger green barbets of the genera Cyanops and Chotorhea 

 also hollow out their own nest holes, and Colonel Legge says that, in the case of 

 the Ceylonese barbet the same nest hole is not used twice; " but, having found a 

 tree with wood suited to its work, it perforates it each year for the new nest as 

 many as eight or ten holes being sometimes visible in a tree by a jungle roadside. 

 It is only when sounding wood before making its nest that these birds tap with 

 their bills, the blows being very slowly repeated, with perhaps an interval of ten 

 seconds between each." Colonel Legge also states that there are generally a few 

 bents and grass stalks collected for the eggs to lie on, but they are scarcely worthy 

 of the name of nest. Mr. Hume once discovered in the nest hole made by a blue- 

 faced barbet a large pad consisting almost exclusively of coarse vegetable fibre, 



