BABBLERS AND BULBULS 83 



versation is absent for any length of time, unless it 

 be in periods of violently tempestuous weather, which 

 is very incommoding to birds of such lax plumage 

 and feeble flight. They are quite surprisingly ugly 

 and mean-looking ; something like debased thrushes, 

 with loose, dirt- coloured feathering, limply s waggling 

 tails, degraded heads, and a general air of low, 

 fussy curiosity ; but one cannot but respect the 

 social and affectionate nature that leads them to 

 go about so constantly in small companies. Except 

 during the nesting season they are always to be 

 found in small parties, usually of six or seven 

 individuals, from which circumstance they derive 

 their common Hindi name of sdt bhai, or seven 

 brothers. These groups, I am disposed to believe, 

 really consist of family parties representing excep- 

 tionally persistent examples of those which are 

 often to be seen in the case of other birds for some 

 time after the nesting season. In the case of the 

 common little barbets and in that of the tree-pies, 

 the young broods of each season go about with their 

 parents for some time after they are fully able to 

 provide for themselves, and it may well be that, 

 in the case of such foolish and feeble birds as 

 babblers, such family association may have been 

 of sufficient practical utility to have led to the 

 gradual evolution of an exceptional persistence of 

 the habit. The nucleus of any group of babblers, 

 according to this view, is to be regarded as repre- 



