94 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



singularly protective colouring may well fail to 

 attract attention even where they are relatively 

 common. Whilst at liberty they are very tame, 

 doubtless owing to confidence correlated to their 

 colouring, which renders them almost invisible 

 among masses of green foliage. In captivity they 

 are characterised by their greed and by the readiness 

 with which they become used to cage-life. Almost 

 at once after being caught they are willing to take 

 any specially attractive food, such as ripe plantains, 

 out of their captor's hand. When feeding on such 

 pulpy fruits they behave very differently from 

 Otocompsa or Molpastes ; for, in place of breaking 

 off small pieces and at once swallowing them, as 

 the latter birds do, they detach large masses and 

 keep them for some time in the mouth, working 

 their mandibles about and gradually sucking down 

 the softened material. They are particularly fond of 

 the ripening heads of inflorescence of the Kadam- 

 tree, Nauclea Kadumba, and allow themselves to 

 be very closely approached whilst busy over them. 

 Like other kinds of green bulbuls, they are highly 

 decorative objects as inmates of an aviary, and 

 are easily kept in good condition, so long as care 

 is occasionally taken to remove the curious, horny 

 epidermal sheaths that are apt gradually to form 

 over the surface of their tongues, and to interfere 

 with their power of sucking and swallowing their 

 food. 



