166 TIMELIID^E. 



Hab Tenasserim, on the Mooleyit mountain (Tretoungplee), where Col, 

 Tickell first discovered it. 



Gen. Alcippe. Blyth. 



Bill short, moderately stout and compressed ; culmen curved, hooked 

 and notched ; a few rictal setae ; wings moderate, rounded, 4th and 5th 

 quills generally equal ; tail moderate or rather short, very slightly rounded ; 

 tarsus stout ; head sub-crested. Birds of small size and plain sombre plumage 

 ranging through the hills of Southern and Western India and Ceylon, also 

 the Himalayas and the hills of N.-E. Bengal. 



648. Alcippe vinipectUS (Hodgs.), Sharpe, Cat. B. Br. Mus. 

 vii. p. 619. Siva vinipectus, Eodgs. 2nd. Rev. 1838, p. 89. Leiothrix 

 vinipectus, Gray, Gen. B. i. p. 262 ; Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. As. S&c. p. loo. 

 Proparus vinipectus, Hodgs., J. A. S. B. xiii. p. 938 ; Jerd>. B. Ind. ii. 

 p. 257; Hume, Str. F. 1879, p. 104. The PLAIN-BROWN HILL-TIT or 

 QUAKER-THRUSH. 



Head crested ; upper surface of the body brown, tinged with rusty on the 

 rump and on the wing coverts; quills dark brown, the secondaries tinged 

 with rusty, the primaries lavender grey for one-half the length of their outer 

 webs; tail brown, the feathers rusty on their outer web; crown of the head, 

 hind neck, ear coverts, mantle and sides of the neck vinous brown, duller on 

 the sides of the neck and darker on the crown and hind neck ; a broad 

 supercilium extending from above the eye to the sides of the hind neck white ; 

 a second black streak above the supercilium extending down the sides of the 

 neck ; cheeks and throat white, streaked with vinous brown ; breast vinous 

 brown with paler centres ; under surface of the body, including the under tail 

 coverts, dull fulvous brown; under wing coverts paler, the axillaries white with 

 a vinous tinge. Bill and legs fleshy brown. 



Length.^ to 4-9 inches; wing 2-15; tail 2-15; tarsus 0-85; culmen 

 0-45- 



Sharpe says that there is considerable variation in the strength of the brown 

 striping on the breast, and that in some birds it is scarcely visible. 



, Himalayas, extending into the hill ranges of N.-E. Bengal. Has 

 been obtained between Simla and Mussoorie, also Nepaul and Darjeeling. 

 Breeds about Simla, making a rather compact massive cup-like nest composed 

 of blades of grass. The egg, Hume says, is a moderately elongated oval, 

 slightly compressed towards one end ; it has a pale green ground, and near the 

 large end a strongly marked but very irregular sepia brown zone and pale 

 stains of the same colour here and there. 



