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G A N G E T I C H I N D O O S T A N. 261 



it haunts the rice fields, and preys on frogs and other reptiles, 

 and on the fi^^ht of mankind fets up a loud cry. 



Of the Butcher birds here is .a fpecies as big as a jackdaw, Shrikes. 

 with the bill much arched, the plumage gloifed with purple ; 

 on the neck a hackle of blue feathers, on the crown a thin tuft 

 of long ha airs inclining backwards ; the external feather of the 

 tail an inch longer than the others, and bending outwards. 



A NEW fpecies, fliot at Bengal, is defciibed by Major Oufeley\ Fichtin-s 

 in N° I. p. p. 15, 16, of the Oriental Colledions, under the name 

 of the fighting Bulbul, being trained for battle for the amufe- 

 ment of the natives. It is about the fize of a blackbird ; the 

 bill, head, and legs are black, the head and neck black. On the 

 head is a rifing creft; the body and wings cinereous; the fea- 

 thers edged with black ; the tail black, tipt with white ; the 

 vent a rich fcarlet; poffibly a diftindtion in the male fex. 



This fpecies, like all the relt, (as the generic name Strike 

 implies) has probably a mofi; harfii note, yet is called Bulbiil, the 

 Perfian name for the nightingale, the firfl: of feathered fong- 

 fters. We have not yet heard of its being difcovered in Hin- 

 dooftan, yet it may be found in tlie north of that empire ; they 

 are common in Perjia. Sir JVillia'm Jones tells a moft pleafing 

 ftory of a celebrated Lutanift, Mirza Mahomed^ furnamed Bul- 

 bid'i from the fweetnefs of his mufic. A friend of Sir William'^ 

 aflured him, that he had been more than once prefent when 

 Mirza was playing to a large company in a grove near Sbiraz, 

 in Lat. 29" 40' north, where he diftin6tly law the nightingales 

 trying to vie with the mufician, fometimes warbling on the 

 trees, fometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they 



wiflied 



