572 PICARIAN BIRDS. 



and seeds, but it will to some extent accommodate itself as regards food to the 

 produce of the locality in which it happens to be located. It is rather a lively 

 bird, and sometimes suspends itself below the fruit on which it is feeding, and 

 makes its repast while hanging in that position. Mr. Layard designates the note 

 of this bird as of three syllables, poo-poo-poop, resembling those of the copper- 

 smith of India. 



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

 ' which is only 6 inches in length, while the majority of the species 

 scarcely exceed 3 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 hammer 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 colour of the tinker-birds is black, 

 streaked or spotted with yellow ; the forehead being red or yellow. 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 hayi) is a member 

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

 Tenasserim through the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra, and is remarkable 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 6J 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 

 largest of the whole family, measuring over a foot in length; one 

 (M. marshallorum) inhabiting the Himalaya, while the other (M. virens) extends 

 from Burma to Southern China. The colour 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 Himalayan 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. According to Mr. 

 Thompson, the hillmen have a story that a person who suffered unjustly from law- 

 suits, and who died in consequence, was changed into this bird, whose cry is, 

 un-nee ow, un-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 

 Chotorhed 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 



