38 GARDEN AND AVIARY BIRDS. 



birds than this species, plumaged in French-grey black, 

 white, and chestnut, but with an unmistakeable family 

 resemblance to their sombre relative. They all have 

 similar habits, solitary and sedentary, with harsh voices 

 and a deadly grip of bill. They are most useful birds in 

 either field or garden, and should be rigidly protected 

 for their services in destroying grass-hoppers, mice, 

 &c. Those that breed with us make large open nests 

 in trees or bushes, and lay greenish -white eggs with 

 brown spots. 



THE SHORT-BILLED MINIVET (Pericrocotus brevirostris), 

 figured on Plate IV (Fig. 1) is a type of a quite different 

 style of Shrike. The Minivets, often called Rajah Lai, 

 are birds of a harmless disposition only preying on in- 

 sects ; their bills and feet are weak, their wings rather 

 long, and their tails decidedly so, with the centre pairs 

 of feathers much the longest. They go about in parties, 

 fluttering from bough to bough, and clinging to the twigs 

 in search of insects. In most species the sexes are ab- 

 solutely different in colour, though both are very pretty, 

 the males being red-and-black and the females yellow- 

 and-grey. The young are like the hens, but barred like 

 other young Shrikes. 



The Short-billed Minivet is a very widely-spread and 

 common species, being found all along the Himalayas and 

 parts of the plains adjacent to them. It ranges up to 

 10,000 feet and extends south to Karennee, Arrakan 

 and the Salween River. Eastern male specimens are 

 a deeper and richer red than western ones. The male is 

 the sex represented in the Plate : the hen is yellow 



