94- 



Genus Ploceus, Cuv. Weaver Bird. 



106. Ploceus Philippensis, Cuv. Philippine Grosbeak, Lath. 



The Weaver Bird is very common in Dukhun, and there are few 

 wells overhung by a tree where their nests are not seen pen- 

 dent. They live in small communities, and are very noisy in 

 their labours. They associate so readily with the common 

 Sparrotv that at the season of the falling of the grass seeds 

 Colonel Sykes, in firing into a flock of Sparroivs on the grass 

 plats in his own grounds, killed as many Weaver Birds as 

 Sparroivs. Fruit of the Ficus Indica and grass seeds have been 

 found in the stomach. Irides intense brown. 



107. Ploceus Jlavico His, Fringiila JlavicoUis, Frankl. 



This bird has so nearly the bill, tongue, irides, size and aspect of 

 Ploc. Philippensis, that Colonel Sykes has considered it a 

 Ploceus. Grass seeds and a few grains of rice found in the 

 stomach. Very rare in Dukhun. 



Genus Fringiila, Auct, Finch. 



108. Fringiila crucigera, Temm., PI. Col. 269. fig. 1. Duree Finch, 



Lath. 

 This minute bird has the strange habit of squatting on the high 

 roads and almost allowing itself to be ridden over ere it rises. 

 Smaller tlian a Sparroiv. Irides red brown. Coleopterous 

 insects, maggots, and seeds of Panicum spicatum found in the 

 stomachs of many sjjecimens. This bird has the straight hind 

 claw of a iMrk, and should therefore neither be classed as a 

 Fringiila, agreeably to M. Temminck, nor as a Passer, agree- 

 ably to Brisson. Its habits also separate it from both these 

 genera. M. Temminck in his Plate has placed it on a twig, 

 but it never perches. 



Genus Lonchura. 



Rostrum forte, breve, latum, altitudine ad basin longitudinem 

 gequans; mandibulis integris, superiori in frontem angulariter exten- 

 dente, cumque eo circuli arcura formante. 



Alts mediocres, subacuminatae; remigibus, Ima brevissimfi sub- 

 spuria, 2da .'3tia 4trique fere aequalibus longissimis. 



Cauda gradata, lanceolata; rectricibus mediis cseteras pauUo Ion- 

 gitudine superantibus. 



Pedes mediocres, subgraciles. 



The peculiar spear-head form of the tail, and the ridge of the 

 upper mandible and the forehead, forming a segment of the same 

 circle, together with the habits of the following species, afford suf- 

 fficient characteristics to justify their separation from the genus 

 Fringiila of M. Temminck. The Gros-bec longicone of the PI. Col. 96. 

 (Emb. quadricolor, Lath.) belongs to the same group. 



109. Lonchura niso7-ia. Fringiila nisoria, Temm. Gros-bec epervin, 

 PI. Col. 500. Fig. 2. 

 Found only in the Ghauts. Grass seeds in the stomach. Length 

 5,^0 inches : tail 1 A to 2 inches. Sexes alike. 



