171 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII, 
amongst reeds and in long grass, where it moves about like the babblers, 
taking short flights from reed to reed, alighting on the ground and 
then climbing again to the summit of a reed before once more taking 
flight. Once when Iwas camping in a jhum or cultivated clearing 
on a hill-side, in which the rice was almost ready for reaping, a pair 
of these birds used to come daily to feed, one or the other of them 
constantly flying off to a clump of bamboos at the edge of the jhum, 
where, on investigation, I found a nest containing four young birds 
fully fledged and quite ready to fly and, before I left the camp, they 
used to come with their parents into the rice field, where they were 
fed on the spot by them. They seemed quite unable to assist them- 
selves, and from what I could observe the duties of dry nurse were 
divided between the old birds, each of them taking care of two young 
ones. This was in October and unusually late for the young birds to be 
still nestlings. 
The principal sound I haye heard them utter is a note sounding like 
chir chirrup repeated two or three times quickly. I have heard them 
use this note when feeding only. The young birds, when being fed, 
fluttered their wings and gave a prolonged chir-r-r. 
Another cry, and one which seems to be common to this genus and 
Paradoxornis, is exactly like the bleat of a kid, so much so that, when I 
first heard it, I mistook it for that sound. 
Their flight is level but weak and never long sustained, their feet 
being their favourite means of locomotion. If they have to fly across 
an open space, they alternately flutter their wings and then spread them 
out and sail for a yard or two. When flying, their wings make a soft 
whirr unlike that of any other bird I know. 
They are chiefly insectivorous, but sometimes eat grain as well, 
though both the rice and berries which I have taken once or twice 
from their stomachs may have been swallowed together with the 
insects which were adhering to them.” 
(18) S. euLAris.—The Hoary-headed Crow Tit. 
Oates, No. 61; Hume, No. 374. 
Tn nidification, habits, and distribution closely similiar to the last bird. 
26 egos average °78" by °58", 
