Distribution o/Paradoxoruis heudei. 181 



year round*; the lack of gizzard-muscle is opposed to 

 the digestion of hard things. The food easiest obtained 

 and which appears in all stomachs examined, frequently to 

 the exclusion o£ all else, is a curious insect shaped like 

 a flat capsule with a transparent tough coat, resembling 

 a miniature oval pancake about ^" x J". These are found in 

 most of the reeds^ lying in clusters near the nodes, plastered 

 on the hard stem of the reed and covered by the sheath, 

 which only requires to be stripped off to disclose the capsules 

 — an operation that presents no difficulty to the beak even of 

 so small a bird as the Peuduliue Tit {/^githalos consobrind) . 

 But the massive bill of Paradoaornis is designed for heavier 

 work, and is, in fact, used for tearing open the hard reed- 

 stems themselves, to obtain access to their pithy centres — 

 no light job with reeds of such gigantic stature. 



The "modus opei-andi is first to discover the tiny circular 

 hole by which the insect originally gained access to the 

 interior of the reed, then, having inserted the point of 

 the upper mandible in the hole and grasped the reed wdth 

 wide-straddled feet, it wrenches and twists, swinging with 

 the whole weight of the body until sufficient strips have 

 been torn away to open up the iusect-larder inside. (See 

 Plate VIII.) 



The rustling, crunching, and tearing noises made by a 

 party o£ birds so engaged may frequently be heard before 

 catching sight of them ; and so the flock works steadily 

 through the reed-forest, flitting from one reed to another, 

 generally alighting near the base and climbing upwards — 

 a ceaseless round of examination, tearing, wrenching, and 

 assimilation, so absorbing that there seems time for little 

 else. 



Generally, as one advances in dry reed-jungle, where 

 every step produces elephant-crashing noises, the bird- 

 population, warned, flits on ahead, and is difficult of 

 approach. Not so P. heudei, he is much too busy and 

 unconcerned to give the intruder more than an inquisitive 



* This is at variance with Stj an, ' Ibis,' 1891, p. 386. 



