Foreign Thrush-Like Birds. 13 



Chapter II. 

 FOREIGN THRUSH-LIKE BIRDS. 



The typical foreign Thrushes are rarely imported into this country, 

 and .of the ten or eleven species which occasionally come to hand, 

 nearly all have found their way to public Zoological Gardens ; but 

 three or four years ago Mr E. W. Harper brought home from India 

 a nice little consignment of Ouzels, and of the Grey- winged species 

 he gave away several to owners of aviaries in England : of one of 

 them I was a recipient. In their sexual characters the structural 

 features are, as might be expected, similar to those of the European 

 Thrushes, the males being more slender in build, with longer and 

 narrower bills than the females. 



The Grey-winged Ouzel (Merula boulboul). 



The male is black, with a whitish-edged grey patch on the wing ; 

 the female brownish-ashy, paler below, and with whitish-edged red- 

 brown patch on the wing. 



I have had to sex most of the succeeding groups of Thrush-like 

 birds by comparison of numerous skins in the collection of the 

 Natural History Museum ; this is a far more difficult proceeding 

 than when one has undoubted adult living examples, or skins of such 

 as one has kept, and therefore knows to a certainty that they are 

 adult. In young birds, even after their assumption of full plumage 

 the bill still retains some of the character of the nestling, so that it 

 corresponds with that sex which, when adult, retains the broader 

 bill ; however, with a good series, one can arrive at the truth. The 

 carelessness of collectors and taxidermists sometimes complicates 

 matters, undoubted males being occasionally labelled as females, and 

 vice versa. 



In the Rock-Thrushes (Monticola) the female is noticeably smaller 

 than the male ; but, unlike the typical forms of Thrush, the female 

 has the more slender bill. 



Common Rock-Thrush (Monticola saxatilis). 



The female is without the bright colours of the male, to which it 

 bears little resemblance ; its upper surface being greyish-brown with 

 darker streaking and paler mottling ; the under-surface yellowish- 

 brown, with dark bars ; sides of head and throat whitish ; wing- 

 coverts and tail brownish-red. 



In the Dayal-birds (Copsychus) the bill of the male is considerably 

 longer and more slender than that of the female ; the entire bird 

 also is longer. 



