1898.] F. Finn — Prehension in Passerine Birds. 145 



Curiously enough, Kites themselves frequently carry nesting 

 material in their beaks, though food is carried by them in the feet. 



Among Passerine birds other than Crows, I have seen a Brown 

 Shrike (Lanius cristatus) in the Museum compound, carry off in its foot 

 a dragon-fly on which it was preying when disturbed ; and a King-crow 

 (Dicrurus ater) in a large compartment in one of the aviaries of the 

 Alipore Zoological Gardens similarly transported a butterfly I had given 

 it, when persecuted by other birds which wanted the insect. I have 

 also noticed that Bhimrajs {Bissemurus jparadiseus) which I have kept, 

 when disturbed with food in their foot, will still thus retain it when 

 shifting their position. 



This habit of grasping the food in one foot is just as characteristic of 

 the Drongos as of the true Shrikes, judging from what I have seen of 

 Dissemurus paradiseus and Dicrurus ater ; I have even seen the latter bird 

 apparently trying to eat something from its feet in the air. Chihia 

 hottentotta appears also to grasp its food with its foot when feeding, at 

 times. I have distinctly seen recently a Piping-crow (Gymnorhina) both 

 grasp its food with its foot like a Shrike and put it under one foot like a 

 Crow, in quick succession. 



The habit of using the foot as a hand (with the leg resting on the 

 ground or perch) would thus seem to be common to various Shrike-like 

 birds ; but it is rather surprising to find it markedly characteristic of 

 many of the Babblers, as I have done after studying many species in 

 captivity.* 



In the case of Crateropus canorus, Argya earlii, Garrulax leucolophus 

 and albigularis, Pyctorhis sinensis, Lioptila capistrata, Siva cyanuroptera^ 

 Liothrix luteusy Mesia argentauris, and ^githina tiphia, this action was 

 to be remarked, though some of these birds, at all events, frequently 

 employ the corvine method of putting the food under the foot simply, 

 and this was specially the case with Pyctorhis. Trochalopterum lineatum 

 and a species of Zoster ops I kept very seldom used their feet in feeding 

 and lanthocincla rufigularis and Pomatorhinus erythrogenys apparently 

 not at all, though I thoaglit I saw a sign of this in the last species. 



None of the various species of Bulbuls, however, which I have 

 kept from time to time, have ever shown any disposition to use their 

 feet in feeding, and in this respect Chloropsis also agrees with them 

 rather than with its obviously nearer relative ^githina. 



Myiophoneus temminckii, the only member of the Brachypterygince 



* BIyth, however, as quoted by Jerdon (Birds of India, vol, IV., pt. I., pp. 16 and 

 36,) has recorded the use of the foot in feeding by Pyctorhis sinensis and Dryonasfes 

 .-iinensis. I have allnded to the habit in some of these birds in my papers on th» 

 Theory of Warning Coloration and Mimicry, J. A. S. B., 1895 and 1897. 



