510 PELLORNEUM FUSCTCAPILLUM. 



Obs. This bird was placed by Blyth in the genus Drymocataphvs, which was instituted for a Malaccan species, 

 B. nigrocapitata, differing slightly in the proportion of its louger quill-feathers, and having a slightly different 

 type of plumage from Pellorneum. I have compared our bird with Pellorneum rvficeps of Southern India, and 

 the quills are the same, and also the bill. The proportion of the longer quills in any given species appears, in many 

 cases, to be an unsafe character, and certainly not worthy of consideration in the creation of genera, unless it be 

 thought desirable to burden ornithology with a still greater multiplicity of genera than it is at present hampered 

 with ! In the present case, for instance, the 7th quill is subject to variation in individuals, some having it equal 

 to the 6th and some shorter. In the type species of Drymocataphus the tail is shorter than the wing by about 

 the length of the bill, and in this it therefore differs from our bird and from typical Pellorneum : the wing is, 

 however, much the same in both forms ; and I scarcely think that the genus Drymocataphus is a good one, unless the 

 character of the head-plumage, as exemplified in the several species forming this little group, be allowed consideration 

 enough to justify its establishment. The present species was subsequently classed by Blyth as a Pellorneum, and 

 Mr. Holdsworth again restored it to its position as a Drymoeataplius. 



Distribution. — This little bird, one of the most interesting species peculiar to the island of Ceylon, was 

 discovered by Layard. He writes : — " But two specimens fell under my notice. One I killed with a blow- 

 pipe in my garden in Colombo, the other I shot in the Central Road." Mr. Holdsworth procured but one 

 specimen, shot in the north of the island, and, in common with Layard, conceived it to be a rare species, its 

 very shy and retiring nature, and its habit of only frequenting thick underwood, obviously giving rise to this idea. 

 On the contrary, however, it is a common and widely distributed bird, being found as a resident more or less 

 per the whole low country, with perhaps the exception of the Jaffna peninsula and some of the open coast 

 districts in the north-west. It is most numerous in regions covered with large tracts of jungle, occurring in 

 such places everywhere, and least so in cultivated portions of country, in which it is confined to wooded knolls 

 or overgrown waste land. It is, accordingly, scattered through all the jungle-clad low hills of the Galle 

 district, the flat forests of the south-east, and the wilds of the Eastern Province, as well as through the 

 entire forest-region of the north, across from Trincomalie (where it is numerous) to the confines of the open 

 ci uintry on the north-west, and thence down to the Chilaw and Kurunegala districts. In the Western Province 

 its distribution is partial, it being there most numerous in the jungles of the interior, of Saffragam, and in 

 the region lying at the base of the mountains. In these latter it is found, as also in the southern ranges, 

 ascending in the Kandyan Province to an altitude of about 5500 feet. In the district of Uva and in most 

 of the deep wood-dotted valleys below the coffee-estates it is common, frecpuenting likewise the intermediate 

 belts of forest above them in Haputale and the main range. 



I would here remark that there is no bird in Ceylon concerning the distribution of which my predecessors 

 in ornithological work appear to have been so misled. Scarcely any species shows itself less, but, on the 

 other hand, none make more noise from their place of concealment. An acquaintance with its note, therefore, 

 was required, and failing this one could not but pass it by completely. For my own part I imagined it, 

 during the first three years of my labours in Ceylon, to be one of the rarest of birds, for I could never meet 

 with it in the Western Province. Shortly after I went to Galle, while collecting one morning in the vicinity 

 of the Bonavista Orphanage (to the hospitable and kind superintendent of which I am indebted for the 

 passing of many a pleasant hour in one of the most charming little bungalows in the low country), I was 

 attracted by a bird-note which I remembered often to have heard, and on procuring its owner was surprised 

 to find that I had at last obtained this much-looked-for species. In the same manner I captured it very soon 

 afterwards near Wackwella, and then in other copses in the neighbourhood, and soon ceased to pay any 

 attention to its whistle. On going to Trincomalie my first day's trip into the jungle renewed my acquaintance 

 with my little friend, and so on wherever I travelled I continued to hear the garrulous bird, until it had to be 

 noted in my catalogue as a common and widely distributed species, and as such was spoken of in my account 

 of the birds of the south-west hill-region ('Ibis/ 1874). To this Mr. Holdsworth, who had not made the 

 acquaintance of its note, somewhat naturally took exception in his comment on my paper published in the 

 following number of the 'Ibis.' Mr. Bligh, however, knows it to be a common bird in the Haputale jungles; 

 and those who hereafter work in the ornithological field of Ceylon will, I doubt not, substantiate my 

 experience. 



Habits, — This Babbler, as has just been remarked, is a very shy and retiring bird, and a denizen, for the 



