940 On the Leiotrichane Birds of the Subhemalayas. [No. 156. 



thumb exceeding the outer fore, and with its nail nearing the central. 

 [It is by no means nearly allied to the preceding species.] 



The curious will find all these birds carefully described, long ago, 

 in the ' India Journal of Science' ; but the subject is worth recurring to, 

 and is attempted to be treated now so as to shew more accurately the 

 curious gradation of form. In this rich accession to the Leiotrichance 

 of Swainson, we have great means of illustrating that family, which 

 seems to be a singular combination of Parus with the long-legged 

 Finches on the one hand, and the Certhians on the other. The 

 structure and habits, on the whole, are nearer to Parus, into which 

 genus our vinipectus passes almost absolutely. Others remind us by 

 their short toes of Iora, Zosterops, and the clinging Brachypodans ; while 

 the Certhian structure is represented very fully in the bill and feet of 

 ignitinctus, and less palpably yet distinctly so in its tail ; and the tails 

 of vinipectus aforesaid, as well as of nipalensis, are of the scansorial 

 model.- 



Leiothrix as a genus may embrace the whole ; but I think the quasi- 

 Finch — argentauris, the quasi-Iovsm or short- toed, and the quasi- 

 Certhian, — forms, deserve at least subgeneric separation. Indeed how 

 could one define them in a single genus ? All these birds are foresters, 

 and more or less gregarious : their food consists almost equally of hard 

 grass- seeds and small grains (wherein they resemble the Finches), and 

 of hard and soft, perfect and imperfect, insects (wherein they agree 

 with Parus ;*) and the character of the stomach and intestines is of a 

 mixt type, between the typical Finches and the Tits. 



They creep and climb among foliage and large flowers, and the Finch- 

 like ones perch on the standing stalks of large grasses and small grains, 

 just like the Carduelines. These (PhilocalyxJ are the greatest seed- 

 eaters, and the Certhipari the least so, the latter being admirable 

 climbers. They make half pensile semi-globular nests, well compacted, 

 and placed at a moderate height on umbrageous trees or large shrubs 

 in the forests, and are all confined to the northern and central hilly 

 regions [of Nepal], being very rare in the southern hilly region, and 

 wholly unknown to the plains. The thick-billed Finches and Tits have 



* The true Pari devour oleaginous seeds with avidity ; piercing a hole, for exam- 

 ple, in the husk of a hemp-seed, and thus extracting the kernel : and I have remarked 

 that P, aier and P. palustrU.oi Europe are very partial to sunflower-seeds. — E J3. 



