10 
that he never heard it utter a note. He also met with it during the cold season in the low forest- 
regions of Singbhoom in Western Bengal, where he appears to have had a better opportunity of 
watching its habits. Although it prefers swampy ground, such as is found covered over with thick 
bushes near deserted tanks, or marshy ravines in the jungle overgrown with bamboos and underwood, 
it is nevertheless also found in dry stony Saul jungle. In its habits it appears to resemble its 
congeners. It perches low and keeps much to the ground, hunting amongst the dead leaves for 
earthworms, slugs, leeches, «с. When approached, it flies off swiftly, keeping near the ground, and 
seeks some dense covert, where it remains motionless and silent. The birds are generally found 
singly, but sometimes three or four may be seen together near the thickets and dense underwood, 
and, when disturbed, they fly off to different places of concealment. 
During the cold season, when it lives in the plains, it occasionally finds its way to the 
gardens, where it is recorded as véry wary, feeding under the bushes, and, when disturbed, flying up 
into the mango-trees (Beavan, Ibis, 1870, p. 327). 
It is probably a partial migrant on all the hill-ranges within the area of its distribution, 
descending to the adjoining plains in the cold season (Oates, Fauna of British India, Birds, ii. 
p. 152). | 
Sir V. Ball invariably found it on the banks of well-wooded streams, and remarks that its flight 
was low and irregular. Mr. Oates says that it feeds on the ground, and Jerdon makes the same 
remark, adding that it devours fruit and seeds. It is said to have a pleasant song, not unlike that of 
Turdulus wardi (С. Е. L. Marshall, in Oates's edition of Hume's * Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds,’ 
ii. p. 107). 
It breeds in May and June, laying two or three eggs in a nest built rather substantially of moss, 
neatly lined with stalks of maiden-hair fern and a few bents of grass. Тһе nest has been found in 
the fork of a moss-covered rhododendron, twenty feet from the ground (G. F. L. Marshall). 
The eggs are very similar to those of the Common Blackbird, and vary in colour, size, and shape 
to the same extent. An egg in the British Museum, obtained by Mr. W. E. Brooks at Gulmurg in 
Kashmir on the 6th of June, 1871, measures 1:28 by :91 inch. The pale greenish-blue ground- 
colour is almost entirely hidden by the reddish-brown markings (Brooks, Stray Feathers, iii. p. 237). 
Geocichla dauma exactly resembles G. varia in all the various details of its plumage so far as 
colour is concerned, but it differs from its Siberian ally in the following particulars : — 
Instead of four, there are only three very dark feathers on each side of the four paler brown 
feathers in the centre of the tail, so that the total number of rectrices, instead of being 14, із only 12. 
Instead of having the second primary intermediate in length between the fourth and fifth, this is 
intermediate between the fifth and sixth, so that the wing is slightly more rounded, as might be 
expected in a species whose range of migration is so much more restricted. 
It is also, on an average, а smaller bird than O. varia. Length of wing 6:0 to 5:8 inches, tail 
4:4 to 9:6 inches, culmen 1:1 to 1:0 inch, tarsus 1:32 to 1:2 inch. Outer tail-feathers 0:3 inch shorter 
than the longest. First primary shorter than the primary-coverts. 
Га what I take to be the bird of the year, the ground-colour is much more ochraceous than in 
the adults,and the bastard-primary is almost as long as the longest primary-covert. In abraded 
summer plumage the ground-colour is much less ochraceous. In а very young bird’ in the British 
Museum most of the first plumage is retained; the black lunulations are almost obsolete on the 
rump and upper tail-coverts; the under tail-coverts and the breast are very buff, but the bastard- 
primary is shorter than the primary-coverts. 
The amount of white at the tips of the tail-feathers varies more than usual in this species, in 
some examples extending for nearly an inch on the inner web of the outer feathers, and in others 
‘being almost obsolete. 
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