NEW SPECIES OF POMATORHINUS. 



185 



the ground, seeking their food there exclusively. Small scaled insects are 

 their favourite food, with larvas and their eggs ; next, grubs and caterpil- 

 lars.* Berries they seldom touch ; never grain, nor hard seeds, nor con- 

 sequently, gravel. The Pomatorhini and TimalicE have, essentially, the 

 same habits ; both being distinguished from their Cinclosomce by their non- 

 graminivorous diet, and avoidance of the deep forests ; unless the characters 

 of Prinia, as of Cinclosoma, Pomatorhinus and Timalia, want emendation, 

 our Suycs can scarcely belong to the sub-genus Prinia. But I entertain 

 a confident expectation that the alleged notch in the bill of Prinia, as well 

 as the stated feebleness of its tarsi, will be found to be the exception and not 

 the rule. The SuycB are calculated to remind the student, in various ways, 

 of Malurus, Megalurus and Synallaxis, as well as of Prinia. Their strong 

 entire bills, elevated powerful legs, and terrestrial habits, are, however, 

 their preponderant characteristics, and those which induce me, with the 

 subordinate peculiarities above detailed, to consider them as a subgenus 

 of Pomatorhinus, having first referred the latter to the Crateropodints . 



The more general characteristics of the whole of our birds are exceed- 

 ingly well given by Mr. Swainson (Northern Zoology. Aves. p. 156) as 

 those of the Crateropodine or long-legged Thrushes — a very natural and 

 useful aggregation of birds in my judgment. Dr. Horsfield was disposed 

 to refer Pomatorhinus to the Tenuirostral Cinnyridce ; and it has been 

 actually disposed among the Meliphag idce ! Yet it is one of the most 

 terrestrial of the ivhole order of Insessores ; feeding exclusively on ground 

 insects ; and bearing a very close relationship, both in the structure of its 

 bill and in the manner of using it to procure food, to the Genus TJpupa ;\ 

 which latter, all terrestrial as it is, has been classed with the Certhiadm ! 

 Compression, entireness, and solidity, in a slender rostrum are carried to 

 the climax in Upupa: but the gradual accession of these attributes may 



* The species which frequent tlie grass and low vegetation : not the arborial kinds, 

 t The common //oojaoe is a familiar tenant of our lawn from September till May; but is 

 never seen in Nepal proper during the Lot and rainy months. 



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