186 
BIRDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
Genus TKICHOLESTES, Salmd. 
180. TRICHOLESTES CRINIGER. 
THE BRISTLE-BACKED BULBUL. 
Brachypodius criniger, Bl. J. A. S. B. xiv. p. 577 ; Wardlaw Ramsay, Tiveedd. 
Mem., Ap2). p. 671. Trichophorus minutus, Hartl. Journ. f. Orn. 1853, 
p. 156. Tricholestes minutus, Salvad. Ucc. Born. p. 205, pi. v. f. 1. Tricho- 
lestes criniger, Hume 8f Bav. S. F. vi. p. 304 ; Tweedd. Ibis, 1877, p. 306 ; 
Hume, S. F. viii. p. 98 ; Sliaiye, Cat. Birds B. Mus. vi. p. 89. 
Desc7'iption. — Male and female. Forehead and crown olive- brown, washed 
with yellow ; hind neck, back and rump dull olive-green ; wing-coverts 
browner ; quills brown, the tertiaries and the outer webs of the others 
rufescent ; tail rufous-brown, the outer edges tinged with greenish and the 
outer feathers tipped whitish ; lores yellow ; sides of the head yellow, the 
tips of the feathers more or less dusky ; chin and throat whitish ; lower 
plumage yellow, tinged with ashy on the breast and sides of the body ; 
under tail-coverts yellow. 
Legs and feet pale bluish or pinkish brown or salmon-fleshy ; claws pale 
plumbeous blue; lower mandible and edge of upper mandible pale plum- 
beous ; ridge of culmen and tip of upper mandible black ; rest of the upper 
mandible dark plumbeous, sometimes a horny brown ; irides vary from a 
pale umber or snuffy brown to dark brown. (Davison.) 
Length 6*5 inches, tail 2*8, wing 3, tarsus '6, bill from gape '75. The 
female is smaller. 
The Bristle-backed Bulbul, which is remarkable for the long hairs 
springing from its back, is found in the extreme southern portion of 
Tenasserim. 
It extends down the Malay peninsula, and is found in the islands of 
Sumatra, Java and Borneo. 
According to Mr. Davison, this little Bulbul goes about in small 
parties of five or six, keeping to the brushwood and following each other 
about from bush to bush^ uttering all the while a soft twittering note. In 
its habits it approaches much nearer the Timeliine birds than the Bulbuls, 
like them hunting systematically the foliage and branches of the brushwood 
and smaller trees. . . . Their food consists almost exclusively of insects, 
though they do occasionally eat a few small berries. They are very tame 
birds, and their plumage is apparently never in good condition, so that 
it is impossible ever to make up a really good specimen of them.^^ 
