CATALOGUE. 
213 
The birds composing the above genera of this sub-family " are 
gregarious, noisy, and alert. They frequent the deep and dank 
forests and groves exclusively; procure the greater part of their 
food on the ground ; use the trees but for security when disturbed, 
for nidification, and for occasionally eking out their repasts with 
berries, pulpy fruits, and caterpillars, and are, for the most part, 
incapable of a sustained flight. Their habitat is very extensive, 
since they are almost equally common in the southern, central, and 
northern regions of Nepal and the Himalayas, and in the valleys 
alike, as on the tops of the mountains. In all situations, however, 
woodlands are indispensable to them, both for food and shelter, 
especially the latter, their retreat being a mere succession of hops 
from tree to tree, after the manner of the magpies. Most of them 
have a good deal of the mixed weariness and familiarity, as well as of 
the noisiness and congregational habits of the CorvidcB ; and, though 
they never quit the deep woodlands, those persons who pass through 
such places perpetually encounter them on the roads and pathways, 
to which these birds are attracted by the dung of cattle, for the 
grain, larvae, and insects it affords them. They are, on the whole, 
rather insectivorous than frugivorous, baccivorous, or graminivorous ; 
but they eat a deal of grain and hard seeds, with gravel to digest it, 
and must, from the universality of their regimen, be classed among 
the omnivores. They are distinguished from the Thrushes by their 
avoidance of rills and swamps, and they are more capable of a 
graminivorous diet than that group. They scrape the earth with 
their bill, and sometimes also with their feet, in the manner of the 
Masores. Many of the species are caged and tamed with facility, 
and they are more often turned loose into walled gardens, whence 
they seldom attempt to escape, if there be a considerable number of 
trees, and where they are of great service in destroying pupae, larvae, 
and perfect insects, especially those which are generated, or feed, in 
manure. 
In the Minister's garden at Cathmandu, there were always several 
scores of G. leucolojphus ; and in that of his nephew, many individuals 
of each of the following species, G. alhogularis, moniligera, ocellatus, 
P. erytliroceplialus, and T. rufogularer — (Hodgson, As. Ees. XIX. 
p. 144.) 
Genus Conostoma, Hodgs., J. A. S. Beng. X. p. 856 (1841). 
309. CONOSTOMA IMODIUM, Hodgs. 
Conostoma aemodius, Hodgs., Journ. A. S. Beng. X. 
