Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/444

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400
PYCNONOTIDÆ.

Habits. According to Davison this is a bird of open or cultivated country. Its habits are like those of the genus Otocompsa, its note is whistled "kick pettigrew" and its food consists principally of small berries but also to some extent of insects.


Genus SPIZIXUS Blyth, 1845.

The genus Spizixus contains species and subspecies ranging from Assam to China. They differ from all other Bulbuls in their very curious Finch-like bill and in having the nostrils partially concealed by overhanging plumelets.

It is a typical Bulbul in habits, nidification and voice and does not seem to have any connexion vith the Sibiinæ as suggested by Oates.


Fig. 80.—Head of S. c. canifrons.

In Spizixus the crest is thick and long but not much pointed. The bill is very short and deep, the culmen being gently curved throughout; the edges of the mandibles are slightly sinuated and notched near the tips. The tail is perfectly square and the tarsus short and weak.

The crest as shown in the woodcut is too bushy and not sufficiently pointed.


(416) Spizixus canifrons canifrons.

The Finch-billed Bulbul.

Spizixos canifrons Blyth, J. A. S. B., xiv, p. 571 (1845) (Khasia Hills); Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 280.

Vernacular names. Kator-sit (Kachin); Daobulip-buku (Cachari).

Description. Forehead running up in a point into the crown, grey; lores, chin and cheeks mixed grey and black; crown and round the eye black; ear-coverts grey, tinged with hair-brown on the upper parts; nape and sides of neck grey; chin dark brownish grey; whole upper plumage bright green tinged with olive, lightest on the rump and upper tail-coverts, darkest on the scapulars and upper back; wing-coverts the same, tinged with brown on the inner webs of the greater coverts; primaries and outer secondaries