Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1).djvu/499

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SPEL.EORNIS. 453 Fifty eggs average lS-4 x 14-9 mm. and the extremes of lengtli and breadth are 19-9 X 15-U; lS-(j x 15-9; 18-0 x 15-0 and 18-4 X 195 mm..

Habits. The Long-tailed Wren is found between about 3,500 and 6,500 feet, resident and breeding wherever found. It haunts principally dense, evergreen forest with lots of weed and fern undergrowth and especially those places where the ground is rough and broken with big boulders. Among these it creeps and climbs just as the Common Wren does, but it is even less inclined to 11}' tlum that bird and seeks safety by dodging into crevices and holes between the boulders. Even when tlisturbed from the nest, which it will not leave until the hand almost touches it, it merely flies a foot or two and then drops into the undergrowth and scurries away on foot. It is a very silent bird but I have heard it give a loud, clear whistle much like the call of Pnoepyrja and after being disturbed it will continue to utter its soft chirring note for some minutes. It is entirelv insectivorous.

(465) Spelseornis long'icaudatus chocolatinus.

Gtodwin-Austen's Wren.

Pnoepyf/a chocolatina Clodw.-Aust., Ibis, 1875, p. 252 (Kedimai, Manipur).

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Upper plumage and wings fulvous-brown, more rufous on lower back, rump and tail; feathers of head and back obsoletely fringed with darker brown; lores and line through eye grey; chin albescent; centre of belly and breast white, splashed with rufous; throat, upper breast, sides of lower breast and flanks rufous, the feathers with black terminal edges and subtipped with white; under tail-coverts darker rufous.

Colours of soft parts. " Bill dark brown. Legs pale flesh- colour" {G.-A.).

Measurements. Wing 47 and 50 mm.; tail 36 and 40 mm.; tarsus 20 mm.; culmen 10 and 11 mm.

Distribution. The only two specimens known were obtained by Godwin-Austen at Kedimai, Manipur, about 4,000 feet altitude.

Nidification and Habits. Nothing recorded.

(466) Spelseornis longicaudatus sinlumensis.

The Sinlum Wren.

Urocichla sinlumensis Harington, A. M. N. H., ser. 8, ii, p. 246 (1908) (Sinlum, Bhamo Hills).

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Above like S. I. longicaudatus but more fulvous, less orange and with the dark bars better defined, below ashy-