cuous ring of white feathers, whence the popular names of the
species, white-eye and spectacle-bird. Except at the breeding season,
it goes about in flocks of considerable size. Each individual utters
unceasingly a low, plaintive, sonorous, cheeping note. As was stated
above, all arboreal gregarious birds have this habit. It is by means
of this call note that they keep each other apprised of their
whereabouts. But for such a signal it would scarcely be possible for
the flock to hold together. At the breeding season the cock white-eye
acquires an unusually sweet song. The nest is an exquisite little
cup, which hangs, like a hammock, suspended from a slender forked
branch. Two pretty pale blue eggs are laid.

A very diminutive member of the babbler clan is the fire-cap
(_Cephalopyrus flammiceps_). The upper parts of its plumage are olive
green; the lower portions are golden yellow. In the cock the chin
is suffused with red. The cock wears a further ornament in the shape
of a cap of flaming red, which renders his identification easy.

Until recently all ornithologists agreed that the curious
starling-like bird known as the spotted-wing (_Psaroglossa
spiloptera_) was a kind of aberrant starling, but systematists have
lately relegated it to the Crateropodidae. At Mussoorie the natives
call it the _Puli_. Its upper parts are dark grey spotted with black.
The wings are glossy greenish black with white spots. The lower parts
are reddish. A flock of half-a-dozen or more birds having a
starling-like appearance, which twitter like stares and keep to the
topmost branches of trees, may be set down safely as spotted-wings.

We now come to the last of the Crateropodidae--the bulbuls. These
birds are so different from most of their brethren that they are held
to constitute a sub-family. I presume that every reader is familiar
with the common bulbul of the plains. To every one who is not, my
advice is that he should go into the verandah in the spring and look
among the leaves of the croton plants. The chances are in favour of
this search leading to the discovery of a neat cup-shaped nest owned
by a pair of handsome crested birds, which wear a bright crimson patch
under the tail, and give forth at frequent intervals tinkling notes
that are blithe and gay.

Both the species of bulbul common in the plains ascend the lower ranges
of the Himalayas. These are the Bengal red-vented bulbul (_Molpastes
bengalensis_) and the Bengal red-whiske