imalayas. Two of these are homely-looking little
creatures, while two are as striking as it is possible for a fowl
of the air to be, and this is saying a great deal.

The brown flycatcher (_Alseonax latirostris_) is a bird that may pass
for a small sparrow if not carefully looked at. Of course its habits
are very different to those of the sparrow; moreover, it has a narrow
ring of white feathers round the eye. The grey-headed flycatcher
(_Culicicapa ceylonensis_) is a species of which the sexes are alike.
The head, neck, and breast are grey; the wings and tail are brown;
the back is dull yellow, and the lower plumage bright yellow.
Notwithstanding all this yellow, the bird is not conspicuous except
during flight, because the wings when closed cover up nearly all the
yellow. This bird frequents all the hill streams. At Naini Tal any
person may be tolerably certain of coming across it by going down
the Khairna road to the place where that road meets the stream. The
nest of this species is a beautiful pocket of moss attached to some
moss-covered rock or tree.

The rufous-bellied niltava (_Niltava sundara_) or fairy blue-chat,
as Jerdon calls it, is the kind of bird one would expect to find in
fairyland. The front and sides of the head, and the chin and throat
of the cock are deep velvety black. His crown, nape, and lower back,
and a spot on cheeks and wings, are glistening blue. He also sports
some light blue in his tail. His lower plumage is chestnut red. The
upper plumage of the hen is olive brown save for a brilliant blue
patch on either side of the head. Her tail is chestnut red. This
beautiful species is about the size of a sparrow.

Even more splendid is the paradise flycatcher (_Terpsiphone
paradisi_). The hen, and the cock, when he is quite young, look rather
like specimens of the bulbul family, being rich chestnut-hued birds
with the head and crest metallic bluish black. The hen is content
with a gown of this style throughout her life. Not so the cock. No
sooner does he reach the years of discretion than he assumes a
magnificent caudal appendage. His two middle tail feathers suddenly
begin to grow, and go on growing till they become three or four times
as long as he is, and so flutter behind him in the wind like streamers
when he flies. Nor does he rest content with this finery. When he
is about three years old he doffs his chestnut plumage, and in its
place dons a snowy white one. He is then a truly magnificen