ey-winged ouzel (_Merula boulboul_) is perhaps the finest
songster in the Himalayas. Throughout the early summer the cock makes
the wooded hillsides ring with his blackbird-like melody. The
grey-winged ouzel is a near relative of the English blackbird. Take
a cock blackbird and paint his wings dark grey, and cover his bill
with red colouring matter, and you will have to all appearances a
grey-winged ouzel. In order to effect the transformation of the brown
female, it is only necessary to redden her bill.

The nesting operations of this species are described in the essay
near the end of Part I.

Two other species allied to the grey-winged ouzel demand our attention.
The first is the blue-headed rock-thrush (_Petrophila cinclorhyncha_).
This is not like any bird found in England. The head, chin, and throat
of the cock are cobalt blue; there is also a patch of this colour on
his wing; the sides of the head and neck are black, as are the back
and wing feathers. The rump and lower parts are chestnut. The hen, as
is the case with many of her sex, is an inconspicuous olive-brown
bird. This species spends most of its time on the ground, and
frequents, as its name implies, open rocky ground.

The last of the Turdidae which has to be considered is the small-billed
mountain-thrush (_Oreocincla dauma_). This bird is as like the thrush
of our English gardens as one pea is like another. Unfortunately it
does not visit gardens in this country, and is not a very common bird.

THE FRINGILLIDAE OR FINCH FAMILY

The vulgar sparrow and the immaculate canary are members of this large
and flourishing family of birds. The distinguishing feature of the
finches is a massive beak, admirably adapted to the husking of the
grain on which the members of the family feed largely. In some species,
as for example the grosbeaks, the bill is immensely thick. Only one
species of grosbeak appears to be common in the Himalayas. This is
_Pycnorhamphus icteroides_, the black-and-yellow grosbeak. The
colouring of the cock is so like that of the black-headed oriole that
it is doubtless frequently mistaken for the latter.

This bird forms the subject of a separate essay, where it is fully
described.

The Himalayan greenfinch (_Hypacanthis spinoides_) is an unobtrusive
little bird that loves to sit at the summit of a tree and utter a
forlorn _peee_ fifty times a minute. It is a dull green bird with
some yellow on the head, neck, and back; the abdomen is