AVIS-IBIS

Birds of Indian Subcontinent

384. Tricholestes criniger criniger

(384) Tricholestes criniger criniger.

THE HAIRY-BACKED BULBUL.

Brachypodius (?) criniger Blyth, J.A.S.B., xiv, p. 577 (1845) (Malacca). Tricholestes criniger, Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 258.

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. Forehead and crown olive-brown ; hind neck, back and rump dull olive-green; wing-coverts browner; quills brown, the inner secondaries and the outer webs of the others rufescent; tail rufescent, the outer webs tinged with greenish and the outer feathers tipped with whitish; lores and sides of the head yellow, the latter feathers tipped with dusky; chin and throat whitish; lower plumage yellow, the breast and sides of the body tinged with ashy ; under tail- and wing-coverts yellow.

Colours of soft parts. " Legs and feet pale bluish or pinkish brown or salmon-fleshy; claws pale plumbeous blue; lower mandible and edge of the upper pale plumbeous; ridge of culmen -and tip of upper mandible black; rest of the upper mandible dark plumbeous, sometimes horny brown; iris pale umber or snuffy-brown to dark brown " {Hume & Davison).

Measurements. Total length about 180 mm.; wing 70 to 77 mm.; tail about 70 to 75 mm.; tarsus 15 mm.; culmen about 15 mm.

Distribution. The extreme South of Tenasserim and S.E. Siam to the South of the Malay Peninsula. The Sumatran and Bornean form has been separated as Tricholestes c, viridis.

Nidification. Two eggs of the form viridis in the collection of Mr. J. Davidson and taken by a correspondent of Herr M. Kuschel in W. Java are very like the eggs of Iole icterica. The ground-colour is a pronounced pink, thickly mottled all over with a darker brownish pink, the mottling only a little darker than the ground-colour, so that at a short distance they look uniform. In shape they are long ovals and they measure about 23.2 x 16.0 mm.

Habits. Davison records that " This little Bulbul goes about in small parties of five or six, keeping to the brushwood and following each other about from bush to bush, uttering all the while a soft twittering note. In its habits it approaches much nearer the Timaliine birds than the Bulbuls, like them hunting system¬atically the foliage and branches of the brushwood and smaller trees. ... One specimen I shot was quite alone and was perched on a dead twig, where it kept expanding and closing its tail spasmodically and bobbing about exactly like a Flycatcher. Their food consists almost exclusively of insects, though they do occasionally eat a few small berries. They are very tame birds .and their plumage apparently never in good condition, so that it is impossible ever to make up a really good specimen."

BookTitle: 
The Fauna Of British India, Including Ceylon And Burma-birds(second Edition)
Reference: 
Baker, EC S (1922–1930) The fauna of British India including Ceylon and Burma. Second edition. vol.1 1922.
Title in Book: 
384. Tricholestes criniger criniger
Book Author: 
Edward Charles Stuart Baker
CatNo: 
384
Year: 
1922
Page No: 
366
Common name: 
Hairy Backed Bulbul
M_ID: 
22237
M_SN: 
Tricholestes criniger criniger
Volume: 
Vol. 1
id: 
2846

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Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith