359. Merula nigropileus, Lafr.

Turdus apud Lafresnaye - Belanger, Voy-dans L'Inde -  Blyth Cat. 949 - M. braehypus, Blyth - Jerdon, 2nd Suppl. Cat. 83 bis - Horsf., Cat. 657 (in part) - Kasturi, H. - Podapalisa, Tel.

The Black-capped blackbird.

Descr. - Male, head, with the lores, cheeks and nape, deep black; back, rump, wings and tail, dark blackish, or fuscous-ashy, tinged with brown on the interscapulars ; chin blackish : neck, all round to the nape (contrasting there strongly with the black of the crown) ; and the lower-parts brownish-ashy, paler on the belly, and passing to white on the vent; under tail-coverts mingled white and ashy.

Bill, eyelids, and gape, orange-yellow; legs brownish-yellow ; irides  brown. Length 9 1/2 inches ; wing not quite 5 ; tail 3 1/2 ; tarsus 1 2/10 ; bill at front 8/10.

The female differs in being altogether paler, the white of the vent spreading over more of the abdominal region, and the cap being dusky-brown. The tail is quite square, and the wings reach to less than two inches from the end of the tail. The color of this species fades very much in dried specimens, the black changing to
dusky brown.

This Blackbird is found, occasionally, throughout the greater Dart of the South of India, in the plains during the cold weather only; but is a permanent resident on the hilly regions of the south, at a moderate elevation.

It is found in Coorg, Wynaad, and other parts of the Western Ghats; also on the Eastern Ghats of Nellore, and in some of the higher table-lands in Central India, as in Bustar and Jalna. I have killed it in my own garden, at Nellore in the Carnatic; at Tellicherry, and other places at low elevation. I never saw it on the Neilgherries.

Like other Blackbirds, it feeds much on the ground on snails, soft insects, and occasionally on fruit. At Nellore, I found that it lived almost entirely on the pretty Helix bistrialis, so common in hedge-rows in the Carnatic. I heard its song at Tellicherry towards the end of the cold weather, but only very early in the morning, long before sunrise. I also heard it in Bustar in April, when it was breeding. It is not nearly so powerful, or so fine, as that of its Neilgherry or Ceylon congener. Mr. Ward obtained the nest in Sirci, in North Canara, made of roots, grass, &c, and with three eggs, pale blue spotted with brown.