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It is common on the lower slopes of the Nilgiris, but does not often venture as high as Coonoor. A rich green bulbul-like bird with a golden forehead, a black chin and throat, and a patch of blue on the wing can be none other than this species. The true bulbuls are also classified among the Crateropodidæ.
Reilly, of Hillgrove Estate, Coonoor, said to me on the subject; and when we were discussing leaf disease in general, he observed that it was often said to be the cause of leaves falling off, when their doing so was really owing to an over heavy crop of coffee.
My experience is that the common bulbul of the plains Molpastes hæmorrhous, or the Madras red-vented bulbul is very rarely seen at the Nilgiri hill stations. Jerdon, likewise, states that it ascends the Nilgiris only up to about 6000 feet. Davison, however, declares that the bird begins to get common 4 miles from Ootacamund and is very numerous about Coonoor and all down the ghats.
Reilly, of Hillgrove Estate, Coonoor, told me that he had first noticed leaf disease about twenty-six years ago. It commenced low down on the coffee on the Coonoor Ghaut, and then came gradually up the Ghaut.
They subsist chiefly on fruit. Their cry is loud and characteristic; it may be described as a bird's imitation of human laughter. Their cheerful calls are among the sounds heard most often at Ootacamund and Coonoor.
The tail feathers are red, save the median pair, which are black. During flight the flashing red obliterates the black, so that the moving birds resemble tongues of flame and present a beautiful and striking spectacle. The hen is marked like the cock, but in her the red is replaced by bright yellow. This beautiful bird ceases to be abundant at elevations higher than Coonoor.
Reilly a planter of long experience near Coonoor on the Nilgiris that much loss of leaves, which has been attributed to leaf disease, is often due to other causes. Mr. It is worthy of note that the Coorg plant is not nearly so liable to attacks of leaf disease as the original Mysore Chick plant.
I am glad to say that I have no other pests to chronicle as regard Mysore estates, but as estates on the Nilgiris sometimes suffer from green-bugs, I give the following treatment, which was discovered, and has been effectually used by Mr. Reilly of Hill Grove Estate, Coonoor, who has kindly permitted me to publish the recipe.
Reilly's Hillgrove estate near Coonoor on the slopes of the Nilgiri hills, and hearing the result of his very long experience.
As a rule, sparrows nest about houses, but numbers of them breed in the steep cuttings on the road between Coonoor and Ootacamund. This, however, is only a winter visitor: it departs from the Nilgiris in April and does not return until the summer season is over. This family includes the swallows and the martins.
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