Closely related to the shrikes are the minivets. Minivets are birds of tit-like habits which wander about in small flocks from place to place picking insects from the leaves of trees. They are essentially arboreal birds. I have never seen a minivet on the ground. The common minivet of the Nilgiris is the orange minivet (_Pericrocotus flammeus_). The head and back of the cock are black. His wings are black and flame-colour, the red being so arranged as to form a band running lengthwise and not across the wing. 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. THE ORIOLIDAE OR ORIOLE FAMILY Both the Indian oriole (_Oriolus kundoo_) and the black-headed oriole (_O. melanocephalus_) occur on the Nilgiris, but on the higher ranges they are nowhere numerous. They therefore merit only passing notice. THE STURNIDAE OR STARLING FAMILY The common myna of the Nilgiris is not _Acridotheres tristis_ but _AEthiopsar fuscus_--the jungle myna. The casual observer usually fails to notice any difference between the two species, so closely do they resemble one another. Careful inspection, however, shows that the jungle myna has a little patch of feathers in front of the head over the beak. _AEthiopsar fuscus_ has all the habits of the common myna. Like the latter, it struts about sedately in company with cattle in order to snatch up the grasshoppers disturbed by the moving quadrupeds. It feeds largely on the insects that infest the capsules of _Lobelia excelsa_, and is often to be seen clinging, like a tit, to the stem in order to secure the insects. Davidson gives these mynas a very bad character, he declares that they do immense damage to the fruit gardens on the Nilgiris, so that without the aid of nets, it is next to impossible to preserve pears from their depredations. No other species of myna is common on the Nilgiris. THE MUSCICAPIDAE OR FLYCATCHER FAMILY As in the Himalayas so on the Nilgiris the family of flycatchers is well represented. In one small Nilgiri wood I have come across no fewer than six species of flycatcher. The beautiful little black-and-orange flycatcher (_Ochromela nigrirufa_) is a bird peculiar to the hills of Southern India. The head and wings of the cock are black, the rest of the body is orange, of deeper hue on the back and breast than on the other parts. The portions of the plumage that are black in the cock are slaty brown in the hen. This flycatcher feeds on insects. But unlike most of its kind, it picks them off the ground more often than it secures them in the air.