ole terminated in a more
or less well-marked bulb (if I may use the term), or egg-chamber,
situated from 4 to 7 feet from the face of the bank. The egg-chamber
was floored with a loose nest of grass, a few feathers, and, in many
instances, scraps of snake-skins.

"Are birds superstitious, I wonder? Do they believe in charms? If not
what induces so many birds that build in holes in banks to select out
of the infinite variety of things, organic or inorganic, pieces of
snake-skin for their nests? They are at best harsh, unmanageable
things, neither so warm as feathers, which are ten times more
numerous, nor so soft as cotton or old rags, which lie about
broadcast, nor so cleanly as dry twigs and grass. Can it be that
snakes have any repugnance to their 'worn out weeds,' that they
dislike these mementos of _their_ fall[A], and that birds which breed
in holes into which snakes are likely to come by instinct select these
exuviae as scare-snakes?

[Footnote A: "When the snake," says an Arabic commentator, "tempted
Adam it was a winged animal. To punish its misdeeds the Almighty
deprived it of wings, and condemned it thereafter to creep for ever on
its belly, adding, as a perpetual reminder to it of its trespass, a
command for it to cast its skin yearly."]

"In some of the nests we found three or four callow young ones, but
in the majority of the terminal chambers were four, more or less,
incubated eggs.

"I noticed that the tops of all the mud-pillars (which had been left
standing to measure the work by) had been drilled through, and through
by the Mynas, obviously not for nesting-purposes, as not one of them
contained the vestige of a nest, but either for amusement or to afford
pleasant sitting-places for the birds not engaged in incubation.
Whilst we were robbing the nests, the whole colony kept screaming and
flying in and out of these holes in the various pillar-tops in a very
remarkable manner, and it may be that, after the fashion of Lapwings,
they thought to lead us away from their eggs and induce a belief that
their real homes were in the pillar tops."

Colonel G.F.L. Marshall remarks:--"This species breeds in the
Bolundshahr District in June and July. It makes its nest in a hole
in a bank, but more often in the side of a kucha or earthen well. A
number of birds generally breed in company. The nest is formed by
lining the cavity with a little grass and roots and a few feathers. On
the 8th July I found a colony br