hundredweight. This vulture usually builds its
nest in a lofty _pipal_ tree, but in localities devoid of tall trees
the platform is placed on the top of a bush.

February marks the beginning of the nesting season of the handsome
pied kingfisher (_Ceryle rudis_). This is the familiar,
black-and-white bird that fishes by hovering kestrel-like on
rapidly-vibrating wings and then dropping from a height of some twenty
feet into the water below; it is a bird greatly addicted to goldfish
and makes sad havoc of these where they are exposed in ornamental
ponds. The nest of the pied kingfisher is a circular tunnel or burrow,
more than a yard in length, excavated in a river bank. The burrow,
which is dug out by the bird, is about three inches in diameter and
terminates in a larger chamber in which the eggs are laid.

Another spotted black-and-white bird which now begins nesting
operations is the yellow-fronted pied woodpecker (_Liopicus
mahrattensis_)--a species only a little less common than the beautiful
golden-backed woodpecker. Like all the Picidae this bird nests in the
trunk or a branch of a tree. Selecting a part of a tree which is
decayed--sometimes a portion of the bole quite close to the
ground--the woodpecker hews out with its chisel-like beak a neat
circular tunnel leading to the cavity in the decayed wood in which the
eggs will be deposited. The tap, tap, tap of the bill as it cuts into
the wood serves to guide the observer to the spot where the
woodpecker, with legs apart and tail adpressed to the tree, is at
work. In the same way a barbet's nest, while under construction, may
be located with ease. A woodpecker when excavating its nest will often
allow a human being to approach sufficiently dose to witness it throw
over its shoulder the chips of wood it has cut away with its bill.

In the United Provinces many of the ashy-crowned finch-larks
(_Pyrrhulauda grisea_) build their nests during February. In the
Punjab they breed later; April and May being the months in which their
eggs are most often found in that province. These curious
squat-figured little birds are rendered easy of recognition by the
unusual scheme of colouring displayed by the cock--his upper parts are
earthy grey and his lower plumage is black.

The habit of the finch-lark is to soar to a little height and then
drop to the ground, with wings closed, singing as it descends. It
invariably affects open plains. There are very few tracts of treeless
l