a
decisive movement of the tail. The cause of these interjections
expressing delight is a clutch of white eggs or a brood of young
birds, hidden in a hole in a tree or a building.

April is a month in which the pulse of bird life beats very vigorously
in India. He who, braving the heat, watches closely the doings of the
feathered folk will be rewarded by the discovery of at least thirty
different kinds of nests. Hence, it is evident that the calendar for
this month, unless it is to attain very large dimensions, must be a
mere catalogue of nesting species. The compiler of the calendar has to
face an _embarrass de richesses_.

Of the common species that build in March and the previous months the
following are likely to be found with eggs or young--the jungle crows,
sunbirds, doves, pied and golden-backed woodpeckers, coppersmiths,
hoopoes, common and brahminy kites, bulbuls, shrikes, little minivets,
fantail flycatchers, wire-tailed swallows, paroquets, spotted owlets,
swifts, scavenger vultures, red-headed merlins, skylarks, crested
larks, pipits, babblers, sand-martins, cliff-swallows, nuthatches,
white-eyed buzzards, kites, black vultures, pied and white-breasted
kingfishers, finch-larks, Indian wren-warblers, wood-shrikes,
cuckoo-shrikes, green barbets, tawny eagles, and the terns and the
other birds that nest on islets in rivers. Here and there may be seen
a white-backed vulture's nest containing a young bird nearly ready to
fly.

Towards the middle of the month the long-tailed tree-pies
(_Dendrocitta rufa_), which are nothing else than coloured crows,
begin nest-building. They are to be numbered among the commonest birds
in India, nevertheless their large open nests are rarely seen. The
explanation of this phenomenon appears to be the fact that the nest is
well concealed high up in a tree. Moreover, the pie, possessing a
powerful beak which commands respect, is not obliged constantly to
defend its home after the manner of small or excitable birds, and thus
attract attention to it.

Fortunately for the tree-pie the kites and crows do not worry it. The
shikra (_Astur badius_) and the white-eyed buzzard (_Butastur teesa_),
which are now engaged in nest-building, are not so fortunate. The
crows regard them as fair game, hence their nest-building season is a
time of _sturm und drang_. They, in common with all diurnal birds of
prey, build untidy nests in trees--mere conglomerations of sticks,
devoid of any kind of