MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 917 



it to have taken place immediately Major Begbie and his friend came upon 

 the scene and not after they had time to obtain a view of the young buds. 



We are ; in my opinion, too prone to put anthropomorphic interpretations 

 on the actions of animals, to judge their doings by human standards. 



In order to show huw some seemingly most intelligent actions of birds are 

 really instinctive, I should like to reproduce an account of a little incident 

 I recently sent to the Madras Mail. 



" Some time ago, while walking near the golf links at Lahore, I noticed a rat- 

 bird or Common Babbler K Argya cuudata), to give it its proper name, with a 

 greet caterpillar hanging from its beak. The succulent insect was, of course 

 intended for a young bird in a nest near by. Being in no hurry I determined 

 to fiad that nest. Under such circumstances, the easiest way is to sit down 

 and wait for the parent bird to indicate the position of the nursery. The bird 

 with the caterpillar had seen me, so, instead of flying with it to the nest 

 moved about from bush to bush uttering his or her note of anger (I do not 

 pretend to be able to distinguish a cock from a hen rat-bird). In a few 

 minutes the other parent appeared on the scene, also wiih something in its beak. 

 Observing that all was not well, it too began ' to beat about the bush,' or rather 

 from one bush to another. Meanwhile both swore at the ungentlemanly 

 intruder. However I had no intention of moving on before I found that nest. 

 After a little time the patience of the second bird became exhausted ; it flew 

 to a small bush into which it disappeared, to reappear almost immediately 

 with an empty beak. I thereupon advanced to that bush of which the top was 

 not three feet above the ground. In the bush I found the neatly constructed 

 cup-shaped nest which contained five young rat-birds. I handled these, taking 

 one ugly naked fellow in my hand in full view of the parents who were 

 scolding vehemently. I was careful to make certain that the mother and 

 father could see what I was duing, for I was anxious to find out how far their 

 laudable attempts at the concealmen: of the nest from me were due to the 

 exercise of intelligence. Uaving replaced the baby bird in the cest, I returned 

 to the place where I had waited for the parents to direct me to their nursery, 

 and watched their future actions. If they had been acting intelligently, they 

 wauld have reasoned thus :■ — ' The great ogre has found our nest and seen our 

 little ones. If he wants them we are powerless to prevent him taking them. 

 The game of keeping their whereabouts hidden from him is up. There is nothing 

 left for us to do but to continue to feed our chicks in the ordinary way with- 

 out further attempt at concealment. ' If, however, they were acting blindly 

 merely obeying ihe promptings of the instinct which teaches them not to feed 

 their young ones in the presence of danger, they would be as unwilling now to 

 visit the nest as they were when they first caught sight of me. M hey pursued 

 the latter course, thus demonstrating that this seemingly most intelligent behav- 

 iour is prompted by instinct. " 



To return to the injury-feigning habit. 



Some birds feign injury when there are eggs in the nest, and by so doing 



