680 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVIU. 



No. XII.— NOTE ON THE HABITS OF THE BENGAL RED 

 WHISKERED BULBUL (OTOCOMPSA EMERIA). 



The efforts of the lapwing plover to distract mankind from its nest are 

 proverbial, and many people labour under the impression that this trait is 

 peculiar to that particular bird. This is not the case, and I witnessed such a 

 very pretty example of maternal solicitude in Otocompsa emeria recently 

 that I think it perhaps worthy of note in our Journal. A pair of these birds 

 had three well-grown nestlings in a nest concealed in creepers overhanging 

 my porch. Several times I visited the youngsters and examined the 

 changes in their plumage, without the parents exhibiting any alarm at all, but on 

 the 23rd instant, when Lieutenant Martin, of the i)4th Russell's Infantry, came 

 to have a look at them, we found the youngsters out of the nest and sitting 

 on the twigs close to it. Our arrival at once brought the parent birds, who 

 were much excited. They seemed to lose all fear in their anxiety for their 

 offspring, approaching quite close to us, and scolding us vigorously, every now 

 and then putting in a melodious chirp to encourage the little ones. After a 

 few seconds of this one of the birds, presumably the female, threw herself down 

 on to the roadway close to us, and with wings distended began to squirm about 

 on the ground giving an exact imitation of a badly wounded bird who has had 

 both its legs broken. The simulation was perfect, and it is interesting to 

 speculate how the bird acquired its knowledge of how a badly wounded bird 

 would behave ! The whole occurrence seems to me to point to reason rather 

 than instinct — though I am aware I tread upon delicate ground in saying so ! 



ARUNDEL BEGBIE, Major, 



8th Rajputs. 

 Lucknow, 28th March 1908. 



[In Vol . XIV, page lf!2 of onr Journal, Mr. E. H. Aitken records the same incident in 

 connection with the Southern Red-whiskered Bulbnl (Otocompsa J'uscicaudala) and our 

 Honorary Secretary a few weeks ago witnessed similar behaviour on the part of the Madras 

 Red-vented Bulbul (Molpastes licemorrhous) in his fernery at Malabar Hill, Bombay 



—Eds.] 



No. XIII.— NOTE ON THE HOUSE-SPARROW AND GEESE. 



Yarrell closes his chapter on Passer domesiicus with a vignette of one of the 

 family suspended by the neck at the door of his dwelling in the frieze of the 

 Rotunda in Dublin. Twice in one week in a garden at Lahore I found sparrows 

 which had met a similar death, not at the doors of their houses, but in bushes. 

 One was caught and hung in a bit of string in the bush, the other had, in 

 endeavouring, probably after some mischief, to scuttle through a bush, caught 

 his neck in a fork of two small branches. Hume in his " Nests and Eggs 

 of Indian Birds" expresses a wish that all the race would so perish. Some 

 of your readers may be glad to hear that two more, besides the one that 

 Yarrell has immortalised, have met such an end. 



All books tell us that the sparrow does occasionally have pity on us and 

 build his nest in a bush. Never till this year did I come across such a nes 



