528 JOURNA L, BOMB A Y NA TURAL HISTOR Y SOCIETY, Vol. XIX, 



No. XVI.— ON THE HABITS OF BIRDS WHEN DANGER- 

 SUPPOSED OR OTHERWISE— THREATENS THEIR NESTS. 



I have been much interested lately in the letters which have appeared in the- 

 Miscellaneous Notes of the Society's Journal regarding the behaviour of birds 

 when danger threatens their nests. I think the following incident concerning 

 a Fiscal Shrike {Lanius coUarls) may be interesting. In this particular case 

 reason was conspicuous by its absence, and instinct disastrously misleading 

 but the intention of the bird was perfectly clear. As I am sending this to a 

 Journal on the Natural History of India in response to the trust expressed by 

 Mr. Dewar, in his article, dated 10th September 1908, that members will let the 

 Society have the benefit of their observations on this subject, I ought to say 

 that the bird was not an Indian one, nor did the incident come under my 

 observation in India. Nevertheless as an example of absolute stupidity, clearly 

 demonstrating that this particular bird at all events possessed no reasoning 

 powers, I hope that it may help to throw some more light on this interesting^ 

 subject, as after all the habits of birds of the same species in different countries 

 are more or less alike. 



When we were living in Middleburg, Transvaal, a pair of Fiscal Shrikes had 

 begun to build their nest in a small group of trees not far from the road 

 leading to our bungalow. 



We frequently walked past the place of their choice, but would never have 

 found their nest, which was quite invisible from the road, had it not been for 

 our dog, a pointer. 



The group of trees was enclosed by an iron fence, and some time previously 

 our dog had found and chased a cat inside the enclosure, with the lasting 

 result that it could never pass that place without at once searching it thorough- 

 ly for the same cat, which I need hardly say was never to be found there again. 

 One day in September 190G whilst returning home from a walk with my wife, 

 our dog, on nearing the small plantation of trees, as usual rushed on ahead, 

 entered the enclosure and began to hurriedly search for cats in the long grass. 

 When it had gone a little more than half way through, a shrike suddenly flew 

 out from one of the trees and violently scolded the unintentionally offending dog- 

 On the next and every subsequent occasion that we passed the place, the bird 

 used to fly out at the dog long before it was anywhere near the plantation, and 

 behave in a most absurd way chattering and scolding, and following the dog, 

 flying a few feet above its head, until it was past the enclosure. The dog 

 never used to take the least notice of the bird, and the bird apparently did not 

 object to us. We could have walked about among the trees all day long with- 

 out apparently causing any alarm, but the poor dog which had never climbed 

 a tree in its life, was not even allowed to pass the place on the side of the road 

 opposite to the trees without being molested. 



This curious behaviour on the part of the bird naturally led me to suppose 

 that its nest was somewhere in the plantation, I therefore made a systematic 

 search, starting at one end of the plantation, and walking backwards; and 



