Editorial. 85 



Ths following note^, reprinted from the "Journal of the 

 Bombay Natural History Society," will we are assured prove 

 of general interest. 



Intelligence Displayed by Short-billed Minivet 

 (Pen'rrocotus hrevirostris) when their nests are in danger 



" The following extracts from my journal may, ])erhaps, be 

 "of some interest to ornithologists. 



" 12th April, 1907. —To-day's result was and 



" a nest of the short-billed Minivet (F. hremrosfris) containing 

 " four young partly fledged. 



" The nest was placed on the upper surface of a horizontal 

 " branch of a medium Himalayan Cedar (C. decdara), at a height 

 "of 30 feet from the ground, and was well concealed." It was 

 "only discovered by watching the movements of the parent birds 



" I was gi-eatly disappointed at not having found the 



" nest, before it contained the eggs, but to malve up for the loss, I 

 " had the good fortune of being the spectator of the following 

 " incident, which clearly demonstrates the sagacity of birds. 



" When my man had climbed up the tree close to the 

 "nest, the parent birds (as I afterwards discovered them to be) 

 " began to behave in a most singular manner. They would turn 

 " their tails inwards between their legs, sj^read out their wings, and 

 " flutter down from a neighbouring tree on to the ground, just as 

 " young birds, which could scarcely fly, would do. I thought at 

 " first that these birds were the young ones from some dther nest 

 " which may be close by, and began chasing them about in order 

 " to catch them. As soon as I got close to one of them, it would 

 " steady itself, and fly to the branch of a neighbouring tree, only 

 " to repeat the performance again. After watching them for some 

 " time, and observing them closely, I discovered to my astonishment 

 " that they were the parent birds ! Their object in behaving in 

 " this extraordinary manner apparently was to entice us away 

 " from the spot by trying to delude us into the bdief (as they un- 

 " doubtedly did at first), that they were the young birds from the 

 '* nest. 



" I did not disturb the nest that day, but when I visited the 

 " spot again a week later, the young ones were quite fledged 

 " and flew off the nest long before my climber had got up to it. 

 " The old birds repeated the performance mentioned above. Of 

 " course I was wiser this time. 



" 31st May, 1908. — I had another interesting experience 

 " with these birds to-day, exactly similar to the one related above. 



" On our way back home after a long ramble, we were 

 " passing along a, hill covered with Himalayan Cedars, and hearing 

 " a twittering quite close to us, I suspected that there was a nest 

 " and accordingly began to search the trees, but could not locate -it 



