JMr. A. Hume on Indian Ornithology. 3 



to this little rude musician, as one who heralds the season of 

 love and marriage. The larger bird, Megalcema caniceps, is 

 is even more noisy; and throughout the hot weather in Bareilly 

 the early mornings are resonant with its loud cries, mingled 

 with the familiar notes of what, though separated as a distinct 

 species, I should call the local representative of our favourite 

 Cuckoo. The cry of the larger Barbet is extraordinarily loud ; 

 '* kookeroo, kookeroo, kookeroo " rings through the air, almost 

 as if fired out of a gun ; and it is really wonderful how long the 

 bird can keep on ejecting these notes as it does, bowing the 

 whole body each time, and inflating the bare patches on each 

 side of the base of the throat, seen only, by the way, when it is 

 in the act of calling. 



A few weeks ago these two species of Barbets were the only 

 birds that had nests in our large compound, to-day we have 

 found nearly fifty. 



Not thirty yards from the house is a group of common mango- 

 trees [Mangifera indica) ; and in one of these my Shikaree pointed 

 out a dense clump of leaves, some fifteen feet from the ground. 

 " There," he said, " is a nest of a ' Podua' and the bird is 

 sitting." Neither nest nor bird could I see ; so a little clod of 

 earth was thrown gently up, and with a feeble twitter and a 

 little jerking flight away flew a tiny, rather long-tailed bird, 

 whitish below, and, as it seemed, of a dingy hue above. It 

 alighted close hy, and began dodging rapidly about, up and 

 down branches and trunk, in and out of the leaves, now here, 

 now there, with such unintermitting action that it was several 

 minutes before I could shoot it. Once in the hand, there was 

 no mistaking the Tailor-bird {Orthotomus longicauda). Sending 

 a lad up, we soon had the nest. Three of the long ovato- 

 lanceolate leaves of the mango, whose peduncles sprang from 

 the same point, had been neatly drawn together with gossamer 

 threads run through the sides of the leaves, and knotted out- 

 side, so as to form a cavity like the end of a netted purse, with 

 a wide slit on the side nearest the trunk, beginning near the 

 bottom and widening upwards. Inside this, the real nest, nearly 

 3 inches deep and about 2 in diameter, was neatly constructed 

 of wool and fine vegetable fibres, the bottom being thinly lined 



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