Private Importation of Indian Birds in 191 6. 101 



' most abundamly. They consort with all the other species of myna, 

 " for whatever may have been thought of them when first evolved, they 

 " arc now in Society. King-Crows [Dicii/iis atcr) dance attendance 

 " upon them as they do on the common mynas, for the sake <jf 

 " the insects put up by them as they strut through the grass. The 

 " king-crovM^ owing to the length of its tail, and shortness of its, 

 " leg; is no pedestrian, and so is not able to beat for itself. 



" 'J'ho books tell us that the bank mynas feed on insects., 

 " grain and fruu. I am inclined to think that their diet is con- 

 " fined almost exclusively to the first of these three articles. I speak 

 " not as one having authortiy, for in order to do this, it is nec- 

 " e>3 .ry to shoot dozens of the bird.s and carefully examine the con- 

 " tent.s of their stomachs. This kind of thing I leave to the econ- 

 " omic ornithologist. I admit that bank mynas are very partial to 

 " fields of millet, and other tall grain crops, but I am persuaded 

 " that they visit these for the insects th*t lurk in their spikes. 



' Grasshoppers *re to the common myna what bread and meat 



" are to the Englishman, the pieces dc rcsisldiicc of the menu. This 



" is why mynas always affect pasture land, where it e.xists, and keep 



" company with cattle, the sedate march of which causes so much con- 



" sternation among the grasshoppers. Bank mynas eat grasshoppers, but 



"seem to prefer other insects, especially those which lurk underground* 



" Certain it i s that wherever they occur they keep a sharp look-out for 



the ploughman, and follow him most assiduously as he turns up the 



soil by means of his o.xen-drawn plough. The house crows also 



attend this function. The other species of myna follow the plough, 



" but not so consistently as the bank myna. The pied starling, although 



" it does not disdain the insects cast up by the plough, seems to prefer* 



" to pick its food out of mud. One often sees a flock of these birds 



paddling about in shallow water, as though they were sandpipers. 



" It is amusing to watch a flock of bank mynas strutting along 

 a newly turned furrow. In upper India it is usual for two or more 

 ploughs to work together in Indian file a few yards separating them.;i 

 The mynas like to place themselves between two ploughs, an'd so 

 fearless are they that they sometimes allow themsenlves to be trodden 

 'on by the team behind them. Altohugh the progress of the oxen'; 

 is not rapid, it is tioo fast for the mynas, who find themselveiii con-.: 

 tinualh dropping behind, and have every now and again to use their 

 wing to keep pace with them. At intervals, the whole following, or a por- 



*Since the above was wriiten, C. W. Mason has published a paper 

 entitled The Food of Birds in India. In this he shows that eight stomachs 

 of the bank myna contained io6 insects. His researches show that this 

 species is very partial to the caterpillars of the common castor pest iOplitiisa 

 melicerte. [Vide Memoirs oj the Dept. of Aiiiieiiliurc in India [Entomo- 

 logical Series] Vol. III.) 



