232 Messrs. W. R. Ogilvie Grant and J. Wliitclicad on the 



every month of the year; the collector is therefore often 

 doubtful as to the period when certain species will be found 

 incubating. The months selected by most species are those 

 towards the end of the wet season in localities where the 

 seasons are strictly ruled off, as the dry season which follows 

 is often a prolonged drought. In the equatorial regions, 

 where the rainfall is often almost perpetual, birds breed most 

 freely during the driest time of the year. This 1 noticed on 

 Kina Balu in March and April — the driest months — when 

 numbers of nests were found. 



The small number of eggs laid by most species in hot 

 climates is very noticeable. Two eggs, as a rule, complete 

 the sitting, and this occurs in genera the representatives 

 of which in temperate climates lay from five to six eggs to 

 a sitting. Nor do birds appear to nest more frequently in 

 the tropics — some species, it is true, nesting twice in the 

 year, but not oftener. 



The enemies of nesting-birds are not nearly so numerous 

 in temperate as in tropical regions. In the former many 

 species have few enemies except man, and therefore seek 

 seclusion away from human habitations — often building 

 rather conspicuous nests in high trees, or on the ground in 

 swampy districts, in open plains where a good watch may 

 be kept and ample warning given on the approach of man. 

 In tropical regions the order of things is reversed : many 

 large forest-i'requenting species nesting in clearings and 

 localities sufficiently frequented by man, in order to secure 

 protection from still greater enemies. Doubtless the greatest 

 enemies birds have in the tropics are monkeys, which are 

 often abundant ; while squirrels and huge tree-climbing 

 monitor-lizards are also numerous. As all these enemies 

 seldom leave the true forest, birds are able to rear their 

 young with less risk in more open localities. During seven 

 years spent in tropical islands I have never noticed a nest in 

 the branches of a high tree in true forest. The larger Hawks 

 prefer small patches of timber at some distance from the 

 forest; and in the neglected clearings of the Dusans, round 

 the base of Rina Balu, many forest-frequenting species were 



