200 JUNGLE FOLK 



capers and perform the other absurdities that charac- 

 terise the amorous swain. I incHne to the view that, 

 although birds select their mates, the songs and the 

 dances and the displays of the males are not so much 

 attempts to captivate the females as expressions of the 

 superabundant energy that literally bubbles over at 

 the breeding season. A ruff when courting is obviously 

 as mad as the proverbial hatter : he will display 

 all his splendours as readily to a stone as to a reeve. 

 At the season of love-making one frequently sees one 

 pied myna — presumably a cock — puff out his feathers 

 and inflate his throat, and then strut after another bird 

 just as the little brown dove {Turtur ca^nbayensis) does 

 when on matrimony intent. At another phase of the 

 courtship of the pied mynas two birds will sit, side by 

 side, on a perch and bow and sing to one another just 

 as king crows {Dicrums ater) do. 



Most species of myna breed early in the hot weather, 

 but the pied mynas invariably wait until the first rain 

 has fallen before the}^ set about the work of nest- 

 building. Colonel Cunningham suggests that the reason 

 for this peculiarity of the pied starling is that, as it 

 does not nestle in a hole but builds in a tree, it requires 

 the green leaves coaxed forth by the rain as a protec- 

 tion to its nest. If the nursery of the pied myna were 

 a neatly constructed cup, something might be said 

 for this idea, but no amount of foliage could hide from 

 view the huge mass of straw and rubbish that does 

 duty for the nest of this species. Pied mynas rely on 

 their pugnacity, and not on concealment, for the pro- 

 tection of the nest. A hst of the various materials 



