250 PET BIRDS OF BENGA^L 



embankment. Some half a dozen males 

 regularly run after a hen, trying to 

 hypnotise it with their songs. Perhaps 

 a cock has found a mate and is happily 

 engaged in professing its love in melo- 

 dious tunes, when suddenly there arrive 

 a few other males who begin their song 

 with a loud defiance. The first cock 

 ill affords to bear such interference in 

 silence, and therefore duels, which are 

 never out of date in the bird- world, fre- 

 quently occur. The jilted suitors do 

 not take their disappointment lyiug 

 down, but make every attempt to justify 

 the time-w@rn adage, Might is right. 



The writer who described 3Iotacilla 

 maderaspatensis as the most lovable 

 species among wagtails was not at all 

 hyperbolic in his admiration. I have 

 seen this bird at Pari, sitting on the 

 top of a tiled house and singing most 

 crloriouslv, while its mate was enocao-ed 

 in epicurean hunts a little ahead on the 

 beach. As the hen moved on, the 



