228 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



ornithologist. I admit that bank mynas are very 

 partial to the fields of millet and other tall grain crops, 

 but I am persuaded that they visit these for the 

 insects that lurk on their spikes. 



Grasshoppers are to the common myna what 

 bread and meat are to the Englishman, the pieces 

 de resistance of the menu. This is why mynas always 

 affect pasture land, where it exists, and keep company 

 with cattle, the sedate march of which causes so much 

 consternation among the grasshoppers. Bank mynas 

 eat grasshoppers, but seem to prefer other insects, 

 especially those which lurk underground.^ Certain it 

 is that wherever they occur they maintain a sharp 

 look-out for the ploughman, and follow him most 

 assiduously as he turns up the soil by means of his 

 oxen-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 



^ Since the above was written, 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, Ophiusa melicerte. Vide Memoirs of the 

 Department of Agriculture in India (Entomological Series, Vol. III). 



