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the habit commenced with the capture of the ghost moth, but now every

species that can be caught, falls a prey to the Gulls.



Mr. Lanceloth Haslope kindly sends us the following extract from a

letter received from his son in India, dated June 13th, 1902. The bird referred to

is the Hawk Cuckoo, Megalama caniceps. (Seepage 203.) “The other day a

bird came into a myrtle-bush growing in a tub below my front steps. I thought

it was a young Crow; but when I examined it, it turned out to be a Brain-

fever Bird. It is a kind of Cuckoo which has a not unmelodious whistle,

which it repeats with maddening iteration; hence its common name and

the fact that every man’s gun is against it. The cock is blackish, the hen

spotty, something like a Cuckoo. It comes in the hot weather, when

nerves and tempers are worn tliinnish. This one had been abandoned by

its parents because the Crows were persecuting it—so my servants said. It

was very draggled with wet when I found it, and looked miserable. The

Brain-fever Bird I dislike, but I do not love the Crow either, in fact I

shoot him whenever there is a caws; and I could not bring myself to leave

the poor youngster to his ver}' untender mercies. So I took him in, after

trying to get his parents to remove him. He adopted me as his father and

mother at once and without reserve; came on to my hand and gave the

usual signs of hunger. He has only been with me about four days now, but

from the first he has hardly been comfortable when I am in another room.

He sits on the back of a chair near me at meals and on a box in my study ; I

have not got a cage for him yet. He often tries to fly on to my shoulder and

head, with occasional success. If I go into my dressing-room he comes

after me, with ungainly, frog-like leaps, but is quite happy and goes to

sleep when I put him on the top of my looking-glass. He shows perfect

confidence in me ; even affection ; in fact, he is a most engaging pet

already. I do not know how to feed him, so he gets about what I do :

just now he is particularly full of porridge, which seems to suit him. In

colour he is blackish above, spotted with white on his legs and under his

wings. He is about the size and shape of a Cuckoo. The native poet calls

him the Indian Nightingale, and compares his (the poet’s) lady’s voice to

that of the bird. So they tell me, for I do not read the native poets : it is

not that I deem them low, but for many other reasons, the first of which is

I cannot. . . . The Brain-fever Bird has come on to my shoulder and is


investigating the back of my neck, so I shall stop.”



Those of our members who are fond of reading about foreign birds in a

wild state, will be interested in the following extract from a paper on West

African birds, by Dr. G. Hopkinson, which appeared in the June number of

Bird Notes : — “ Every village swarms with Firefinches, the cocks gorgeous in

their scarlet plumage, attended by about a dozen more soberly-clad hens.

They are absolutely domesticated, flying in and out of the houses and building

in the grass roofs, and finding the greater part of their food in the compounds

around the houses. This for the most part consists of the wasted seeds of

the millet, and one often sees the heap of husks, which accumulate where

the women winnow the ears, red with these little birds. Besides they also

hunt for and catch a large number of small insects in the thatch, and

perhaps the fact that they require more insect food than their congeners

may partly account for their undoubtedly greater delicacy as cage-birds.



