Eastern Ravens.



143



rescued one day only just in time. It was never discovered where

these treasures were hidden.


Happily the curses cursed by the carpenters were lacking in

the potency of those attributed to prelates, or the Ravens might have

shared the fate of their notorious cousin of Rheims. An ovarian

diet appealed to them so strongly that they missed no chance of

purloining any egg placed in a position to furnish opportunity for

larceny. These birds were embarrassingly tame and would take food

from one’s hand and brazenly peck any inoffending human legs.

Eventually they became such a nuisance that a general appeal from

all and sundry, black and white, was made to the Sahib for their

speedy eviction. The black Barabbases, like the modern Irish tenant,

refused to be evicted, and they remained in the vicinity of the

bungalow, breaking the eighth commandment on every possible

occasion, until the season when the irresistible call of the wild lured

them away into the jungle, where doubtless they made homes for

themselves and laid green eggs splotched with brown after the

manner of their kind.


A long time after a pair returned to the bungalow, probably

two of those brought up there, for these birds are not generally

known near the abodes of men.



INDIAN BIRDS.


By Althea R. Sherman.


[Reprinted from the Wilson Bulletin, No. 90.]


Calcutta was the only place in which the Common Indian

Swift (Cypselus affinis) was identified. Numbers of them were

noisily flying above my hotel; both their notes and their appearance

in flight were suggestive of our Chimney Swifts. They are said

to build their mud nests against the beams and rafters of houses

and of porches, and return to these nests for roosting. This

trustfulness in mankind makes the species one of the many in

India that could be brought under very close observation.



