56 ' A NATUBALIST'S WANDEmXGS 



day they retired; and as soon as the cattle arrived they 

 would alight on their backs in crowds, to the evident satis- 

 faction of the oxen, which they relieved of trouhlesome parasites. 

 Although the herd-boys commonly lay dozing at full length 

 on the buffaloes' backs, the birds seemed to know that they 

 were quite safe, and would even alight on the bare backs 

 of the sleepers, and from that hop on to the haunches of the 

 quadruped ; and when the herds were driven away at nightfall 

 the Sturnopastors flew off to the forest. 



One of the rarer birds obtained here was the fine red- 

 crested Woodpecker {Migli/ptes tristis), which much resembles 

 the M. gramrm'mtJiorax of Malherbe, which is not found in 

 Java, while the former, distinguished by its uniform black 

 breast and abdomen, is confined to this island.* In the 

 gloaming, frequenting kafless branches, I often saw the 

 minute Butterfly Hawk {Microh'emx fringillarius), not so 

 large as a shrike, darting after grasshoppers, moths and late- 

 flying butterflies. Among the songsters that made' them- 

 selves more noticeable by frequenting the isolated trees near 

 my house, were the golden Oiiule {Oriolus maculatus) and 

 the yellow crowned Bnlhvil {Trachjcomiis oclirocejplialus), 

 which late in the evenings filled the whole neighbourhood 



with their melodious, clear, bell-like notes ; while two members 

 of the Cuckoo family, the " DoodiOoV\IiMmcoccyx curvirostris) 

 and the "Boot" {B. javanensis) used to utter their curious 

 bleating call in the low jungle behind, often breaking with their 

 weird modulations the stillness of the midnight. In a neigh- 

 bouring clump of canes a colony of Yellow Weaver-birds 

 (Floceus hjjjoxanthiis) had thickly hung their nests. Each nest 

 was artfully suspended between the interlacing leaf-stems of one 

 or two reeds in a most skilful way, to secure as much as possible 

 the safety of their eggs during the waving of the reeds in the 

 wind. These nests were not made fast to, but strung lightly 

 on the leaves, sometimes passed through the fork of another 

 leaf to form a pulley, so as to permit, by sliding along in the 

 swaying of the grass, of their retaining their vertical position, 

 which they must do, weighted as they are by a layer of clay in 

 the bottom of the nests. I noticed that many of them were 



4 



Cf. Hargitt, ' Ibis,' 1884, pp. 190, 191 ; and Nicholson, op. cit, 1879, 16 



