BREEDING SEASONS OF CEYLON BIRDS. 33 



as you walk up, or a Quail explodes from right under your feet, 

 you may very probably find that there is a nest. In the same 

 way look for a nest -hole if a Mynah or Woodpecker suddenly 

 flies away from half way up a bare tree trunk ; and if you see a 

 Grolden Oriole dart out from the end of a low-hanging branch, 

 examine the spot carefully. 



I have twice got the eggs of the little Wood-shrike (Tephro- 

 dornis pondicerianus) from noting how the bird flew away from 

 the upper surface of a horizontal bough. The nest is a shallow 

 saucer, glued on to the surface of the bough, and so felted with 

 cobweb and lichen that, from the ground, it appears a mere 

 roughness of the bark ; and unless the bird showed you the 

 place you would scarcely ever be able to see that there was a 

 nest there. 



Some birds get very restless— hopping about the branches 

 and twittering while anyone is close to the nest. 



On the other hand, the Red- wattled Lapwing, which is 

 usually such a shrieking nuisance, gets off her eggs without a 

 sound at fifteen or twenty yards range and hurries off in a 

 most amusingly quiet and furtive manner. 



Again, follow up any bird you see flying off with a long 

 straw, a twig, or feather in its mouth ; or if you see a small 

 bird fly out in a fury and drive away a larger intruder watch 

 carefully the branch to which it returns. I found my first 

 nest of the Bush Bulbul {Aegithina tiphia) in this way. The 

 little cock-bird darted from a thin branch and fairly hustled 

 out of the neighbourhood a Cinnamon Thrush which was 

 casually wandering by. 



After finding one or two nests of a species, one soon gets to 

 know the likely localities in which to look, and as nesting lore 

 is gradually acquired far less time is spent in poking around 

 aimlessly. 



But before taking up bird-nesting in Ceylon one should 

 have a working acquaintance with, at any rate, the commoner 

 birds of the field and jungle, for this reason — that one must, 

 wherever possible, identify beyond doubt the bird to which 

 the nest belongs. Many of our Ceylon eggs are, by them- 

 selves, indistinguishable from the eggs of other species. For 

 example , one might easily confuse those of the little Kingfisher 



F 6(2)13 



