BREEDING SEASONS. 3 
of them, and that day’s work I have ever regretted. It cannot of course 
be known how long the little bird mourned his loss, or what his end was, 
but on the other hand no one can doubt that the sorrow for the time was 
real and deep. . 
When the eggs are hatched, and the helpless young lie in the nest 
dependant solely on the parent birds for food and life, the maternal 
instincts are of course quicker and more deep-seated, and many anec- 
dotes could be told of the devotion of birds to their young, and of their 
courage and ingenuity in defending them. I will only mention one 
instance which occurred to a friendof mine. A nest of the golden oriole, 
often known as the mango bird ( Oriolus kundoo), had been found in the 
garden containing young, and was taken and brought into the house with 
the intention of rearing the young for the cage. The nest was placed by 
an open window, and there was discovered by the parent birds. They took 
charge of itas if nothing had happened, coming fearlessly into the 
verandah and feeding the young all day long. After a few days the nest 
was removed to another house more than half a mile distant, and still the 
parent birds followed it, tended it in the new situation, and eventually 
I believe reared up the young and carried them off as soon as they were 
able to fly. The golden oriole is a shy retiring bird, and for it to overcome 
so far its dread of man shows a very high order of parental affection. 
One more instance, perhaps the most curious of all, I must give 
before passing on to resume my subject. The heroine this time being 
a kite (Mfidvus govinda). Kites are not attractive birds, except for the 
wonderful grace of their flight, and it is hard to imagine a tender heart 
beneath their fierce but treacherous and withal cowardly exteriors. In the 
month of January in lower Bengal when with the kites the breeding 
season is at its height, a solitary female, over whom the instincts of 
the season evidently had their sway, but who from some cause or other 
was unprovided with a nest or eggs, appropriated an empty pill-box 
that had been thrown on to the roof of a portico, end gathering 
some sticks and straws round it in the corner of the roof to serve as a 
nest, she commenced and earried on with admirable perseverance a forlorn 
attempt to hatch it. When approached and driven from her place she would 
return to defend the beloved treasure dashing fiercely at the intruder. 
How long it would have taken before her hopes of welcoming a young 
kite out of the pill-box would have been finally abandoned was not 
proved, for a heavy storm of rain reduced it to a pulp, and in its place 
the exe of a domestic fowl was put down, and on that the kite now joined 
