RICE-BIRDS 147 



he has a vested interest in the grain-fields. The first 

 time I saw a flock of these birds negotiating a rice-patch 

 I became a convert to their convictions. It was a pleasmre 

 to observe how they conducted their operations ; I say a 

 pleasure, because I had no share in the rice-fields. At 

 one end of the clearing there was a huge tree, still standing 

 although dry and devoid of leaves. This was the coign 

 of vantage the birds had fixed upon as a base for their 

 operations, and they could not have made a wiser selec- 

 tion. In the mornings and afternoons, while the flock 

 was feeding, only two or three individuals remained on 

 the bare branches of the tree. They were the sentinels 

 whose duty it was to notify their comrades below of any 

 suspicious manoeuvre on the part of those who had 

 planted the rice. A note of alarm and the whole flock 

 would leave the field like a well-drilled battalion. The 

 birds would betake themselves to the tree, where they 

 would remain if no attempt were made to follow them 

 up. It was perfectly useless, as we found, to try to get 

 within shooting distance of the tree. The birds invariably 

 flew away and scattered about in the wood at the edge 

 of the clearing. One of my hunters did bring in a couple 

 of specimens of the rice-bird once : they must have been 

 the idiots of the flock. 



In my wanderings along the margin of the forest 

 I frequently came across detachments of Parasol Ants 

 {(Ecodoma cephalotes) returning to their homes laden 

 with booty obtained in the gardens. Like the mound- 

 builders who peopled North America in prehistoric times, 

 these ants also build mounds, in which are their colonies, 

 connected by subterranean galleries. If the ants with 

 their burden of leaves be followed they v/ill be seen to 

 enter holes in the mounds, out of which other ants having 



