KITES 17 



a nest in the crown of a coco-nut tree at the side 

 of my garden, used to be amusingly jealous of the 

 intrusion of any outsiders of her own species into 

 her neighbourhood. Even whilst quite innocently 

 busy over their own affairs and thinking no evil of 

 her and her precious nest, they were never safe from 

 sudden assault. Whilst quietly seated on the lawn, 

 and fully occupied in the dissection of a grasshopper 

 or other large insect, they would be suddenly swooped 

 down upon, overturned, and fiercely grappled with. 

 A noisy scuffling, scolding, and waving of great brown 

 wings would follow; and then the intruder would 

 make off, leaving the old lady to walk about in sedate 

 triumph for a time and finally retire to her tree and 

 settle down placidly once more on the nest. 



They are very methodical in their habits. Night 

 after night they return to certain favoured roosts in 

 the tops of high trees ; and year after year they 

 continue to occupy the same nests, setting about 

 their annual repairs with such regularity that the 

 sight of one beginning to collect and carry about 

 sticks is looked for as one of the very earliest 

 harbingers of the approach of the cold weather, or, 

 rather, of the onset of the latter part of the rainy 

 season. Their repeated return to former nesting 

 places would seem to be determined rather by sloth 

 than by sentiment. During the nesting season 

 1876-7 there were three nests in my garden. In 

 the period intervening between that and the next 



