BABBLERS AND BULBULS 87 



where busily occupied in nesting. The nests are 

 great untidy heaps of rubbish quite worthy of their 

 architects. They are usually placed at about 

 eighteen or twenty feet above the ground among the 

 boughs of small trees or tall shrubs, Lagerstrcemia 

 regia being seemingly esteemed as affording 

 especially desirable sites. The material of which 

 the nests are built is, in many cases, mainly com- 

 posed of the finer aerial roots of fig-trees, those of 

 Ficus retusa being particular favourites, owing to 

 their slender tufted nature ; and the structure is 

 usually so loose, that, in the absence of the birds, the 

 eggs and the blue of the sky above can often be 

 clearly seen through it from beneath, just as in the 

 case of the nests of some king-crows. When the 

 birds are sitting an obscurely barred grey tail may 

 be seen projecting over one side of the nest, and, if 

 one remain long enough, a cunning alarmed head 

 is soon thrust out over the other to gaze indignantly 

 at the intruder. Shortly after mid-summer, or in 

 Anglo-Indian language, early in the rains, nesting is 

 quite over and the usual family parties of birds are 

 to be seen everywhere in full force. 



Bulbuls as a group are just as smart and well set- 

 up as babblers are debased and dowdy. Otocompsa 

 emeria, and Molpastes bengalensis (Plate V. 1, 2), 

 are constant inhabitants of the gardens of the 

 suburbs of Calcutta, and the latter birds may often 

 be seen and heard well within the limits of the town. 



