BARBETS 111 



times, and they take care never to call in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of their nests. 



They are much shyer than the coppersmiths, 

 never nesting in crowded streets, and being usually 

 careful to choose well- hidden places as sites for 

 their caverns. When they do nest close to a 

 path, the opening of the burrow is always placed 

 so as to be hidden from view by overhanging 

 masses of foliage or aerial roots. So well hidden 

 are the nests, and so cautious are the owners in 

 approaching them that, in spite of the brilliant 

 plumage of the latter, it is often only after much 

 patient use of a field-glass that their exact location 

 can be made out. That a nest is somewhere near 

 may often be suspected from the frequent visits of 

 a pair of birds to a particular tree, but the 

 information thus obtained is very vague. The 

 owners carefully avoid going directly to the opening 

 of their cave on coming in, and will not come in 

 at all whilst aware of being watched, so that the 

 work of discovery must be carried on from some 

 distance. A nest in an old banyan-tree near my 

 house had its opening so artfully concealed among 

 a number of descending roots as to be quite in- 

 visible from the base of the stem, and, as the birds 

 obstinately refused to approach it so long as any 

 one remained at all near, it was some time before its 

 precise site could be found. A field-glass showed 

 that the birds always came into and went out 



