144 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



little, restless movements can be clearly noted. 

 Like king-crows, they often swoop down suddenly 

 over ponds in order to pick up insects from the 

 surface of the water. At their times of greatest 

 activity, in mornings and evenings, they have casual 

 affrays with king-crows over the possession of 

 specially alluring insects. They do not so often 

 light on the ground as king-crows do ; but they may 

 sometimes be seen in large numbers on the surfaces 

 of freshly ploughed fields, either in quest of suitable 

 nesting-places, or attracted by the abundance of 

 exhumed insects, or, in spring and autumn, in 

 assembly preparatory to migration. Towards the 

 end of winter those who have spent the season near 

 Calcutta become much more vividly coloured than 

 they were on arrival, and by the time that the hot 

 weather has fairly set in they have disappeared, 

 save in those exceptional cases in which a pair have 

 elected to nest in the locality. Their departure 

 can hardly be determined by dietetic causes, as 

 other kinds of insectivorous birds continue to find 

 an abundance of insect-food all through the summer. 

 It is apparently due to their nesting habits, for, 

 nesting as they do in burrows in the soil of fields 

 and banks, in a region like the lower Gangetic 

 delta, they must naturally meet with great 

 difficulties in finding sites secure from repeated 

 inundation during the torrential falls of rain that 

 frequently take place during the summer months. 



