WEAVER-BIRDS, SHRIKES, ETC. 189 



by the relative shortness of their tail-feathers. They 

 are often curiously methodical as to the time of their 

 visits and the order in which they inspect the 

 different parts of the garden. During one spring 

 a solitary bird used to make a tour every morning 

 shortly after dawn along the upper verandah of 

 the superintendent's house at the Botanic Garden. 

 He always came in at the eastern end of the 

 verandah, and lighted sideways on an iron-rod that 

 supported the cage of a piping-crow. Thence he 

 flew up to the cornice beneath the beams of the 

 roofs, and worked his way along it, searching care- 

 fully for spiders in all the crevices as he went, until 

 he arrived at the western end, from which he flew 

 out with a loud call into a great casuarina on the 

 river-band. They are usually very abundant in the 

 Botanic Garden, and this may be one reason why so 

 few small birds nest there in spite of the abundant 

 cover and the quietness of the locality. 



Tree-pies are always on the outlook for plunder, 

 and may often be seen flying about with stolen eggs 

 in their bills. It is small wonder, therefore, that 

 most of their neighbours regard them with extreme 

 disfavour. Almost all the common birds of gardens 

 are ready to attack them, but perhaps their most 

 inveterate enemies are the spotted doves, who are 

 at once on the war-path whenever a tree-pie makes 

 his appearance, and pursue him about relentlessly, 

 pecking and buffeting until they have driven him 



