MASON AND LEFBOY. 



monest and most interesting birds of the plains. It can be seen 

 almost anywhere in open country, preferring cultivated areas and 

 grass lands rather than jungle, though it occurs very commonly 

 in the thinner jungles. It is one of the first three birds one notices 

 when coming across India. The King-crow (D. ater) the common 

 Indian bee eater (M.. viridis) and -the blue jay (Coracms mdica), 

 show a remarkable preference for perching on telegraph wires from 

 which they can get a very good view of any insect flying by or on 

 the ground. It is a very easy bird to observe in the plains, as it is 

 so common, and not at all shy. Curiously enough, in the hills (Ka- 

 sauli), I found it comparatively hard to get near for close observa- 

 tions, though fairly common there. 



The Bang-crow is almost entirely insectivorous, capturing its 

 prey in the air, on the ground, and even skimming the surface of 

 pools and rivers in pursuit of Ephemerids and Hydrophilids. From 

 the different orders of insects known to form its food, practically 

 no insect comes amiss to it. Size of the insect is apparently of 

 little matter, since we find the King-crow takes insects varying in 

 size from those as large as the Bombay Locust (Acridium succinc- 

 tum) down to the some of the smallest Histerids. No preference 

 seems to be shown to any one species or family or insects, though I 

 have certainly -observed three cases of apparent dislike. Two of 

 these occasions occurred with a whitish Fulgorid Lawana cons- 

 persa. In each instance the bird swooped at the insect and when 

 almost up to it swerved off and left it. The insect was flying 

 slowly in open jungle and could have been caught easily ; it does 

 not smell offensively, nor has the colouration anything to do with 

 the case, for I have seen the King-crow catching S. auriflua (the 

 White Cane Borer) on the wing flying over oats, and once the 

 common white butterfly Belenois mesentina. The second case 

 was noticed at. Indigo mahai, when the King-crows were round 

 the vats in numbers, capturing beetles, chiefly Tenebrionids 

 (Opatrum sp.) and weevils, of which Myllocerus maculosus and 

 M. blandus were the commonest species, small moths and 

 probably spiders, though these are not often taken. Dragon-flies 



