UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 79 



if a ring be dropped into a deep well, the bird 

 will dart down, with such amazing celerity, as to 

 catch the ring before it touches the water, and 

 bring it up with apparent exultation. 



A singular instance of its docility was fre- 

 quently witnessed by the writer of this account. 

 The young Hindu women, at Benares, wear thin 

 plates of gold, called ticas, slightly fixed, by way 

 of ornament, between their eye-brows. Mis- 

 chievous young men train the bayas to go, at a 

 signal given them, and pluck the pieces of gold 

 from the foreheads of the women, as they pass 

 through the streets, and bring them to their 

 employers. They do not sing, but when as- 

 sembled together, on a tree, they make a lively 

 din or chirping ; their want of musical talent, 

 however, is compensated by their sagacity, in 

 which they are not excelled by any feathered 

 inhabitant of the forest. 



There is another species of this family, 

 found in Madagascar, which is sometimes called 

 the toddy bird ; it is very like the one I have 

 described, and fastens its bag, or nest, which is 

 made of straw and seeds, in the same manner, 

 to a branch, over a stream. Though it builds 

 a fresh nest every year, it does not abandon the 

 old nest, but fastens the new one to the end of 

 the last; so that sometimes five may be seen 

 hanging one from the other. They build in 



