12 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



bush, or making little excursions to the ground and 

 back again. But at the breeding season the cocks often 

 fly up high in the air and describe a series of wide 

 circles. They will spend hours in this performance with 

 only a few seconds' rest at long intervals. 



The eggs are nearly always placed in some natural 

 hole, that is to say, one not excavated by the dhayal 

 itself. The hole is sometimes in a tree, but nine times 

 out of ten in Northern India the site selected is a hole 

 in some building. The servants' quarters in the corner 

 of some shady garden are almost invariably chosen. A 

 very favourite spot is between the wooden lintel and 

 the mud wall of a kachcha building ; such buildings are 

 well called kachcha, for they begin to crack and fall 

 down as soon as they are built. The cracks and 

 crevices that appear in them offer just what magpie- 

 robins want for nesting purposes. The eggs are not 

 laid on the bare brick, mud, or other material in which 

 the cavity exists. The hole is invariably lined with 

 roots, fibres, grass, feathers, or any other soft material 

 available. My experience of the nests of this species 

 has been confined chiefly to Northern India, and I do 

 not recollect ever having found a nest that was not in 

 the wall of some building ; but observers from South 

 India say that, as often as not, the dhayal nests in 

 trees. 1 Gates states that in Burma the magpie-robin 

 almost invariably selects a large hollow bamboo, and 



1 Such is the contrariness of birds in general and of magpie-robins 

 in particular, that since this book went to press I have found in the 

 Pilibhit and Bareilly districts no fewer than seven dhayals nests in 

 holes in trees ! 



