140 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



nonsense written about protective colouring. Most 

 birds are not protectively coloured ; moreover, if 

 they were so clothed as to be invisible amid their 

 natural surroundings they would not derive much 

 profit therefrom. 



The labour of the six-and-twenty little bulbuls 

 who, to my knowledge, have failed to rear their 

 broods has not been lost altogether, for it has taught 

 me something about their ways that I did not know 

 before. Those birds showed me how quickly they 

 are able to build a nest. 



Very few observations regarding the duration of 

 nest-building operations are on record. The reason 

 is not far to seek. A nest at the very beginning of 

 its existence is difficult to discover, and if come upon 

 by chance is not easy to recognise as an incipient 

 nursery. The nests we find are usually complete or 

 in an advanced stage of construction. 



I was strolling in the garden about 8 a.m. on the 

 3rd March last, when I noticed a bulbul with a leaf 

 in its bill. I saw the bird fly into a small cypress bush 

 and then emerge therefrom without the leaf. A short 

 search sufficed to reveal the place in the bush where 

 the leaf had been deposited. Placed by this leaf I 

 found another leaf, a small branch of Duranta with 

 some yellow berries attached to it, two or three small 

 straws and some cobweb. These apparently had 

 been thrown haphazard into the bush. Had I not 

 seen the bulbul go into the bush carrying a leaf, 

 I should not have suspected that these few things 

 were the beginning of a nest, for they had no sem- 



