BREEDING SEASONS. 3 



of them, and that day's work I have ever regretted. It cannot of course 

 be known how long the little bird mourned his loss, or what his end was, 

 but on the other hand no one can doubt that the sorrow for the time was 

 real and deep. 



When the eggs are hatched, and the helpless young lie in the nest 

 dependant solely on the parent birds for food and life, the maternal 

 instincts are of course quicker and more deep-seated, and many anec- 

 dotes could be told of the devotion of birds to their young, and of their 

 courage and ingenuity in defending them. I will only mention one 

 instance which occurred to a friend of mine. A nest of the golden oriole, 

 often known as the mangp bird ( Oriolus kundoo) , had been found in the 

 garden containing young, and was taken and brought into the house with 

 the intention of rearing the young for the cage. The nest was placed by 

 an open window, and there was discovered by the parent birds. They took 

 charge of it as if nothing had happened, coming fearlessly into the 

 verandah and feeding the young all day long. After a few days the nest 

 was removed to another house more than half a mile distant, and still the 

 parent birds followed it, tended it in the new situation, and eventually 

 I believe reared up the young and carried them off as soon as they were 

 able to fly. The golden oriole is a shy retiring bird, and for it to overcome 

 so far its dread of man shows a very high order of parental affection. 



One more instance, perhaps the most curious of all, I must give 

 before passing on to resume my subject. The heroine this time being 

 a kite ( Milvus govinda) . Kites are not attractive birds, except for the 

 wonderful grace of their flight, and it is hard to imagine a tender heart 

 beneath their fierce but treacherous and withal cowardly exteriors. In the 

 month of January in lower Bengal when with the kites the breeding 

 season is at its height, a solitary female, over whom the instincts of 

 the season evidently had their sway, but who from some cause or other 

 was unprovided with a nest or eggs, appropriated an empty pill-box 

 that had been thrown on to the roof of a portico, nd gathering 

 some sticks and straws round it in the corner of the roof to serve as a 

 nest, she commenced and carried on with admirable perseverance a forlorn 

 attempt to hatch it. When approached and driven from her place she would 

 return to defend the beloved treasure dashing fiercely at the intruder. 

 How long it would have taken before her hopes of welcoming a young 

 kite out of the pill-box would have been finally abandoned was not 

 proved, for a heavy storm of rain reduced it to a pulp, and in its place 

 the egg of a domestic fowl was put down, and on that the kite now joined 



