THE MYNAH. 47 



looked on together with certain crows, who had evidently 

 been attracted, like Mark Twain and his friends in Italy on 

 a similar occasion, by a disinterested desire to be allowed 

 " to help cord up the dead." The crows, however, were 

 not officious beyond a nervous twitch at a combatant's 

 tail, for the Mynah is a good bird of his hands, so to speak, 

 and can make himself respected even by a crow ; indeed, 

 the Market Sergeant told me that he had once seen a crow 

 nearly pecked to death by a pair of these birds. The 

 Mynah is indeed a truly respectable character ; while 

 offering a creditable resistance to aggression, he does not 

 seem, as a rule, to interfere with other birds, though I 

 have seen him clinging to the entrance of a sparrow's nest 

 in a manner that betokened designs either on the babies or 

 the bedding ; I fear possibly the former, since I have 

 noticed a small house-lizard in a Mynah's bill, and from 

 such a victim to a young bird is not a very long step. At 

 the same time, a Mynah likes a warm nest, so perhaps a 

 desire to borrow a little upholstery was the real motive. 

 The Mynah's eggs are of a cheerful light blue, like those of 

 most starlings, and his young, when fledged, are like him- 

 self, but less brightly and distinctly marked. I have seen 

 young birds with brown heads, which may be either a 

 ' ' sport ' ' or the result of the softer plumage of the young 

 getting sooner rusty on that part. Mr. Aitken in Hume's 

 ' ' Nest and Eggs of Indian Birds, ' ' gives an interesting 

 account of a pair of Mynahs which in every alternate brood 

 produced a white young one. I have seen several white 

 Mynahs myself ; one in particular which Mr. Rutledge had 

 was very interesting, having assumed its natural colour at 



