FOR NORTHERN INDIA 142 



The wire-tailed swallows, swifts, pied 

 crested-cuckoos, crow-pheasants, butcher-birds, 

 cuckoo-shrikes, fantail flycatchers, babblers, 

 white-necked storks, wren-warblers, weaver- 

 birds, common and pied mynas, peafowl, and 

 almost all the resident water-birds, waders 

 and swimmers, except the terns and the 

 plovers, are likely to have eggs or young. The 

 nesting season of the swifts and butcher-birds 

 is nearly over. In the case of the others 

 it is at its height. The wire-tailed swallows 

 and minivets are busy with their second 

 broods. The nests of most of these birds have 

 already been described. 



The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) usually 

 lay their large white eggs on the ground in 

 long grass or thick undergrowth. Sometimes 

 they nestle on the grass-grown roofs of deserted 

 buildings or in other elevated situations. 

 Egrets, night-herons, cormorants, darters, 

 paddy-birds, openbills, and spoonbills build 

 stick nests in trees. These birds often breed in 

 large colonies. In most cases the site chosen 

 is a clump of trees in a village which is situated 

 on the border of a tank. Sometimes all these 

 species nest in company. Hume described a 

 village in Mainpuri where scores of the above- 



