34 Mr. C, F. M. Swynnerton on the 
found the contents of a nest broken by the fall of a branch. 
Kafirs will frequently spare a nest with eggs, but only 
with the idea of robbing it later, when the nestlings, 
which they invariably eat, are hatched. I have, however, 
frequently noted the disappearance of eggs under circum- 
stances which, quite apart from the total absence of tracks, 
precluded the possibility of native agency, and I have very 
little doubt that in many of these cases they have been 
removed by the bird itself to a place of greater safety as 
a result of their having been handled. The Kafirs them- 
selves invariably account for the fact in this way, and are 
in the habit, when removing part of a clutch or leaving 
eggs to hatch which they have touched (a thing they 
usually avoid), of plucking out an eyelash and placing it 
in the nest, believing that this has the effect of preventing 
the birds from removing the eggs. 
Evidently, should my explanation be correct, the birds of 
this country have such a habit developed to a far greater 
degree than those of Hurope, doubtless as the result of the 
constant interference with their operations which I have 
observed to take place. Again, the small number of eggs— 
from two to three—laid by the vast majority of our local 
species must strike anyone who has birds’-nested at all 
extensively in England, where clutches of five are the rule, 
and in many cases larger numbers are no exception. 
With regard to the fact of small birds of various species 
herding together under the leadership of the Drongos, 
mentioned by Mr. G. A. K. Marshall in ‘ The Ibis’ for 1900 
(p. 222), I may state that I have observed the same pheno- 
menon here, particularly in the areas of open bush; but, 
though the habit is undoubtedly a great protection to the 
weaker species, and has evidently reached its present high 
development as a result of this, yet the fact that the small 
birds peculiar to the forest—the canopy and dense under- 
growth of which ought to afford ample protection from the 
Hawks (and Hawks are in fact scarce in this district as com- 
pared with the neighbourhood of Salisbury)—also possess 
this habit, though perhaps in a somewhat less marked degree, 
