THE ZOOLOGIST 



FOR 1865. 



Notices of New Books. 



^ TIte Birds of India; being a Natural History of all the Birds 

 known to inhabit Continental India.' By T. C. Jerdon. In 

 two Volumes. Vol. ii. j Parts 1 and 2. Calcutta: 1863— 64. 



(Third and concluding notice). 



Very pleasant must it be to dwell in a land where the roseringed 

 parrateet is one of the commonest and most familiar of birds, deco- 

 rating every garden and perching on every house-top, roosting together 

 by hundreds among the bamboos, and, on returning to their feeding- 

 ground in the morning, skimming over the surface of the country, and 

 rising above every little obstacle that presents itself. Very strange it 

 must be to visit bamboo-groves so full of feathered inhabitants that 

 their cries are deafening from day-dawn to sun-rise, and from twilight 

 to dark, giving the listener the idea of a thousand of the noisiest steam- 

 engines, clanking, puflBng, blowing and screaming simultaneously. 

 But for ingenuity and architectural skill commend us to the weaver- 

 bird, or " baya," as our author prefers to call it : here is a scrap 

 of its biography : — 



" The Common Weaver-bird (Ploceus baya). — The baya breeds 

 during the rains, according to the locality, from April to September ; 

 but 1 am not aware if they ever have more than one brood. Its long 

 retort-shaped nest is familiar to all, and it is indeed a marvel of skill, as 

 elegant in its form as substantial in its structure, and weather-proof 

 against the down-pour of a Malabar or Burmese monsoon. It is very 

 often suspended from the fronds of some lofty palm-tree, either the 

 Palmyra, cocoa-nut or date, but by no means so universally so as Mr. 

 Blyth would imply, for a babool [Acacia arabica or Vachellia Fame- 

 siana) or other tree will often be selected in preference to a palm- 

 VOL. XXIII, B 



