BIRDS OF UPPER PEGU. 27 



wildest and wariest of birds. One that I took from the nest nearly 

 two years ago is still as wild as ever, and constantly raffles up the 

 feathers of its head till they look almost like the crest of a blood- 

 sucker, leaving the rest of the top of the head almost bare. It 

 has also a habit of throwing" back the head, apparently looking 

 for a hole in the top of its cage, and bending backwards till it 

 frequently falls over. It appears to have a great desire to wash. 

 When first caught, I gave it water in a sardine tin, when it stood 

 over it and went through the motions of washing, although it 

 was hardly fledged, and could not of course get into the water. 

 This bird shows no change either in plumage, length of crest, 

 the dark color of the eye, or the black cere, since I have had 

 it, except that it has lost the pale tips on the back and 

 wings. 



' ' These birds, as far as I know, feed on Mynas, rats, and frogs. 

 I have taken a young bird from the nest in the middle of May, 

 and seen several young birds about the end of that month. 

 These birds build the usual Hawk Eagle's nest in the fork of 

 the largest and most inaccessible tree that they can find, invari- 

 ably, as far as I know, overhanging the bed of a stream. 

 Either numbers of these birds build and do not lay, or else they 

 desert their nests on the slightest suspicion of their having been 

 discovered. Of half a dozen nests that I saw building in March, 

 on one of which I saw an old female engaged in arranging the 

 sticks, not One ever contained either egg or young bird ; though 

 I found a large egg dropped at a short distance from one of the 

 nests, as if the bird had deserted the nest and not built another. 

 Several pairs of birds belonging to nests in more remote parts of 

 the jungle seemed all to have succeeded in rearing one young 

 bird each. The Burmese state that the birds only lay one egg, 

 which is pure white. Fragments of two eggs, one on the ground 

 and another in the nest from which I got the bird, were white. 

 While the trees are in full leaf, these birds shelter them- 

 selves in the middle of some thick tree during the heat of 

 the day. " 



In the quite young bird of this species, just before the first 

 moult, almost the whole of the head and lower parts are white ; 

 a few of the feathers of the forehead and the centre of the 

 crown and occiput are brown-shafted, or have very narrow shaft 

 stripes. Two or three feathers on the breast have very narrow, 

 brown, shaft stripes towards the tips ; on the sides of the body 

 there are some brown dashes, and the tibial plumes are very 

 faintly barred transversely with pale rufescent brown. The upper 

 surface of the body, tail, and wings are much as in the adult, 

 except that the sub-terminal tail band is narrower and less 

 conspicuous, and the white margins of the feathers have almost 

 disappeared. 



