776 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



been damaged by me some days previously, so that I was not surprised that 

 it had not hatched out. On July 4th I found that the crow's egg of the 17th 

 had hatched out ; and on the 5th the egg of the 18th yielded a young bird, 

 so that there were now in the nest four crow's nestlings, the addled crow's 

 -egg of the 13th and the chick's egg. 



On July 6th the movements of the young chicken inside the fowl's egg 

 were apparent, and as the full twenty-one days would be completed on the 

 morning of July 7th I went to the tree on that day wondering whether I 

 should see a young chick in the nest. But I found the fowl's egg lying 

 broken on the ground with a fully formed young chick inside, the ants had 

 just discovered it but had not yet damaged it. The branches that we now 

 always arranged had been disturbed ; it was thus evident that some one had 

 swarmed the tree. Two of the young crows had been taken away, so that 

 the nest now contained two young crows and the addled crow's egg. I was 

 naturally indignant at this prank, which had followed so closely on the 

 removal of the young crow from nest number II. A small boy, whom I had 

 appointed to watch, informed me that this time the culprits were the sons 

 of the dhobi and the sweeper of the Principal of the College. These had each 

 four rupees deducted from their pay as a punishment in order to teach them 

 not to molest me in future. I took the young chick which was fully 

 formed and have it preserved in spirit and shall be glad to present it to the 

 Bombay Natural History Society as a curiosity if the Society cares to have 

 it. There may even yet be an economic future for the Indian crow as an 

 incubator. 



On July 9th I took a young paddy bird (Ardeola grayii), three days old, 

 out of a nest and put into this nest (No. I) which now contained only one 

 young crow ; the parents may have thrown the addled egg out of the nest, but 

 I do not know what happened with the second crow. When I visited the nest 

 the next day there were no signs of the young paddy bird although the 

 young crow was still in the nest. The crows had evidently, somewhat to my 

 surprise, "■ spotted " that the young paddy bird was a stranger and done it to 

 •death. I had expected that they would feed it, since the parental instinct 

 was so strong. 



I may here add that I put a golf ball in a crow's nest containing two eggs and 

 the next day found the crow sitting on the ball! But when I replaced the 

 two crow's eggs in another nest by two golf balls the crows deserted. 



On August 7th I placed a fresh fowl's egg in the nest of a crow containing 

 two crow's eggs, subsequently three more crow's eggs were laid and the crow 

 sat upon all six. After the young crows had emerged, the crow still continued 

 to brood the fowl's egg. I was away from Lahore on August 28th, but my 

 climber went up the tree and found that the fowl's egg had just hatched 

 out ; the young bird was moving about in the nest. Contrary to my orders he 

 left it there. A few minutes later the crows began cawing very loudly and 

 excitedly ; he again ascended the nest to secure the young chicken ; when he 



