818 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL EIBTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XlV. 



the parents and one young one, or a young brood of three. They were 

 all alike. Shortly after my arrival, two of the birds became very quarrel- 

 some with number three, and after a week's hard fighting. No. 3 betook 

 himself to pastures new, leaving the pair in undisturbed possession of 'the 

 jheel, I little suspected they were about to breed, as I do not find it recorded 

 that this bird breeds before the beginning of the monsoon, and I was 

 therefore surprised on approaching the spot most frequented by them one 

 day early in April, to find that they were very much disturbed at my 

 approach, both birds going off a short distance in different directions, with a 

 shrill harsh cry and a'3 if severely wounded. Having my glasses with me, 

 I immediately took cover, expecting that thoy would shortly return 

 and reveal, as I thought, their nest. As I could see no signs of the 

 nest myself, I thought it just possible that they were about to 

 begin. Imagine my surprise when in about ten minutes one of the birds 

 came creeping back across the lotus leaves, twittering gently, and when I first 

 noticed her, followed by one chick not more than a day or two old. Another 

 almost immediately rose from somewhere, and then another. One of these 

 chicks must have come to an untimely end, as by the time they grew up 

 there were only two. The jheel, I may mention, was an artificial affair, 

 being really a moat cut round the compound, and being about 500 yards long 

 on the longer sides and 400 on the shorter one, and about 50 feet broad, 

 terminating in two tanks which curved inwards, each being about 250 feet in 

 circumference, the whole overgrown with weeds, lotus and grass. It was at one 

 of the corners that these birds bred. They soon shifted up for a couple of 

 months into the circular end, and then it became more difficult to watch 

 them. Almost immediately on the outburst of the monsoon, they betook 

 themselves to the corner, leaving the now full grown young ones to shift 

 for themselves, and woe betide them if they came within a hundred yards 

 of that corner. Here they eventually built a second nest among the long 

 grass. I saw the eggs, three in number, on the 2nd July, and in about 

 a fortnight they had their second brood of that year to look after, and before 

 I left in September these three were nearly, if not full, grown. 



ERNEST E. TOOTH, 

 PooNA, 13<7t November, 1902, 



No. VIII.— THE HIMALAYAN NUTCRACKER {NUCIFRAOA 

 EEMISPILA). 

 With reference to a note by General Osborn on the Himalayan Nutcracker 

 {Nucifraga hemispila), which appeared on page 628 of Vol. XIV., of the 

 Society's Journal, I should like to make a few remarks. 



It is stated in the above that the Nutcracker perforates the shell of the 

 wild walnut and feeds upon the contents. This, I maintain, is a mistake. 



The wild walnut of the Himalayas has an intensely hard shell which it 

 #ould be quite impossible for any bird to perforate. Even the black bear 



