516 JOURNAL. BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. Vol. XX. 



No. VIII.— INTELLIGENCE DISPLAYED BY SHORT-BILLED 



MINIVETS {PERICROCOTUS BREVIROSTRIS) WHEN 



THEIR NESTS ARE IN DANGER, 



The following extracts from my journal may, perhaps, be of some interest 

 to ornithologists : — 



12th April 1907. — To-day's result was ;: '"' 



and a nest of the short-billed Minivet (P. brevirostris) containing four young 

 partially fledged. 



The nest was placed on the upper surface of a horizontal branch of a 

 medium-sized Himalayan Cedar (C. deodara), at a height of 30 feet from 

 the ground, and was well concealed. It was only discovered by watching 

 the movements of the parent birds 



I was greatly disappointed at not having found the nest before when 

 it contained eggs, but to make up for the loss. I had the good fortune of 

 being the spectator of the following incident, which clearly demonstrates 

 the sagacity of birds. 



When my man had climbed up the tree close to the nest, the parent birds 

 (as I afterwards discovered them to be) began to behave in a most singular 

 manner. They would turn their tails inwards between their legs, spread 

 out their wings, and flutter down from a neighbouring tree on to the ground, 

 just as a young bird, which could scarcely fly, would do. I thought at first 

 that these birds were the young ones from some other nest which may be close 

 by, and began chasing them about in order to catch them. As soon as I 

 cot close to one of them, it would steady itself, and fly on to the branch of 

 a neighbouring tree, only to repeat the performance again. After watch- 

 ino - them for some time, and observing them closely, I discovered to my 

 astonishment that they were the parent birds ! Their object in behaving 

 in this extraordinary manner apparently was to entice us away from the 

 spot by trying to delude us into the belief (as they undoubtedly did at 

 first) that they were the young birds from the nest. 



I did not disturb the nest that day, but when I visited the spot again a 

 week later, the young ones were quite fledged, and flew off the nest long 

 before my climber had got up to it. The old birds repeated the perform- 

 ance mentioned above. Of course, I was wiser this time. 



* * * * * * * 



31si May 1908. — I had another interesting experience with these birds 

 to-day, exactly similar to the one related above. 



On our way back home after a long ramble, we were passing along a hill 

 covered with Himalayan cedars, and hearing a pair of these birds twittering 

 quite close to us, I suspected that there was a nest, and accordingly began to 

 search the trees ; but could not locate it anywhere. That there was a nest 



