MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 709 
I watched the birds for several days building, and after laying I took the 
hen bird on the nest, 1am quite positive the eggs were bluish, nearly round, 
the nest being cup-shaped and fixed in the fork of ashrub about 18 inches 
from the ground, The eggs were three in number, Now, as I got the hen 
bird on the nest and watched both birds for several days, I do not see how 
there can be any doubt in the matter. I hope to get another nest and eggs 
this year, when all doubts will be set at rest. 
Tt is known that the Drongo or Fork-tailed Cuckoo, Surniculus dicruroides, 
lays its egg which is blue in the nest of Notodela leucura. I have also found it 
in the nest of Pericrocotus elegans, 
W. P. MASSON, 
DARJEELING, 8th March, 1901. 
No, XXIII.—INDIAN SHEEP DOGS. — 
Sheep dogsin England are wonderfully trained, and their intelligence in 
picking out, and driving sheep, is almost incredible ; but clever as they are 
they cannot hold a candle to the Indian sheep dogs I have seen in the province 
of Berar. These dogs are not trained by man at all, but, their masters, who 
belong to the Shepherd, or Dunger, caste—for every trade or vocation has 
its caste in India—have discovered what the dog will instinctively do under 
certain circumstances, and arrange that those circumstances shall occur, The 
following story will show how I came to find out about these sheep dogs, and 
the value the shepherds place upon them, which is entirely owing to their 
training, as they belong to no particular breed. 
About the year 1863, the G.I. P. Railway was being made through Berar: 
and one of the contractor’s staff, a platelayer or inspector, I forget which, 
lived inatent abouta mile andahalf outside the town of Akola, where 
Iwas. <A big masonry bridge had to be built across the Morna river, which 
passes through Akola, and to reach this bridge from his tent, the inspector, 
as we will call him, had every day to pass a thorn inclosure, in which was 
kept a large flock of sheep. Outside the door of the inclosure, when the 
sheap were there, were always several large and very fierce dogs, which 
invariably came out at the man, until at last, to give them a lesson, he took 
his gun with him, and the next time the dogs attacked him he shot two of 
them. This, though almost in self-defence, led to serious trouble, and the 
inspector for one, and I for another, did not understand why so much 
importance was attached to the death of the dogs, as to all appearance they 
were very ordinary mongrels, though large and long in the leg. The case 
came up before the Deputy Commissioner, when it was discovered that the 
statements of the inspector and of the shepherd who owned the dogs; were 
practically identical, That is, the complaint was the defence, 
The inspector, a Scotchman, gave a large sum of money to the owner of 
the dogs, when their value was explained to him, and it wasthen that I first 
