on the Nesting of Jerdon's Accentor. 361


laying two eggs. This youngster was fully reared. It was a

female, and with the other adult male (from which and a female

A. modularis I had been unsuccessfully trying to obtain some

hybrids) was purchased by our member, Mr. H. Willford.


We now come to Chapter No. 3, which we may call “ The

Aftermath,” which explains, after the fashion of the good old

Railway Novel of our youth, how the tragedy really happened in

Chapter No. r. Elated by their success the same pair of birds

again built, laid three eggs and brought off two young. One

morning I heard a tremendous hubbub in the aviary. The

Blue-bearded and Green Jays in the division next to the large

aviary were yelping with excitement, the Magpie Tanagers and

Bulbuls were screaming, and the White-crested Jay Thrushes

shouting themselves hoarse. Above all the din I heard the notes

of distress of the Accentors. I quite thought a Weasel had found

its way in, but, on reaching the scene of action, the only thing I

could see was the Accentors excitedly dashing themselves against

the netting which separated them from the Jays’ aviary. This

however limited the issue, as Sherlock Holmes used to say;

clearly it had to do with the Jays and the Accentors. Adopting

the methods of that celebrated investigator I began to examine

the ground and there at my very feet lay the ‘ causa causans ’—one

of the young Accentors dying and with both'mandibles torn off!

Evidently the unfortunate victim had flown against the netting

and the Jays had done the rest.


I must not conclude without pointing out the apparently

close affinity between A. modularis and T. jerdoni. The habits

of the two species are almost identical, the same nervous, jerky

action, the same shuffling of the wings, the same low, rippling

song, the same diet; for, whereas our Accentor is the only one of

our softbills which will live for any length of time without some

soft-food, Jerdon’s Accentor will flourish for an indefinite

period on small seeds and an occasional mealworm. There are

certain mannerisms also which precede the act of pairing in the

case of A. modularis , which will be familiar to those of our

members (if any) who are students of British birds, and we find

these identical mannerisms in T. jerdojii. Now, seeing that the

two species do not quite over-lap as breeding species, one can



