WORMS NOT APPRECIATED 71 



I once even saw a Moorhen in the top of the tree, 

 and although I did not actually see it feeding, unless 

 it was there after the fruit I do not know what 

 its business was, there being a much more natural 

 haunt for it in the rushes and shrubbery of the 

 TJiree-island Pond a few yards away. 

 ^The traditional diet of worms is probably not 

 so entirely to the taste of birds as one would sup- 

 pose ; at any rate, on keeping a wild-caught Missel- 

 Thrush in a cage I noticed that it would not come 

 down from its perch for an earth-worm unless I 

 stood well away, while a mealworm (an indoor- 

 living beetle-grub which it could hardly come across 

 naturally) would bring it to the floor at once'3 

 J^A Song-Thrush also I knew in India and 

 supplied with gentles would not eat the local 

 earthworms. I may say these had a yery peculiar 

 faint, sickly smell ; but on the other hand I cer- 

 tainly rarely saw wild birds eating these — the 

 only instances I can remember of seeing a bird with 

 a worm in its possession being those of a Brown 

 Shrike (Lanius cristatus) — a bird very like the hen 

 of our Red-backed Shrike; the White-breasted 

 Kingfisher {Halcyon smyrnensis), which is more a 

 hunter than a fisher ; and the common Babbling- 

 Thrush {Crateropus canorus), which I have often 

 seen, on the other hand, pecking away at the earth- 

 galleries of the termites, ^ 



When these " white-ants " swarm, they furnish 

 a free supper for a great variety of insectivorous 

 birds, notably the ,Crow {Corvus sflendens), Kite 



