42 BOMBAY DUCKS 
The last-named is beating a hasty and somewhat 
undignified retreat ; he is half sorry he came, his joy at 
having angered the king-crows being tempered by the 
fear of parting with a portion of his plumage. 
The king-crow is the pluckiest of birds. It is difficult 
to name the creature of which he is afraid. One day 
I happened to pass under a low tree in which some 
drongos were sitting. These birds began to swear 
lustily. I looked up to investigate the phenomenon, 
and saw that there were in the tree three young king- 
crows, fresh from the nest and scarcely able to fly. 
The birds were out of my reach, but notwithstanding 
this the parents fluttered about my head in a state 
of great excitement. Had I touched one of the 
youngsters the father and mother would probably have 
attacked my hand, and tried to take pieces of flesh out 
of it. 
I once saw a couple of drongos treat a monkey very 
shamefully. The mammal was squatting in the middle 
of the road, and, to avoid the wheels of my cart and 
the lash of my whip, took refuge in a xeem tree. 
Now this tree happened to contain a king-crow’s 
nest. Before the monkey was half-way up the tree the 
drongos were taking pecks at his head. The ape 
looked very hurt at this outbreak of Hooliganism, 
having of course no idea that the birds were merely 
protecting their nest. He jumped into the next tree, 
but the attack continued with unabated fury. 
So the monkey moved on again, but the king-crows 
still continued to make dashes at his head, which must 
have been aching badly by this time. The monkey 
