MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 
799 
in a likely bush, and have afterwards seen them fly to the bush to investigate. 
Other enemies to groimd birds are Kites and Desert Foxes. I have seen 
the foot-prints of Kites at a nest of Saunders’ Tern, which the day previous 
held eggs, and I have found Fox “ spoor ” in amongst the colony after I had 
visited it, and, here again I was watched or more probably tracked by this 
very inquisitive little animal. Snakes too, may be guilty, but whether a 
nest is found or not there is a huge destruction by nature. One colony of 
Saunders’ Tei'ns owing to big tides and depredations of animals did not produce 
a single flying young, one year, and a colony of Sandgrouse, about 50 pairs, did 
not raise six yoimg; think what it would be if every bird brought out a full 
brood every year and none died for ten years. For a lecture I once gave at 
Karachi, I calculated the effect in the case of the House Crow and I estimated 
that in this town, every available inch of space, houses, ground and , trees in 
Karachi would be covered with birds, and above them a huge black pall oi 
those which had no room to settle! 
In an article on ‘ Birds and their enemies ’ in a recent issue of the “Pioneer” 
Mr. Dewar answers a question which is very often asked. 
My experience added to this might serve to throw some light on Mr. Bolster’s 
‘ Destruction of Birds ’ Nests ’ which appeared in the last Volume XXVIII, 
No. 1 of your journal. 
The hot weather is come and with it have retmned a number of my feathered 
friends who spent the summer with me last year : the bulbul, the tailor-bird, 
the honeysucker and the brown munia are here again seeking to build nests, 
strange to say, about the same places where three out of the four pairs unsuccess* 
fully kept house last year. 
For years I had noticed the destruction of nests as described by Mr. Bolster, 
and only last year I discovered the cause. I watched a tailor bird build its 
nest in a vine which overhangs my study window and later I saw one of the 
birds sitting in the nest which I one day noticed contained three tiny eggs. Two 
or three days after I answered their calls of distress and arrived in time to drive 
off a tree pie which had torn one side of the nest and dislodged two of the yoimg. 
With a needle and thread I repaired the nest and replaced the little ones which 
I was glad to see take wing a fortnight later. 
On two other occasions the cries of the munias which had built in a creeping 
rose hard by my verandah steps, and of the bulbuls which had taken pos 
session of an aralia in my verandah, brought me out ; and on each occasion 
I saw the same bird rifle the nests. 
The honeysucker’s nest was destroyed in my absence but I have no doubt 
Dendrocitta rufa knew something about it. 
Another thief is the Crow-pheasant or mokok (Ceniropus sinensis) I saw him 
carry off a dove’s egg which he placed on my lawn and which I rescued before 
he had time to begin his meal. But it was no use, he had dented the egg in the 
act of carrying it. 
I had often noticed the mutri and the mokok hopping through the whole 
length of a hedge row and only last year discovered what their object was. 
Yes, garden hzards are responsible, not for the destruction but for the rifling 
of many a httle bird’s nest. In the one instance which came under my obser- 
vation the eggs were eaten in the nest and the shells left. I saw the hzard 
leave the nest. 
Lowestoft, England. 
\%th March 1922. 
CLAUD. B. TICEHURST, M.A., M.B.O.U. 
Late Capt., E. A. M. C. 
Lucknow, 
T. De GREYTHEE. 
21th March 1922. 
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