800 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HLST. SOCLETY, Vol. XXVILI. 
Having read IVIi-. R. C. Bolster’s note on the above subject, I am tempted to 
send observations made by me from time to time which I hope will be of some 
interest. 
During the months of May and June 1918, having time to spare, I gave a good 
deal of it to searching for nests with the view to finding out what is roughly the 
percentage of success in birds bringing out their young. The difficulties were 
far greater than I had expected but I give in the following list the results. The 
nests were visited by me frequently, but not daily and I always went rmaccom- 
panied, so that no human being knew of these nests, so far as I am aware. 
From the tables on the adjoining pages will be seen that 27 birds laid 77 
eggs ; hatched 39 young, but only succeeded in taking out 26. The percentage 
of success is roughly 33 per cent. The members of the genus Lanius were most 
successful and reared all their young. This no doubt is due to their pluck in 
keeping off despoilers. Only in two cases were the robbers actually caught in the 
act and in both instances they were Jungle crows (0. macrorhynchus), but I 
would not place all thefts to their account. The greatest shiner in this respect 
is Dendrocitta rufa (Scop). (The Indian Tree Fie) and the destruction caused 
by this bird is appalling. 
I have noticed these birds for several years now and only wonder that any 
nests of the small birds escape destruction. Whether they feed their young on 
the eggs and young of other birds while they are nesthngs I cannot say, but they 
certainly do so after the brood is able to fly. For the past few years a pair of 
D. rufa have visited this place accompanied by their brood, from two to four 
almost full grown youngsters, and have made a systematic search of aU the trees 
and bushes in my garden. It is generally in early July that they come, 
and it is also just about the time when most birds have eggs or young. Dming 
these visits I have always found that aU the nests have been cleared out, and 
no matter how well a nest may have been placed, it never escaped destruction. 
During August 1919 I had over a dozen nests of Weaver Birds {Ploceus 
baya) (Blyth) imder observation. These nests were hung from some thorny 
bushes a few feet from the ground. I visited these daily and on 14th August 
noticed that some had young, as the parent birds were busy feeding them. The 
next day on my arrival I found the whole family of D. rufa (two parent birds 
and three young) engaged at the nests and were just finishing their work of 
destruction. They had torn a hole in each nest sufficiently large to admit their 
heaids just at the spot where the nest bulges and had extracted and devoured 
the contents. I have httle doubt that the monitor lizard (F. bengalensis) 
referred to by Mr. Bolster does a great deal of mischief, but I have offiy once 
seen him swallow the unfledged young of a Sun bird [Arachnecthra). The nest 
was hanging from a creeper just outside my window and on noticing that the 
birds were alarmed I looked out and saw him with one in his mouth which he 
proceeded to swallow alive. I hastened to the nest but was too late as the young 
had all gone. 
