1130 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII. 
all round for watchers, and being convinced of their entire absence, started yet 
again to set traps. I got all bar three set when I noticed an Indian come 
quietly into the garden so I wended my way homewards deciding to set the 
remaining traps near the Bimgalow. The marking of the spots where 
traps had been set, with bits of paper or rag was as my readers will 
easily see highly inadvisable under the present circumstances, so I had not dared 
to do so, and the next morning the fun started at the commencement of our search 
for traps. My skinner and I both selected a different ridge as being the one on 
which the first traps had been set, and had not a Neophron tearing at something, 
that proved to be a trapped Gerbril, on a ridge some 50 yds. away led us to the 
right spot, we might still have been searching for those traps. Of that lot I found 
the last set had vanished, the urchin whose head I had contemplated filling with 
No. 6 shot no doubt having borrowed it. In the deserted garden I found one trap 
stolen by my visitor or so I presumed. News, and especially such news as “ Good 
rat and mouse traps to be had for the asking ” travels fast in India, and the next 
day I found a group of eager looking urchins loitering near the Bungalow in order 
to be able to join me from the start. Close scrutiny of this sort is very hard on one’s 
nerves and compels one, in trying to set traps without being seen, to behave in a 
manner usually associated with a lunatic with homicidal tendencies, which you 
will agree is infra dig. I strongly advise anyone contemplating trapping in the 
Plains of India therefore to think twice. 
After such an evening as that just described it is most annoying to pick up 
the Gazetteer and read something of this sort, “ The population of the District 
is scanty, the average for the whole being approximately P01739 per square mile” 
but then when were figures and facts found to agree on comparison and what is 
there to prevent a decimal having been erroneously inserted in the printing ? 
Sept. 1922. C. PRIMROSE. 
No. XL— THE COMMON INDIAN BEE-EATER. (MEROPS VIRIDIS) 
Last month I opened a Bee-eater’s nest at the end of a tunnel three feet long 
and found the young ones hatched out but not fledged. In the hope of saving 
them I made an artificial tunnel of country tiles with stones laid over them. At 
first the parent birds kept flying to the mouth of the tunnel and going away but 
at last the persistent calls of their young ones were too much for them and they 
essayed the great adventure and went in. After this they went in and out quite 
happily and the work of bringing up thj family proceeded in the normal manner. 
I imagine they would have deserted the nest if the eggs had not been hatched. 
E. O’ BRIEN, 
Bhuj, Cutph, Lt.-Colonel. 
30lh June 1922. 
No. XII.— NIDIFICATION OF THE CEYLON THRUSH {O.IMBRICAT A). 
With reference to my note on 0. irnbricala breeding in Ceylon published in 
Vol. XXVIII, No. 2, pages 546 and 547, I was unable to obtain an egg drill 
and blower (mine having been lost during my absence on War service) so had to 
resort to the old pin method by making a hole at each end. The egg was very 
much incubated and I regret to say it got rather badly broken, though I did 
manage to patch it up. I continued to watch the nest daily, being anxious to 
obtain notes of the plumage of the nestling, etc. The bird sat cn her solitary egg 
for literally weeks and I began to suspect that all was not well. During one oif 
my daily visits I found the bird off the nest and on examining the egg discovered 
