Birds of the Plains

Let me not be mistaken. I do not say that butcher birds never keep larders, for they undoubtedly do; of this I am satisfied. Thus Mr. E. H. Aitken says of the shrike: “It sits u...

But I have put my theory to a much more severe test. In a certain crow’s nest containing two eggs I put a large fowl’s egg. This was cream-coloured and fully three times the siz...

Let us hie back to our kite and her family of young ones in their lofty nursery. For a time all went well with them. But one day the sun of prosperity which had hitherto shone u...

“Gentlemen,” said a Cambridge professor to his class, “I regret that owing to the forgetfulness of my assistant, I am unable to show you a specimen of the shell of the mollusc o...

The sunset hour is, I think, the most interesting at which to watch birds. They seem to be livelier then than at any other time of the day; they are certainly more loquacious. T...

The office building in which for some time past I have rendered service to a paternal government was once a tomb. That it is now an office is evidence of the strict economy prac...

The hens of all three species are homely-looking birds, difficult to distinguish one from the other. The upper plumage of each is dingy brown and the lower parts dull yellow. Ma...

Of course it is open to any one to assert that, in this case, the crow that discovers the food does not consciously call its companions; at the sight of its food it instinctivel...

The mortality of small insects in a heavy fall of rain must be enormous. What a strange sight a shower must look to an insect! Each drop must seem like a waterspout.

Some months ago Mr. G. A. Pinto, a very keen ornithologist, informed me that a tailor-bird built regularly every year in the verandah in front of his drawing-room window. He tol...

The adjutant bird (_Leptoptilus dubius_) is one of Nature’s little jokes. It is a caricature of a bird, a mixture of gravity and clownishness. Everything about it is calculated...

A _chaprassi_ was appointed to nurse my two young mynas, with instructions to keep them until they should become somewhat more presentable. At the end of three weeks they were a...

The blue jay is a good friend to the gardener, since it feeds exclusively on insects and small animals. Jerdon cites as the chief articles of its diet, large insects, grasshoppe...

It is easy enough to write a book. The difficulty is to sell the production when it is finished. That, however, is not the author’s business. Nevertheless, the labours of the wr...

It will be noticed that I have refrained from giving any specific name to either of these two genera. This is due to the fact that these bulbuls are widely distributed and fall...

A _Acridotheres tristis_, 94 Adjutant, 29-35 Aitken, Mr. Benjamin, 165 Aitken, Mr. E. H., 100, 164 _Alauda arvensis_, 5 _Alauda gulgula_, 5 _Alcedo ispida_, 5 Amadavat, 17, 20,...