IN May, 1911, a pair of red- whiskered bulbuls (Otocompsa emeria) took up their residence in my verandah at Fyzabad, that is to say, they spent the greater part of the day there in con- structing a nest in a croton plant. The nest of the bulbul is a shallow cup, formed of bast, roots, twigs, and grass, loosely worked together. Sometimes dead leaves, pieces of rag and other oddments are woven into the fabric of the nest. The pair of bulbuls of which I write did not, however, indulge in any of these luxuries ; they were content with a rudely constructed nursery. When the nest was nearly complete the owners deserted it. Why they acted thus I have not been able to discover.

The bulbuls absented themselves for a few days.

When they returned they frequented another portion of the verandah, and their fussiness betrayed the fact that they were working at another nest. Several days passed before I found time to look for their nest, and I then discovered it in an aralia plant growing in the verandah, in a large pot placed at the right-hand side of one of the doors leading into my office room. The site chosen was the more remarkable in that it was within ten feet of the carpet on which the chaprassis sit when not engaged in active work. This nest was of even rougher design than the first one, and was equally devoid of decoration. So carelessly had it been constructed that, to use a nautical expression, it had a distinct list. I found in the nest three pinkish eggs, mottled and blotched with purplish red. They had been laid some time before I first saw them. This was demonstrated by the reluctance of the hen to leave the nest when I approached. Among birds the parental instinct increases as incubation proceeds. On one occasion the bird sitting on the nest in question allowed me to stroke its tail. This organ projects upwards like a semaphore, the nest not being sufficiently large to accommodate it.

It was not until the i5th July that I had leisure to watch these bulbuls closely. Up to that time I had merely noticed that both birds incubate, and that both sexes, and not the cock alone, as some writers assert, have the red “ whiskers/’ or feathers, on the cheeks.

The weather being warm, it was not necessary for the birds to sit continuously, and the eggs were fre- quently left for ten minutes or longer at a time. On the morning of the I5th July, I found that two of the young birds had hatched out. Both parents were feeding them.

Birds are creatures of habit. Each parent bulbul had its own way of approaching the nest and of

perching when tending the nestlings, so that, although I was not able to say for certain which of the pair was the cock and which the hen, I could distinguish one individual from the other. For brevity I will call them A and B, respectively.

Both birds, before flying to the nest, used to alight on the stem of a palm standing in the verandah. From this point their manoeuvres differed. Individual A invariably flew to a stout vertical branch of the aralia, remained there for a second or two, flitted to a second vertical branch, and from thence hopped on to the edge of the nest, so that its face when there pointed to the east. This individual always showed itself the bolder spirit of the two. The other bird, B, used to fly from the palm to a slender leafy branch of the aralia, and thus cause considerable commotion among the leaves ; from thence it jumped on to the edge of the nest, where it perched with its face pointing to the north. The modus operandi of A was the superior. The verandah faces the east, so that when A wished to leave the nest, it had but to jump across it into the space beyond, and then wing its way ahead, while B had to turn round before it could fly off. The neatness and address with which A used to leap across the nest into the air baffles description. The i6th July fell on a Sunday. I therefore determined to devote some hours to studying the ways of those bulbuls at the nest. Every naturalist has his own method of prying into the ways of the fowls of the air or the beasts of the field. Some expose themselves to the Indian sun at midday in May, others will squat for hours in feverish swamps. People who do these things are worthy of all praise. I prefer less heroic methods. Accordingly, I had the pot containing the nest-bearing plant moved a distance of rather less than a yard, so that it stood in the middle of the door- way. I then had an easy chair placed in the office room at a distance of some four feet from the nest. Finally, I removed such of the leaves as tended to obstruct my view. Thus, I was able to watch the bulbuls through the chik in comfort, reclining in the easy chair.

Both parent birds were present when the plant was being moved. They looked rather alarmed, but raised no outcry. They did not seem eager to approach the nest after the position of the aralia had been changed. Evidently they did not understand the meaning of what they had seen. Eventually bulbul A summoned sufficient courage to visit the nest, and must have been highly gratified to find the two young- sters and the egg safe. While perching on the nest it kept its eye on me, having espied me, notwithstanding the fact that there was a chik between me and it.

While eyeing me it cocked its head on one side and half opened its bill. The opening of the bill is an expression of anger. The bulbul’s crest was also folded back, but this does not necessarily denote anger. The crest invariably assumes this attitude when the bulbul is incubating, or brooding, or feeding its young. It was some time before bulbul B could bring itself to visit the nest. It made at least six abortive attempts before it reached the edge of the nest, and then perched only for a second before flying off with every sign of trepidation. And for the whole of that day it showed itself nervous, whereas A soon came quite boldly to the nest. The difference in temperament between the two birds was most marked.

The parent birds did not come to the nest with the bill very full. They were usually content to bring one succulent grub or insect at a time.

In the earliest stages of their existence bulbul nestlings are so small that one caterpillar satisfies their hunger completely for some little time. So that it often happened that one of the parents arrived with food for which neither of the young birds was ready. Under such circumstances, the parent, after trying to force the food into the mouth of each nestling, remained on the rim of the nest waiting patiently until one of the youngsters lifted up its head for food. The baby bulbuls did not display at this early stage of their existence that eagerness for food, amounting almost to greediness, that characterises nestlings when they grow a little older.

On arrival with food the adult bird invariably uttered a couple of tinkling notes as if to inform its offspring that it had brought food. No sound emanated from the young birds during the first two or three days of their existence. When it had disposed of the food it had brought, the parent bird usually looked after the sanitation of the nest by picking up and eating the excreta. The parent birds did not appear ever to bring water to the nestlings. The succulent food probably supplies the requisite moisture.

About midday on the i6th July the third young bird hatched out. The egg was intact at 10 a.m., but by a few minutes after midday the youngster had emerged, and half the shell was still in the nest. Thus the latest arrival made his appearance at least twenty-eight hours after either of his brethren.

I watched carefully in order to ascertain how the parent birds got rid of the egg-shell. Presently bulbul A came to the nest with food. When it had disposed of this, it began pecking in the nest, and appeared to be eating up the shell, but in reality it was cleaning the nest. After being thus engaged for a couple of minutes it flew off, carrying the half egg- shell in its beak. It flew to a distance with this, so that I did not see what became of it. This explains why broken egg-shells are seldom found lying on the ground below a nest. On the following day I placed a small piece of paper in the nest. This was carried off by the first parent bird to visit the nest, but not before the bird had fed its young. Shortly afterwards I placed a sheet of thick paper over the top of the nest so as to completely cover it. This non- plussed both parents. They made no attempt to insert their heads underneath it, but hopped about near the nest looking very disconsolate. I therefore removed the obstruction.

Young bulbuls when first hatched out are almost lost in the nest, taking up very little more room than the eggs that contained them ; but they grow at an astonishing rate. By the time the oldest was six days old the three young birds almost filled the nest.

From the fourth day the heads of the nestlings went up, and the mandibles vibrated rapidly whenever a parent approached ; previously the young birds did not seem to hear the approach of the old birds. On the sixth day of their existence the youngsters first began to call for food, and for a time the sounds they emitted were very feeble. On the sixth day their eyes began to open, the opening at first being a tiny slit.

The parents were not always judicious in selecting food for their babes. I saw a bulbul bring a large insect with gauzy wings to a six-day-old nestling. The bird succeeded in ramming about one-third of it into the gaping mouth of the young one. The latter then made frantic efforts to swallow its prize. After struggling for the greater part of a minute it rested for a few seconds with half an inch of insect projecting from its bill. When at last it did succeed in swallowing it, the young bulbul fell back with neck stretched out and appeared to be in a thoroughly exhausted condition.

A triple tragedy has now to be related. Tragedies, alas ! are very common among the bulbul community. On several occasions have I watched the nesting operations of these birds, but never yet have I seen a single young one reach maturity. When the eldest of the nestlings was seven days old I noticed that the list on the nest had become very marked, and on examining the nursery I found it empty. I then saw two of the young bulbuls lying on the floor of the verandah. The third was nowhere to be seen. Having rectified the position of the nest, I replaced the two nestlings, which the parents continued to feed. They did not seem to notice that one of their babes was missing.

On the following morning I found the nest half torn from its holdings, and saw the two youngsters on the earth near the roots of the aralia. Some leaves were strewn on the ground. Apparently a cat, a mongoose, or other predaceous creature had attempted to capture the parent bird during the night when it was sitting on the nest. It had not succeeded in the attempt, for both the old birds were hale and hearty ; nevertheless, the fall had killed one of the youngsters. I placed the nest higher up in the aralia, in what I considered a safer situation, wedging it tightly be- tween some branches, and then replaced the remaining nestling. This the parents continued to feed, although they seemed to find the nest difficult of access in its new position. The next morning I found the young bird alive and well in the nest, but this latter was now a lower branch of the aralia, to which it had been tied by string. Some officious chaprassi had doubtless done this. He had probably found the nest pulled down as I had found it on the previous day. Our efforts, however, were of no avail. On the following morning I again found the nest torn down, and this time the young bird was lying lifeless on the ground. The parents were somewhat dis- consolate, and hung about for a little with food in their bills. But they soon seemed to realise that it was useless to bring food to a little bird that would not open its mouth. So they went off. They are, I believe, looking out for a suitable nesting site at the opposite end of my verandah. Bulbuls are as philosophical as they are foolish.

The simplest observations often bring to light the greatest scientific truths. The force of gravity was revealed to Sir Isaac Newton by the falling of an apple. A kettle of boiling water gave the idea of the steam-engine to James Watt. The watch- ing of bulbuls, which are so common in our Indian gardens and verandahs, suffices, apart from all other evidence, to demonstrate how erroneous is the ortho- dox doctrine that the survival of the fittest is the result of a struggle for existence among adult or- ganisms. This year (1912) six bulbul tragedies have occurred in my garden, and the year is yet young.

The scene of one of these tragedies was the identical plant in which occurred the disaster described above, which happened about nine months ago. Thus we see that among bulbuls destruction takes place mostly in the nest, whole broods being wiped out at a time. The same is, I believe, true to a large extent of other species that build open nests. There are three critical stages in the life of a bird the time when it is defence- less in the egg, the period it spends helpless in the nest, and the two or three days that elapse after it leaves the nest until its powers of flight are fully developed.

When once a little bird has survived these dangerous periods, when it has reached the adult stage, it is comparatively immune from death until old age steals upon it. If zoologists would perceive this obvious truth there would be an end to nine-tenths of the nonsense written about protective colouring. Most birds are not protectively coloured ; moreover, if they were so clothed as to be invisible amid their natural surroundings they would not derive much profit therefrom.

The labour of the six-and-twenty little bulbuls who, to my knowledge, have failed to rear their broods has not been lost altogether, for it has taught me something about their ways that I did not know before. Those birds showed me how quickly they are able to build a nest.

Very few observations regarding the duration of nest-building operations are on record. The reason is not far to seek. A nest at the very beginning of its existence is difficult to discover, and if come upon by chance is not easy to recognise as an incipient nursery. The nests we find are usually complete or in an advanced stage of construction.

I was strolling in the garden about 8 a.m. on the 3rd March last, when I noticed a bulbul with a leaf

in its bill. I saw the bird fly into a small cypress bush and then emerge therefrom without the leaf. A short search sufficed to reveal the place in the bush where the leaf had been deposited. Placed by this leaf I found another leaf, a small branch of Duranta with some yellow berries attached to it, two or three small straws and some cobweb. These apparently had been thrown haphazard into the bush. Had I not seen the bulbul go into the bush carrying a leaf, I should not have suspected that these few things were the beginning of a nest, for they had no resemblance of one. The bulbuls could not have been working at that nest for more than half an hour when I discovered it. On my return thirty minutes later to look at it I found that the amount of material collected had doubled, but the nest was still without any definite form ; it was a mere conglomeration of rubbish. The two leaves already mentioned had dropped down nearly a couple of inches below the other material. The additional material consisted of more Duranta twigs with berries, straws, dried grasses, cobweb, and a piece of what looked like tissue paper. Half an hour later the rapidly increasing collection included a long piece of worsted, but this was not wound round any of the branches. In most bulbuls’ nests that I have seen a certain amount of cotton or such-like material is used to support, the cup-like nest by being bound to one of the neighbouring branches, although cobweb is the chief means of attaching the nest to its surroundings. In this par- ticular instance, however, the worsted was not so utilised ; possibly the pliable, upright branches of the cypress did not lend themselves to this kind of attachment. At this time (9 a.m.) the collected materials had nothing of the shape of a nest, but some of the tiny twigs were entwined in the cypress branches.

At midday, four hours after I had first seen the nest, I was astonished to find that it had assumed

a saucer-like form. I was not a witness of the process whereby the original shapeless mass was made to take this shape, but my observations on other nests have convinced me that the nest is shaped entirely by the bird’s body and feet. When a bulbul brings material to the nest, it drops this on to what has already been collected, sits on it, and proceeds to arrange it with its feet, which work so vigorously as to shake the whole plant in which the nest is placed. In the middle of the process the bird usually turns on its axis, a right angle, and thus the interior of the nest becomes rounded by the bird’s breast. All new material is added to the inside of the nest.

At midday, then, the nest in question was a shallow saucer composed chiefly of Duranta and other twigs, dried grass, and bast. The leaves mentioned above had fallen some way below the nest, and the worsted and tissue paper had been crushed into a ball at one side of the nest.

By the evening more material, chiefly bast in bands about a quarter of an inch broad, had been added, and the nest looked almost as complete as some bulbuls’ nests in which I have seen eggs. But that particular pair were evidently bent on building a very substantial structure.

By 8 a.m. on the following day the cup of the nest had grown deeper, and its walls had been considerably thickened. By the evening of the day the nest was practically complete. On the 5th March the finishing touches were put to it in the shape of a few grasses and prickly stems.

The diameter of the completed nest is between 2 and 3 inches. The nest is rarely quite circular.

It is about 2j inches in depth. The length of its diameter appears to be determined by that of the

bird’s body (exclusive of head and tail) which is the mould that shapes it. A bulbul sitting in the nest looks very cramped and uncomfortable, with the tail projecting vertically upwards, the neck stretched out, and the chin resting on the rim of the nest. The crest of the sitting bird is folded right back.

On the early morning of the 8th March the first egg was laid. On the gth a second egg was deposited. My little boy, to whom I had shown the nest, then thought that he would like a couple of bulbul’s eggs poached for his breakfast, so, regardless of the feelings of the bulbuls, removed both eggs and took them to the cook ! As that individual declined to cook them, my little son replaced them, or rather one of them, for he broke the other. On the morning of the loth a third egg was laid and deposited in the nest beside the other. The usual clutch of Otocompsa emeria is three. On the morning of the nth I found the nest half pulled down and empty and on the ground beneath I saw a few bulbul’s feathers. Some pre- daceous creature, possibly a cat or a mongoose, had seized the sitting bulbul in the night.

The above notes show that a pair of bulbuls can build a nest in a couple of days. This observation was confirmed by another pair who constructed a nest in my verandah on the 23rd and 24th March.

On the 22nd I noticed a pair of bulbuls prospecting in a croton plant near my da/tar window ; nevertheless, although I examined that plant carefully, I found no traces of a nest. On the next day, however, I saw that the nest had been commenced. During the three following days I had no leisure in which to look at the nest, but on the 28th I found a bulbul sitting on three eggs, so that, as only one egg per diem is laid, the first egg must have been deposited on the morning of the 26th at the latest.

On returning to my bungalow at about 10.30 p.m. of the 28th, I found some of the servants collected in the verandah. They showed me a dead brown tree snake (Hipsas trigonata) which they had killed in the plant containing the bulbuls’ nest. The reptile had evidently discovered the nest and crawled up the stem of the plant. At its approach the incubating bulbul had made a great commotion which attracted the notice of the servants. They promptly killed the snake. On my return the eggs were lying broken on the ground, and I was not able to discover whether the fluttering bulbul or the servants striking the snake had caused their downfall. No further eggs were laid. Bulbuls seem always to desert a nest when their eggs are destroyed. It is worthy of note that the snake attacked the nest in the dark, and on all other occasions on which I have observed similar tragedies they have been enacted at night. What, then, becomes of the elaborate theory of protective colouration ?