Ornithologists stationed in Central India will render a service to science if they keep a sharp look-out for European cuckoos and record the results of their observations. In this way alone can the above theory be proved or disproved.
By the middle of the month most of the rollers have settled down to domestic duties, and in consequence are less noisy than they were when courting. Their irritating grating cries are now largely replaced by harsh tshocks of delight, each tshock being accompanied by a decisive movement of the tail. The cause of these interjections expressing delight is a clutch of white eggs or a brood of young birds, hidden in a hole in a tree or a building.
April is a month in which the pulse of bird life beats very vigorously in India. He who, braving the heat, watches closely the doings of the feathered folk will be rewarded by the discovery of at least thirty different kinds of nests. Hence, it is evident that the calendar for this month, unless it is to attain very large dimensions, must be a mere catalogue of nesting species. The compiler of the calendar has to face an embarrass de richesses.
Of the common species that build in March and the previous months the following are likely to be found with eggs or young—the jungle crows, sunbirds, doves, pied and golden-backed woodpeckers, coppersmiths, hoopoes, common and brahminy kites, bulbuls, shrikes, little minivets, fantail flycatchers, wire-tailed swallows, paroquets, spotted owlets, swifts, scavenger vultures, red-headed merlins, skylarks, crested larks, pipits, babblers, sand-martins, cliff-swallows, nuthatches, white-eyed buzzards, kites, black vultures, pied and white-breasted kingfishers, finch-larks, Indian wren-warblers, wood-shrikes, cuckoo-shrikes, green barbets, tawny eagles, and the terns and the other birds that nest on islets in rivers. Here and there may be seen a white-backed vulture's nest containing a young bird nearly ready to fly.
Towards the middle of the month the long-tailed tree-pies (Dendrocitta rufa), which are nothing else than coloured crows, begin nest-building. They are to be numbered among the commonest birds in India, nevertheless their large open nests are rarely seen. The explanation of this phenomenon appears to be the fact that the nest is well concealed high up in a tree. Moreover, the pie, possessing a powerful beak which commands respect, is not obliged constantly to defend its home after the manner of small or excitable birds, and thus attract attention to it.
Fortunately for the tree-pie the kites and crows do not worry it. The shikra (Astur badius) and the white-eyed buzzard (Butastur teesa), which are now engaged in nest-building, are not so fortunate. The crows regard them as fair game, hence their nest-building season is a time of sturm und drang. They, in common with all diurnal birds of prey, build untidy nests in trees—mere conglomerations of sticks, devoid of any kind of architectural merit. The blue rock-pigeons (Columba intermedia) are busily prospecting for nesting sites. In some parts of India, especially in the Muttra and Fatehgarh districts, these birds nest chiefly in holes in wells. More often than not a stone thrown into a well in such a locality causes at least one pigeon to fly out of the well. In other places in India these birds build by preference on a ledge or a cornice inside some large building. They often breed in colonies. At Dig in Rajputana, where they are sacred in the eyes of Hindus, thousands of them nest in the fort, and, as Hume remarks, a gun fired in the moat towards evening raises a dense cloud of pigeons, "obscuring utterly the waning day and deafening one with the mighty rushing sound of countless strong and rapidly-plied pinions." According to Hume the breeding season for these birds in Upper India lasts from Christmas to May day. The experience of the writer is that April, May and June are the months in which to look for their nests. However, in justice to Hume, it must be said that recently Mr. A. J. Currie found a nest, containing eggs, in February.
In April the green pigeons pair and build slender cradles, high up in mango trees, in which two white eggs are laid.
The songster of the house-top—the brown rock-chat (Cercomela fusca)—makes sweet music throughout the month for the benefit of his spouse, who is incubating four pretty pale-blue eggs in a nest built on a ledge in an outhouse or on the sill of a clerestory window. This bird, which is thought by some to be a near relative of the sparrow of the Scriptures, is clothed in plain brown and seems to suffer from St. Vitus' dance in the tail. Doubtless it is often mistaken for a hen robin. For this mistake there is no excuse, because the rock-chat lacks the brick-red patch under the tail.
April is the month in which to look for two exquisite little nests—those of the white-eye (Zosterops palpebrosa) and the iora (Aegithina tiphia). White-eyes are minute greenish-yellow birds with a conspicuous ring of white feathers round the eye. They go about in flocks. Each individual utters unceasingly a plaintive cheeping note by means of which it keeps its fellows apprised of its whereabouts. At the breeding season, that is to say in April and May, the cock sings an exceedingly sweet, but very soft, lay of six or seven notes. The nest is a cup, about 2½ inches in diameter and ¾ of an inch in depth. It is usually suspended, like a hammock, from the fork of a branch; sometimes it is attached to the end of a single bough; it then looks like a ladle, the bough being the handle. It is composed of cobweb, roots, hair and other soft materials. Three or four tiny pale-blue eggs are laid.