The diameter of the completed nest is between 2½ and 3 inches. The nest is rarely quite circular. It is about 2½ 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 9th 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 10th 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 11th I found the nest half pulled down and empty and on the ground beneath I saw a few bulbul’s feathers. Some predaceous 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 daftar 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?

XXIV
NIGHTINGALES IN INDIA

The nightingale shares with the Taj Mahal the distinction of being an object on which every person lavishes high praise. All who hear the song of the nightingale go into ecstasies over it; similarly, every human being who sets eyes on the Taj waxes enthusiastic at the sight thereof. Some years ago a writer in the Globe stated that a patient investigator compiled a list of nearly two hundred epithets bestowed by poets alone on the nightingale’s song, and I doubt not that an equally patient investigator could compile an equally long list of adjectives lavished on the Taj Mahal by those who have attempted to describe that famous tomb. The consequence is that every superlative in the English language has been appropriated by some person, so that he who nowadays wishes to bestow something original in the way of praise on either the nightingale or the Taj is at his wit’s end to know what to say. Recently I met in a railway train a Portuguese gentleman who was paying a visit to India. Needless to say, I asked him what he thought of the Taj. He promptly replied: “Le Taj, ah! c’est un bijou.” I feel that by way of paying the necessary homage to the nightingale I cannot do better than repeat “c’est un bijou.”

Ornithologists assure us that there are three species of nightingale. There is the Western nightingale (Daulias luscinia), which visits England in the summer and fills the woods with its glorious melody. Then there is the Eastern species or variety which is also known as the sprosser (D. philomela), and, lastly, the Persian nightingale, the hazar-dastan or bulbul of the Persian poets. This last variety is known to men of science as Daulias golzii.

It would puzzle the ordinary man to distinguish between these various races. The length of the tail is one test. If the nightingale have a tail well over three inches in length it is the Persian form, if well under three inches it is a Western nightingale, and if about three inches a sprosser. The nightingale, as every one knows, is a small bird varying from 6½ to 7½ inches in length. Both sexes dress alike and in the plainest manner possible, the upper plumage being russet brown and the lower pale buff.

As we have seen, one of the Persian names of the nightingale is “bulbul.” This has given rise to considerable misunderstanding regarding the existence of nightingales in India. Every one knows that India teems with bulbuls, and as “bulbul” is the Persian for nightingale, the average Englishman labours under the delusion that Hindustan abounds with nightingales which fill the soft Indian night with melody, at the time

“When mangoes redden and the asoka buds