st was
so situated that what remained of the tree-trunk obstructed my view
of it. This was annoying, but I had one resource left, namely, to
sit patiently until the sound of chirping told me that a parent bird
was at the nest with food.

This sound was not long in coming, and the moment I heard it, up I
jumped like a Jack-in-the-box, but without the squeak, in time to
see a forktail leave a spot on the bank about 6 feet above the water.
I was surprised, as I had the day before examined that place without
discovering the nest. However, I went straight to the spot from which
the forktail had flown, and found the nest after a little searching.
The bank was steep and of uneven surface. Here and there a slab of
stone projected from it and pointed downwards. Into a natural hollow
under one of these projecting slabs a nest consisting of a large mass
of green moss and liver-worts had been wedged. From the earth above
the slab grew some ferns, which partially overhung the nest. Across
the nest, a few inches in front of it, ran a moss-covered root. From
out of the mossy walls of the nest there emerged a growing plant.
All these things served to divert attention from the nest, bulky
though this was, its outer walls being over 2 inches thick. The inner
wall was thin--a mere lining to the earth. The nest contained four
young birds, whose eyes were barely open. The young ones were covered
with tiny parasites, which seemed quite ready for a change of diet,
for immediately after picking up one of the young forktails, I found
some thirty or forty of these parasites crawling over my hand!

There is luck in finding birds' nests, as in everything else. A few
days after I had discovered the one above mentioned, I came upon
another without looking for it. When I was walking along a hill-stream
a forktail flew out from the bank close beside me, and a search of
thirty seconds sufficed to reveal a well-concealed nest containing
three eggs. These are much longer than they are broad. They are
cream-coloured, mottled and speckled with tiny red markings.

_THE NEST OF THE GREY-WINGED OUZEL_

On several occasions this year (1910) I have listened with unalloyed
pleasure to the sweet blackbird-like song of the grey-winged ouzel
(_Merula boulboul_) at Naini Tal--a station in the Himalayas,
consisting of over a hundred bungalows dotted on the well-wooded
hillsides that tower 1200 feet above a mountain lake that is itself
6000 feet above the