-shrikes, yellow-throated
sparrows, sand-martins, pied wagtails, green barbets, coppersmiths,
rollers, green bee-eaters, white-breasted kingfishers, scavenger
vultures, tawny eagles, kites, shikras, spur-winged plovers, little
ringed plovers, pied woodpeckers, night herons and pied chats. In the
case of the tree-pies, cuckoo-shrikes, seven sisters, bank-mynas and
blue-tailed bee-eaters the nesting season is now at its height. All
the following birds are likely to have either eggs or nestlings in
May: the white-eyes, ioras, bulbuls, tailor-birds, shrikes, brown
rock-chats, Indian robins, magpie-robins, sunbirds, swifts, nightjars,
white-eyed buzzards, hoopoes, green pigeons, blue rock-pigeons, doves,
sparrows, the red and yellow wattled lapwings, minivets, wire-tailed
swallows, red-headed merlins, fantail flycatchers, pipits, sand-grouse
and grey partridges. The nests of most of these have been described
already.

In the present month several species begin nesting operations. First
and foremost among these is the king-crow or black drongo (_Dicrurus
ater_). No bird, not even the roller, makes so much ado about
courtship and nesting as does the king-crow, of which the love-making
was described last month. A pair of king-crows regards as its castle
the tree in which it has elected to construct a nest. Round this tree
it establishes a sphere of influence into which none but a favoured
few birds may come. All intruders are forthwith set upon by the pair
of little furies, and no sight is commoner at this season than that of
a crow, a kite, or a hawk being chased by two irate drongos. The nest
of the king-crow is a small cup, wedged into the fork of a branch high
up in a tree.

The Indian oriole (_Oriolus kundoo_) is one of the privileged
creatures allowed to enter the dicrurian sphere of influence, and it
takes full advantage of this privilege by placing its nest almost
invariably in the same tree as that of the king-crow. The oriole is a
timid bird and is glad to rear up its family under the aegis of so
doughty a warrior as the Black Prince of the Birds. The nest of the
oriole is a wonderful structure. Having selected a fork in a suitable
branch, the nesting bird tears off a long strip of soft pliable bark,
usually that of the mulberry tree. It proceeds to wind one end of this
strip round a limb of the forked branch, then the other end is
similarly bound to the other limb. A second and a third strip of bark
are thus dealt