Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/89

Rh makes a deep large cup-shaped nest in the thorniest bush it can find, and lays four or five handsome, spotted eggs. The usual season is from May to August.

Next come the Drongo Shrikes. A Drongo appears to be connected on the father's side with the true Shrikes and on the mother's with the Flycatchers. Or it may be the other way: at any rate it has kinship with both families. The King Crow is a Drongo. It may seem to be superfluous to describe a King Crow, but I have met persons who supposed that it was some targe and royal sort of Crow, so I will describe it. A King Crow (Dicrutus macrocercus, or ater) is a shining black bird, not the size of a starling, with a long, deeply forked tail, which perches on a telegraph wire, or a dry twig, and makes sallies into the sky after dragon flies or bees. It has nothing to do with Crows, save to vex their lives. The occasion for that is generally its nest, which it builds on some outstanding branch of a conspicuous tree, scorning concealment. Round this it establishes a "sphere of influence" and the Crow, being a notorious poacher and damaged character, is forbidden to enter that. But the Crow is always sounding the depths of our patience with the plummet of insolence, and it will try the experiment of flying lazily past the King Crow's nest, or even alighting on a neighbouring tree. Then the little bird gives a fierce, shrill scream, and shoots out like an arrow from a bow. Its aim is true and its beak is sharp and its target is the back of the lawbreaker. The Crow is big enough to carry off its puny enemy and pick its bones, if it could catch it, but who can fight against a "bolt from the blue?"