Himalayan barbets go about in small flocks, the members of which call out in chorus. They keep to the top of high trees, where, as has been said, they are not easily distinguished from the foliage. When perched they have a curious habit of wagging the tail from side to side, as a dog does, but with a jerky, mechanical movement. Their flight is noisy and undulating, like that of a woodpecker. They are said to subsist exclusively on fruit. This is an assertion which I feel inclined to challenge. In the first place, the species remains in the Himalayas all the year round, and fruit must be very scarce there in winter. Moreover, Mr. S. M. Townsend records that a barbet kept by him in captivity on one occasion devoured with gusto a dead mouse that had been placed in its cage. Barbets nest in cavities in the trunks of trees, which they themselves excavate with their powerful beaks, after the manner of woodpeckers. The entrance to the nest cavity is a neat circular hole in a tree at heights varying from 15 to 50 feet. Most birds which rear their broods in holes enter and leave the nest cavity fearlessly, even when they know they are being watched by human beings, evidently feeling that their eggs or young birds are securely hidden away in the heart of the tree. Not so the _Megalaema_. It is as nervous about the site of its nest as a lapwing is. Nevertheless, on one occasion, when the nest of a pair of the great Himalayan barbets was opened out and found to contain an egg and a young bird, which latter was left unmolested, the parent birds continued to feed the young one, notwithstanding the fact that the nest had been so greatly damaged. The eggs are white, like those of all species which habitually nest in holes. _PART II_ _The Common Birds of the Nilgiris_ _THE COMMON BIRDS OF THE NILGIRIS_ The avifauna of the Nilgiris is considerably smaller than that of the Himalayas. This phenomenon is easily explained. The Nilgiris occupy a far less extensive area; they display less diversity of climate and scenery; the lofty peaks, covered with eternal snow, which form the most conspicuous feature of the Himalayan landscape, are wanting in the Nilgiris. The birds found in and about a Nilgiri hill station differ in character from those of the plains distant but a score of miles. Of the common birds of the plains of Madras, the only ones that are really abundant on the Nilgiris are the black crow, the sparrow, the white-eye, the Madras bulbul, the myna, the purple sunbird, the tailor-bird, the ashy wren-warbler, the rufous-backed shrike, the white-browed fantail flycatcher, the Indian pipit, the Indian skylark, the common kingfisher, the pied crested cuckoo, the scavenger vulture, the Pondicherry vulture, the white-backed vulture, the shikra, the spotted dove, and the little brown dove.