and a generally dispirited & feeble look. I thought at first that it was dancing around tho o but could detect no other bird in the vicinity. As I watched it, it seemed every moment to grow weaker; its leaps became shorter, its chatter fainter and it fairly lolled on its perch. I now took a step forward & was about to grasp it in my hand, when it spoorrd me for the first time instantly took flight & alighted some twenty yards off where it gave its plumage a shake, uttered a wheez expression of the (to my imagination) utmost relief & taking wing again disappeared in the dense foliage. I next sought an explanation of the mystery & parting the bushes at my feet discovered the nest of the bird containing two eggs, one of which was just disappear- ing down the mouth of a large Shrike adder [Cohors spinosus] whose hideously blotched & banded cords lay in & around the nest. That GEE seemed to be in quite a cathartic state as I had to poke him quite forcibly with my ramrod before he would disgorge the egg (which was quit squinted) and then suffered himself to be struck quite forcibly before he would leave the nest. This car