The climber lets down the eggs or nestlings in the tin and the observer can examine them in comfort on terra firma.  The parent crows do not appear to notice how unlike the young koels are to their own nestlings, for they feed them most assiduously and make a great uproar when the koels are taken from the nest.  Baby crows are noisy creatures; koels are quiet and timid at first, but become noisier as they grow older.

The feathers of crow nestlings are black in each sex.  Young koels fall into three classes:  those of which the feathers are all black, those of which a few feathers have white or reddish tips, those which are speckled black and white all over because each feather has a white tip.  The two former appear to be young cocks and the last to be hens.  Baby koels, in addition to hatching out before their foster-brethren, develop more quickly, so that they leave the nest fully a week in advance of the young corvi.  After vacating the nest they squat for some days on a branch close by; numbers of them are to be seen thus in suitable localities towards the end of July.  At first the call of the koel is a squeak, but later it takes the form of a creditable, if ludicrous, attempt at a caw.  The young cuckoo does not seem to be able to distinguish its foster-parents from other crows; it clamours for food whenever any crow comes near it.

Of the scenes characteristic of the rains in India none is more pleasing than that presented by a colony of nest-building bayas or weaver-birds (Ploceus baya).  These birds build in company.  Sometimes more than twenty of their wonderful retort-like nests are to be seen in one tree.  This means that more than forty birds are at work, and, as each of these indulges in much cheerful twittering, the tree in question presents an animated scene.  Both sexes take part in nest-construction.

Having selected the branch of a tree from which the nest will hang, the birds proceed to collect material.  Each completed nest contains many yards of fibre not much thicker than stout thread.  Such material is not found in quantity in nature.  The bayas have, therefore, to manufacture it.  This is easily done.  The building weaver-bird betakes itself to a clump of elephant-grass, and, perching on one of the blades, makes a notch in another near the base.  Then, grasping with its beak the edge of this blade above the notch, the baya flies away and thus strips off a narrow strand.  Sometimes the strand adheres to the main part of the blade at the tip so firmly that the force of the flying baya is not sufficient to sever it.  The bird then swings for a few seconds in mid-air, suspended by the strip of leaf.  Not in the least daunted the baya makes a fresh effort and flies off, still gripping the strand firmly.  At the third, if not at the second attempt, the thin strip is completely severed.  Having secured its prize the weaver-bird proceeds to tear off one or two more strands and then flies with these in its bill