In the spring the mynas make free with our bungalows, seizing on any convenient holes or ledges as sites for their nests.
I should not have deemed it necessary to describe this bird, had not a lady asked me a few days ago whether a pair of mynas, which were fighting as only mynas can fight, were seven sisters.
Davidson gives these mynas a very bad character, he declares that they do immense damage to the fruit gardens on the Nilgiris, so that without the aid of nets, it is next to impossible to preserve pears from their depredations.
A few years ago a pair of mynas reared up a brood on a ledge in the much-frequented verandah of the Deputy Commissioner's Court at Fyzabad.
It was amusing to see the way in which my young mynas ran towards the chaprassi when he called "Puppy, puppy.
Mynas do not always nestle in holes in buildings; they are content with any kind of a cavity, whether it be in a building, a tree, or a sandbank.
It is, of course, possible that although those mynas could not count, they missed the two young birds to the extent of noticing that something was wrong with their brood.
Mynas make excellent pets because they are so alert and vivacious, and, above all, because they have so much character.
In these two or three mynas attack one another so fiercely that they get locked together and roll over and over--a swearing, struggling ball of brown, yellow, and white.
I know of few things more amusing than to witness a pair of mynas give a snake a bit of their minds as they waltz along beside it in a most daring manner.
Mynas are apparently dwellers of urban and nearby open field areas (Mackay and Hughes 1963).
Nest: In urban areas, mynas nest in almost any enclosed area, including bird boxes intended for other birds.
Most species of myna breed early in the hot weather, but the pied mynas invariably wait until the first rain has fallen before they set about the work of nest-building.
While the sun is still well above the horizon great flocks of mynas sweep swiftly overhead towards the dense clump of bamboo bushes in which they will spend the night.
Pied mynas rely on their pugnacity, and not on concealment, for the protection of the nest.
The mynas and the crows do not disdain to partake of this copious meal supplied by nature.
At another phase of the courtship of the pied mynas two birds will sit, side by side, on a perch and bow and sing to one another just as king crows (Dicrurus ater) do.
The mynas too eat a variety of food, but they are first and foremost insectivorous birds.
Once when visiting the gaol at Gonda in the rains I observed a pair of pied mynas nesting in a solitary tree which grew in one of the courtyards inside the gaol walls.
As soon as the last of the mynashas passed by the king crow again flies to the van and repeats the performance.
They do not, as a rule, gather together in such large companies as most kinds of starling, but in places where pied mynas exist two of them, at least, usually attach themselves to each flock of the common species.
In India almost every company of mynas has its attendant king crow.
As the mynas approach, snatching up grasshoppers, they put up a number of flying insects, and these the king crow secures on the wing.
The mynas arrive later than most of the birds which nest in the farash, hence they find all the more desirable suites occupied.
Like most other mynas this species nests in a hole.
This bird differs from the other mynas in that it builds a large nest in a tree, usually at no great altitude.
The Weaver Birds, 70-73 Weaver birds are sparrow-like birds of gregarious habits.
This is the sign-manual of this species, and on this account Jerdon calls it "The Ring-tailed Fish Eagle.
His long tail, slightly forked at the tip, suffices to distinguish him at a glance from all other raptorial birds.
By this character and by its loud cries may this bird be identified.
Head, neck, lower parts, and nearly the whole of the tail white; other parts dark grey or brown.
The pied mynas are far less vociferous than they were in July and August.
This generous offer is greedily accepted by green pigeons, mynas and many other birds which partake with right goodwill and make much noise between the courses.
The writer has repeatedly seen mynas carrying twigs and feathers in March, and has come across nests containing eggs or young birds in both April and May.
The mynas afford conspicuous examples of this; when moulting their necks often become almost nude, so that the birds bear some resemblance to miniature vultures.
Before the last day of August all the young mynas have emerged from the egg, and throughout the first half of September numbers of them are to be seen following their parents and clamouring for food.
On the lawn wagtails run nimbly in search of tiny insects, hoopoes probe the earth for grubs, mynas strut about, in company with king-crows and starlings, seeking for grasshoppers.
At the same station in August 1869 a nest of youngMynas was reared above the hinge of the semaphore signal at the railway-station.
I particularly noticed when at Bareilly how very little trouble these Mynas sometimes took in hatching their eggs, and I may quote what I then recorded about the matter:-- "In a nest in the wall of our verandah we found four young ones.
They had taken no notice of the workman who had been continuously employed within a few yards of them, and who informed us that the Mynas had first made their appearance there only a month previously.
Each nest was complete in itself and well lined, and as Mynas are not sparing of their materials, the accumulated heap was nearly two feet deep.
This may, I think, be simply accounted for by the fact of snake-skin lying about plentifully in those places where Mynas mostly pick up their building-materials.
I once tore down the whole pile, as it was infested with vermin, and found that seven nests had been made, one upon another, showing that the Mynas must have occupied the hole long before I noticed them.
Butler writes:--"In Karachi Mynas begin to lay at the end of April.
The excavation was about 10 feet deep, and in its face, in a band of softer and sandier earth than the rest of the bank, about a foot below the surface of the ground, these Mynashad bored innumerable holes.
Mynas forwarded a transcript which he sold to the British Museum.
Suggestions were made that the forger was Mynas himself.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "mynas" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
