Some Indian friends and acquaintances; a study of the ways of birds and other animals frequenting Indian streets and gardens;

LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Class

SOME INDIAN FRIENDS AND
ACQUAINTANCES

Purple Honeysucker Challenging, p. 131.

Frontispiece.

SOME INDIAN FRIENDS
AND ACQUAINTANCES

A STUDY OF THE WAYS OF BIRDS
AND OTHER ANIMALS FREQUENTING
INDIAN STREETS AND GARDENS

BY LT.-COLONEL D. D. CUNNINGHAM,
C.I.E., F.R.S.

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1903

1

To THE GUESTS

OF THE RED LION, CALCUTTA.

229784

CONTENTS

CHAP. 'AGE

I. AN APOLOGY . 1

COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

n. KITES .-. _., , . . ... 9

III. MYNAS . . . . . .23

iv. CROWS . ^ . . , ... . . 36

v. CROWS — continued . . „,„., . . . 53

vi. CUCKOOS . . . . . .63

VII. BABBLERS AND BULBULS ''.'• . . '. 82

VIII. DOVES AND PIGEONS . . . . . 95

IX. BARBETS . . . . . 105

X. DAYALS, ETC. . . . . . 116

XL HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS . . . 128

XII. BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS . . . 141

XHI. KINGFISHERS . . . . . 156

XIV. EGRETS, HERONS, ETC. . . . .165

XV. WEAVER-BIRDS, SHRIKES, ETC. . . . 179

XVI. SPARROWS, WAGTAILS, AND PIPITS . . . 191

vi CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

xvn. OWLS .... . 203

XVIII. PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS . . .215

XIX. STORKS . . . . . . 227

XX. VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC. . . . .237

XXI. SWIFTS, GOATSUCKERS, MUNIAS, ETC. . . 251

COMMON MAMMALS or AN INDIAN GARDEN

XXII. MONKEYS . . . . . \ 262

XXIII. JACKALS, ETC. . . . % '* 267

XXIV. SHREWS AND BATS . . 284
XXV. SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. . . ^ . 300

COMMON REPTILES or AN INDIAN GARDEN

XXVI. LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES ^ . 318

XXVII. SNAKES ^ . . . . .331

XXVIH. COMMON FROGS AND TOADS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN . 359

XXIX. COMMON FISH OF AN INDIAN GARDEN . .370

APPENDIX . 385

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Purple Honey sucker challenging (p. 131) .

Vulture from a lintel in the great Temple at Philae (p. 21)
— A Kite drying itself after heavy rain (p. 20)
—Kites on the Hugli (p. 9) . . . . . To face p. 20

Common Myna (p. 22)— Black-headed Mynas on a Silk-
cotton-tree (p. 34) .. . . . . . . „ „ 34

Indian Crows and Corbies (pp. 58 and 62) » . • . „ „ 60

Crow-pheasants courting and calling (p. 78) — Red-winged

crested Cuckoo (p. 80) „ „ • 80

Common Bengal Bulbuls (p. 87)— Red- whiskered Bulbuls

(p. 87) ... . „ „ 88

Blue-throated Barbet and Nest (p. 112)— Section of a Nest

of the Blue-throated Barbet (p. 113) . ... „ „ 112

Male Honeysucker (p. 128)— Black-headed Oriole (p. 185)

—Female Dayal (p. 116) .....„„ 128

Common King-crows (p. 148) . . . . . . „ „ 148

Fish dropped by a Kingfisher (p. 161)— Pied Kingfishers

(P- 163) ... „ „ 162

Colony of Night-herons at Sunset (p. 171)— Cattle-egrets

resting (p. 170) „ „ 170

In an Indian Garden . „ „ 198

Young Parrots for sale (p. 221)— Rose-ringed Paroquet

(p. 219) . . . . ... . . „ „ 220

Adjutants by day (p. 232)— Adjutants at roost (p. 230) . „ „ 232

viii ILLUSTRATIONS

Indian Swifts (p. 251) . To face p. 250

Indian Pitta (p. 255) . . . . . . . „ „ 256

A Jackal calling his friends to a Feast (p. 268)— Large

Civet (p. 274) „ „ 268

Small Flying-foxes on a Plantain-leaf (p. 297) . . . „ „ 296

Fruit of Parkia biglobosa simulating Flying-foxes . . „ „ 298

Eat in its nest (p. 308)— Palm-squirrels (p. 300) .% . „ „ 308

Blood-sucker and Water-tortoise (p. 323) . . . „ „ 324

Grass-snake swallowing a Toad (p. 335)— Tree-frog (p. 369)

—Common Indian Toad (p. 365) ....„„ 366

Mudskippers (p. 375) . . . . ... . „ „ 376

ERRATA

Page 34. For Acridotheres fuscus read ^Ethiopsar fuscus.

Page 34. For Temenuchus malabaricus read Sturnia tnalabarica.

Page 60. For Corvus culminatus read C. macrorhynchus.

Page 93. For Phyllornis aurifrons read Chloropsis aurifrons.

Page 116. In fourth line of the motto read " rarely " in place of " cheerly."

Page 127. For D. erythrorhyncus read D. erythrorhynchus.

Page 164. For Pelargopsis amauropterus read P. amauroptera.

Page 170. For Leptorodius asha read Lepterodius asha.

Page 174. For Metopodius indicus read Metopidius indicus.

Page 178. For " widgeon" read " wigeon."

SOME INDIAN FRIENDS AND
ACQUAINTANCES

AN APOLOGY

" Only the weakness of our organs prevents us from seeing that we
are in Fairyland." — Novalis.

THE materials included in the following pages are
derived from the entries in a series of note-books that
were in almost daily use during a period of nearly
thirty years' residence in India, and, in greater
part, in Calcutta and the immediate neighbourhood.
They do not deal with the abstruser parts of natural
science, and, for the most part, are merely fairly
accurate records of common events, such as may
occur in any garden in the lower deltaic region of
the Valley of the Ganges. They deal, in fact, with
matters that must be familiar to botanists and
zoologists, but which may be of some interest to
general readers with a taste for "natural history,"
who, as a class, would seem to be of a comfortably

A J

2 AN APOLOGY

indulgent nature, judging at least by the lenient
reception that they accord to many of the works
that are specially addressed to them. The present
set of notes would, however, hardly have been
offered to their indulgence had it not been for
the prickings of a certain remnant of hereditary
Scottish conscience, which insistently suggest that
the unfailing interest and pleasure attending their
collection through such a long term of years was a
gift too great for any one to lay up for his own
benefit without some attempt to share it with
others, and especially with those whose lot it might
be to spend the best part of their lives in India.

Any one with some experience of India must be
only too familiar with complaints of the dulness of
existence there, especially from people who are not
wholly overwhelmed by obligatory work. It may
seem strange that any one should fail to find the
means of killing time in a land thronging with such
varied interests, but the fact remains that many
people do so, and that there is ample occasion for
even the humblest attempts to point out sources of
pleasure that lie open to all, even in the smallest
and most remote country stations. Even in desert
regions countless problems and fields for observa-
tion constantly offer themselves to those who are
on the look-out, and in most localities the wealth of
material is so great as to become a positive snare
in the tendency that it has to lure the observer

AN APOLOGY 3

from one interest to another at the expense of
continued study of any individual subject. Even
in the midst of the largest towns human interests
are not the only ones inviting attention, for the
most densely peopled areas contain an abundant
resident Fauna and Flora, and the surrounding
country is constantly overflowing and sending in
streams of animal and vegetable immigrants to
establish themselves for a time within urban limits.
Maiden-hair and other ferns nestle among the irregu-
larities of the mouldering masonry of walls and the
lining of wells ; fig-trees of various kinds crop out
on roofs and cornices and send down reptilian coils
of roots in complicated and disintegrative network ;
and in all open spaces and garden plots the vegeta-
tion, in place of presenting the poverty-stricken
and blighted look that it ordinarily has in British
towns, is constantly asserting itself and striving to
develop into a dense jungle. This alone would be
enough to render the Fauna of an Indian town
relatively rich, but an equally potent factor is to
be found in the habits of the human inhabitants,
who are free from the desire to capture or kill any
strange or beautiful living thing that they may
meet with, who have no youthful hereditary instinct
for bird-nesting, and in mature life no natural appre-
ciation of "murder as a fine art."

It takes one some time, however, to realise the
force of these influences, and to cease to wonder at

4 AN APOLOGY

the variety and confidence of the birds of an Indian
town. With an experience of an urban bird popula-
tion consisting mainly of smoke-dyed sparrows and
occasional rooks and jackdaws, it comes as a strange
revelation to a native of the British islands to learn
how many different kinds of birds can adapt them-
selves to a life among crowded streets. It seems
strange to see green parrots clinging and fluttering
about the walls ; mynas pacing the streets with
alert, stare-like gait ; doves nesting and calling in
the trees ; bulbuls leaping by, volatu undoso, as
Gilbert White has it of woodpeckers ; barbets busily
occupied with excavations in dead boughs ; honey-
suckers twinkling about among the garden shrubs ;
kingfishers sitting "still as a stone" over pools of
dirty water ; gigantic storks wheeling about over-
head like the dragons in old German woodcuts or
standing in statuesque attitudes on the roofs; every-
where a busy throng of crows and kites ; and, in
addition to all these resident birds, occasional repre-
sentatives of the temporary visitors who every now
and then stray in from the surrounding country
along the highways furnished by the roadside and
garden trees.

Birds certainly form the most conspicuous
element in the lower vertebrate Fauna of an Indian
town, but mammals, reptiles, batrachians, and fishes
are not absent. Rats and mice of several kinds are,
like the poor, always with one, and more obtrusive

AN APOLOGY 5

visitors are not wanting, especially in outlying areas.
Thirty years ago troops of jackals coursed and
yelled about the streets of Calcutta from dusk to
dawn every night, and, even now, although sanitary
improvements have made the streets less favourable
hunting-grounds than they were of old, they are
still frequently to be met with. During the rainy
season especially, when many of their rural and
suburban haunts are flooded, one may even yet
occasionally be suddenly awakened by their fiendish
cries as they quest round the house in search of
food, or may hear the calling of a pack far off,
and softened down in transit to such a degree as
to be not unpleasant, or even almost melodious, in
the stillness of an airless night, when the silence
is otherwise unbroken save by the ceaseless whir
of insect life and the explosive concerts of the
frogs in the pools. Palm-cats and small civets now
and then visit the gardens, or may even establish
themselves and rear young families in them. They
would, doubtless, do so more frequently were it not
for the crows, who highly resent their presence, and
usually manage to put them to flight by dint of
persistent mobbing. Palm-squirrels abound in all
the outlying gardens, quarrelling with the parrots
over the monopoly of the ripening heads of sun-
flowers, and participating in the riotous drinking
parties that are held by many kinds of birds every
morning whilst the silk- cotton-trees are in bloom.

6 AN APOLOGY

Even otters sometimes make their appearance,
attracted by the abundance of fish in many of the
ponds ; small bats of various species throng the
air at dusk, and may be seen at sundown issuing
in streams from unused chimneys and the recesses
of decaying walls; flying-foxes flap about amongst
the fruit trees in the evening, and occasionally
establish permanent colonies in which they hang
and wrangle all through the heat of the day.

Reptiles, as a rule, are relatively scarce, with the
exception of the common house-geckos, who run
clucking about over all the walls, and who are
always welcome in any house from their unfailing
appetite for insects. Venomous snakes rarely occur
within the limits of the town of Calcutta, though
both cobras and vipers abound in the suburbs ; but
common rat- and water-snakes, together with various
other smaller harmless species, are often to be met
with in gardens in company with geckos and other
kinds of lizards. Toads swarm in every garden ;
almost every pond contains a population of small
frogs, and towards the outskirts of the town huge
bull-frogs annually hail the onset of the rainy
season in deafening chorus. All the ponds swarm
with plants and animals ranging from Nelumbiums
and Nymphseas to Desmids and Diatoms and from
tortoises to Infusoria. Insects of the most various
types, and too often of the most offensive habits,
abound everywhere ; white ants plaster the stems

AN APOLOGY 7

of trees with mud, make destructive forays into
houses, and occasionally issue forth into the air in
winged swarms ; arboreal ants hang their curious
tents among the foliage of the trees ; great butter-
flies flap about and chase one another in the
gardens ; clouds of dragon-flies herald the approach
of the rainy season, swooping and circling about
over the streets and sitting motionless on the
telegraph wires with widely expanded wings ; and
almost every night the air thrills and vibrates
with the ringing cries of hosts of cicadas and
crickets.

In Europe it may no longer be an easy matter
for any one save a specialist to observe and record
anything of novelty or interest in regard to common
animals and plants, but this is certainly not yet the
case in India. There, a troublesome conscience
may still find comfort in the thought that periods
of "wise passiveness" are not necessarily barren
of profit to all save those who indulge in them,
but may become a source of pleasure to others
through a record of their casual events. The habit
of keeping up such a record may render the
observer liable to the jeers of his friends as a
disciple of Captain Cuttle, but, if he persevere in
it, he will find that he has been laying up heavenly
treasure in vivid memories of times of quiet enjoy-
ment; memories that, unless reinforced by con-
temporaneous record, must inevitably become dulled

8 AN APOLOGY

by lapse of time and change of circumstance, but
which, when aided by it, continue to walk in their
"whiteness the halls of the heart." In a country
like India, so many " fountains of immortal bliss "
lie open to every one in the observation and record
of events of daily occurrence that it seems to be
almost a duty for any one, who has realised how
copious and unfailing they are, to do his best to
make them known to others, however conscious he
may be of his inability to do so in an attractive
and adequate fashion.

II

COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN — KITES

" The kites sailed circles in the golden air."

— The Light of Asia.

" We stryve, as doth the houndes for the boon,
They foughte al day, and yet here part was noon ;
Ther came a kyte, whil that they were wrothe,
And bar awey the boon bitwixe hem bothe."

—The Knightes Tale.

AFTER a long course of years spent in India it is
not easy to recollect exactly what features in the
new environment were the most striking on first
arriving in the country, but among the mental
pictures left by them, some that are even now
very clearly defined are associated with two of the
commonest birds of the country. It seems only
yesterday that I first saw the kites wheeling over
the stream of the Hugli and sitting in long rows
on the rigging of the vessels in the harbour (Plate
I.), or heard their shrill, whistling calls on awak-
ing after the first night spent in Calcutta— only
yesterday that 1 first saw the mynas, with bronzy

10 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

plumage and ye] low cere, pacing along the grass and
parapet-walls at the sides of the road between the
jetty and the town. The mental effect produced
by these first experiences was so powerful that
even now, after an interval of more than thirty
years, whenever these birds casually come into my
thoughts, it is as they were then seen and heard.
Later experience might have led one to imagine
that the crows would have been equally impressive,
but superficially they are not so strange to British
eyes, and it is only by dint of continued acquaint-
ance that a just appreciation of their diabolical
peculiarities and astounding cleverness is arrived
at. This will account for the fact that I have no
distinct impression of my earliest introduction to
them. 1 must have met with them as soon as I
arrived — as soon, that is, as kites and mynas, but
any vivid mental pictures that I have of them date
from later periods, and have not the quality of
surprise and novelty that adheres to those of the
other birds. The exotic characters of the latter
can, however, only partly account for the persistent
impressions which the first sight of them left, since
no such effect has been produced by that of much
more strikingly unfamiliar forms at a somewhat later
time. At the time of year at which I first arrived
in Calcutta no gigantic storks are present, but only
a few months later they must have begun to make
their appearance, and yet the event has left no

KITES 11

\

permanent trace on my memory. The exception-
ally vivid impression produced by the sight of the
kites and mynas would, therefore, seem to have
been due to a certain mental alertness, dependent
on fresh arrival, and which had already had time
to subside during the comparatively brief period
that elapsed before the coming of the storks.

The common kites, Milvus govinda, can hardly
fail to attract the notice of any one on first arriving
in India from the British islands. The mere
presence of large numbers of raptorial birds within
thickly populated areas is in itself a new experi-
ence ; and, when the birds are of diurnal habits
and of such large size and fearless nature as Indian
kites are, even the most careless observer must
inevitably be impressed by it. Their extreme
abundance and quiet colouring lead to their being
held in little regard, and certain of their habits tend
to give them a positively evil repute ; but, in truth,
they are very beautiful birds. Their bright, bold,
brown eyes and cruel talons are splendid objects ;
the soft shading of their plumage is admirable,
especially when seen at a short distance, as the
great birds glide gently to and fro, passing and
repassing through alternate zones of sunshine and
shadow; and nothing can prevent their flight, with
its easy evolutions, smoothly sweeping spires and
headlong plunges, from being an endless source of
delight to the onlooker. They are so confident that

12 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

one has the fullest chance of studying all the details
of their flight ; the slight variations in inclination of
the great wings, the constant fluctuations in the
degree of divergence of the feathers of the tail,
and the sudden exchanges of gentle gliding and
sailing for furious flapping on the incidence of any
disturbance or alarm. When hungry, and especially
at times when they have to meet the demands of
a growing family, their boldness often merges into
active aggressiveness, so that every one is familiar
with tales of hostile encounters with them. I well
remember expending some of my choicest store of
bad language under the impression that my chum
had treated me to a violent buffet whilst I was
conveying a plateful of scraps to my dogs, when
the real offender was a kite, who had a nest in the
garden, and had swooped suddenly down to clear
the plate, and how, for the rest of the season, I
was fain to carry all doles to the kennel enclosed
between two plates in order to escape further high-
way robbery. An adventure of this kind is very
startling, and may even be attended by serious
results, as there is always a chance that the talons
aimed at the desired plunder may take effect on
the hands of its bearer, and scratches from a kite's
claws are uncanny things, owing to the septic nature
of so many of the articles entering into the bird's
bill of fare. Even worse things may happen. A
friend, who was due to make up a tennis party one

KITES 13

evening, arrived very late, and excused himself on
the very sufficient ground that, shortly after he had
driven out of his own garden, resplendent in all
the glory of a fresh suit of flannels, and was
traversing a street near a large bazaar of butchers'
shops, a kite, flying about overhead, dropped a
huge mass of putrid offal into his lap with results
demanding immediate return home and change of
attire.

They are seemingly rather stupid birds, judging
by the frequent difficulties that they get into in
building and the ease with which they are outwitted
by crows. It can hardly call for much mental effort
to construct the heaps of sticks that satisfy them as
nests, but the work seems to tax their intellects to
the utmost, and they are often to be seen obstinately
trying to utilise sticks that, either from size or form,
are hopelessly unsuited to the end in view. Even
after the difficulties of building have been overcome
they are sometimes subject to strange delusions. A
kite sat patiently for many days in the vain hope
of hatching out a pill-box that it had secured from
a terraced roof overlooked by the rooms occupied by
a hypochondriacal member of the United Service
Club in Calcutta. In obtaining their food, too,
they show no craft, but depend entirely on force
and courage, and they very often lose the fruits
of these, owing to imprudence and folly. One
would have been disposed to think that a long

14 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

course of disaster might have taught them to
beware of crows, but they do not seem to have
in any way profited by it, and, in place of con-
veying their plunder to sheltered spots, such as
are afforded by almost any tree, they alight with
it haphazard, and, as often as not, in perfectly
exposed sites on the top of a wall, the projecting
cornice of a roof, or even on the open ground. In
such circumstances two crows are a match for any
kite, and, even a solitary one, although usually
having small chance of success, and so well aware
of this that he generally confines his attention to
irritating conversation and insulting gestures, occa-
sionally rises to the level of the situation. I once
saw an instance of this where a kite was busily
occupied with a piece of meat on the cornice of a
house. The crow in attendance kept on cawing
aloud in an insistent fashion that evidently got on
the nerves of the kite. He began to shift restlessly
about in vain effort to keep his enemy behind him,
and as often as he turned round had his tail sharply
tweaked. At last craft prevailed over force; for,
in one of his abrupt revolutions, he lost his hold
on his dinner, which fell over the ledge, and,
whilst he was still gazing sadly after it, was
secured by the crow, who darted down, and,
having seized it, retired to a safe shelter among
the twigs of a neighbouring tree, leaving his
victim to look around in bewildered fashion, and

KITES 15

finally sail off, whistling plaintively, in quest of
further supplies.

The heaps of debris, that used every evening
to adorn the sides of suburban roads awaiting the
coming of the scavengers' carts, were the sites of
many entertaining conflicts, but in these it was
usually the kites who played the part of robbers.
Pariah dogs were, of course, always present, attended
by mobs of crows, who formed rings around them,
hopping warily about and every now and then
venturing to secure a savoury morsel. The dogs
did not seem to heed this, but objected strongly
to the rude onslaughts of the kites, who at
intervals came sweeping silently and swiftly in from
behind and bore away treasures of garbage from
beneath their noses. This was past endurance, and
gave rise to ill-tempered barks and growls, and now
and then to a savage rush when some particularly
dainty morsel was abstracted — a very short-sighted
indulgence in temper, as it left the field open to
the incursion of other robbers, who dashed in
scolding and colliding with one another in the effort
to secure a due share of the plunder.

In ordinary circumstances kites are by no means
ill-tempered birds, and, in spite of their great
abundance and its attendant struggle for existence,
serious quarrels seem seldom to take place among
them. Now and then, however, a squabble does
arise, and then a very fine show of flight is to be

16 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

seen as the great brown birds chase one another
about and try to obtain a good chance of an efficient
stroke. When one of them realises that he has
been taken at advantage he suddenly turns com-
pletely over in the air so as to present a fiercely up-
turned beak and cruel talons to his adversary in
place of the broad, defenceless back that was aimed
at by the latter. Even when mobbed by other birds
they seldom show any active resentment, and
generally move quietly off when the annoyance
becomes no longer endurable. They are not, how-
ever, always so patient. I once had the joy of
seeing one at Delhi, who was inoffensively and
quietly sitting on a water- spout projecting from the
face of the town wall over the Jamna, entirely lose
his temper under the ceaseless persecution to which
he was subjected by a noisy troop of green parrots,
and, dashing out suddenly among them, strike off
the tail of one of his tormentors. No one who has
ever lived in a parrot-infested place could have failed
to sympathise with him and to enjoy the sight of
the drunkenly wobbling flight of the tailless and
shrieking victim of his wrath.

During the nesting season their temper alters
for the worse, and they become very irritable, often
indulging in wholly unprovoked assaults on one
another, on other birds, and even, sometimes, on
human beings who may unwarily approach their
habitations too closely. An old hen-kite, who had

KITES 17

a nest in the crown of a coco-nut tree at the side
of my garden, used to be amusingly jealous of the
intrusion of any outsiders of her own species into
her neighbourhood. Even whilst quite innocently
busy over their own affairs and thinking no evil of
her and her precious nest, they were never safe from
sudden assault. Whilst quietly seated on the lawn,
and fully occupied in the dissection of a grasshopper
or other large insect, they would be suddenly swooped
down upon, overturned, and fiercely grappled with.
A noisy scuffling, scolding, and waving of great brown
wings would follow; and then the intruder would
make off, leaving the old lady to walk about in sedate
triumph for a time and finally retire to her tree and
settle down placidly once more on the nest.

They are very methodical in their habits. Night
after night they return to certain favoured roosts in
the tops of high trees ; and year after year they
continue to occupy the same nests, setting about
their annual repairs with such regularity that the
sight of one beginning to collect and carry about
sticks is looked for as one of the very earliest
harbingers of the approach of the cold weather, or,
rather, of the onset of the latter part of the rainy
season. Their repeated return to former nesting
places would seem to be determined rather by sloth
than by sentiment. During the nesting season
1876-7 there were three nests in my garden. In
the period intervening between that and the next

18 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

building season some of the servants appropriated
the sticks of one of the nests as firewood ; and,
when the building-time again came round, the two
other nests were repaired and occupied, but the
missing one was not replaced. They are remarkably
regular even in the time that they come in to roost.
Even when their favourite perches are for a time
quite exposed by the vernal fall of the leaves they
faithfully adhere to them, and one feels quite un-
comfortable on a cold night to see them sitting
without any shelter from the chilly breezes. As a
rule, they settle down for the night shortly after
sundown, but occasionally the routine is interrupted,
owing to the attractions of an abundant store of
dainty food at a late hour, such as present themselves
when a swarm of white ants emerges. In such cases
belated stragglers continue to come sailing in through
the gloaming until it is almost dark. The deftness
with which they can secure such small, floating
objects as the bodies of white ants, is remarkable,
and it is a pretty sight to see them, sweeping and
circling about through a swarm of these insects,
picking one after another up in their claws and
transferring them to their beaks without disturbing
the regularity of their flight.

The majority of the kites in Calcutta begin to
think of building at the end of August or begin-
ning of September, but an anticipative bird may
occasionally be seen carrying a stick about quite

KITES 19

early in the former month. The action seems for
a time to be simply reflex, but presently comes to
bear a definite and direct relation to the foundation
or repair of nests ; by the middle of September,
steady building is going on everywhere, and in the
following month laying and sitting are in full swing.
Accidents, however, overtake many nests, owing to
occasional violent storms of wind, and all through
the course of winter processes of repair are in
progress. This is specially the case towards the end
of January and the beginning of February, when the
autumnal broods have been disposed of and prepara-
tions are being made for those due in spring. Eggs
may be obtained during a long series of months, but
are most abundant in October, and again towards
the end of winter ; they are beautifully marked with
bold reddish-brown splashes on a white ground.
The curious feeble whistling and mewing of the
young birds are constantly to be heard from early
in the cold weather until well on in the following
May, and, so long as they have to be provided for,
the parents have hard work to satisfy their own
healthy appetites and the demands of their children.
The young ones for some time after they leave the
nest are of a much warmer brown tint than their
parents, and their plumage, mottled and shaded in
a very decorative way, shows little traces of its later
uniformity of colour.

I have never seen a kite take any of the common

20 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

small birds native to Calcutta in mature and healthy
condition, but any conspicuously foreign one, such
as a canaiy, is almost at once carried off. They
have many interesting habits. When bathing, which
they are very fond of doing (and with ample reason,
considering the nature of so much of their normal
diet and the places from which it is obtained), they
do their washing quite quietly and without any of
the noisy splashings and fluttering^ that attend that
of most other birds. When conducting it in a pond
they alight near the margin of the water, wade
leisurely in, and squat down so as to soak their
plumage ; when utilising a heavy downpour of rain,
they do not dash and plunge about among wet foliage
as crows and other birds usually do in like circum-
stances, but sit quietly down with their heads turned
to one side, and their wings widely extended so as
to expose as much surface as possible to the shower-
bath. After a bath, and also during cold weather,
they, like vultures and adjutants, have a way of
sunning themselves with widely extended wings,
and, specially in the rainy season, may often be seen
on the cornices of houses, spread out and flattened
against the wall like architectural ornaments.
Jerdon, in referring to the habit, says that Buchanan
Hamilton remarks that they then appear " exactly
as represented in Egyptian monuments." This is
hardly a correct statement, seeing that the birds
with extended wings on the monuments are vultures

KITES 21

and not kites, and that, in place of having "their
breast to the walls," as the kites have, they always
face directly outwards (Plate I.). He also mentions
that "they are said to leave Calcutta almost
entirely for three or four months during the rains."
This most assuredly is not the case. The onset of
the monsoon, or, indeed, of any continuous heavy
rainfall, is doubtless followed by their departure
from the town in large numbers, but their absence
is never of longer duration than a few weeks, and
is often much briefer. Whilst absent they do not
seem to go far afield, for any considerable pause in
the rainfall is at once followed by their reappearance
within urban limits, and, even when the weather
favours their continued absence from the streets, they
may often be seen drifting inwards high over head
from the surrounding country, and sailing about in
flocks before violent rain-squalls. In the summer
of 1878 an unwontedly abundant fall of rain took
place in May and the beginning of June, and caused
an exceptionally early exodus of the kites; a com-
paratively dry period followed, during which they
returned to town ; the regular monsoon rains set
steadily in in the early part of July, and a second
emigration, followed by a second return, took place.
The explanation of these villeggiaturas is probably
to be found in the fact that heavy rainfall both
washes the streets and so tends to diminish the
supply of garbage in them, and at the same time

22 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

floods the low-lying areas around the town and
provides store of attractive food there in the shape
of drowned animals. As the floods increase this
supply diminishes as its sources are either swept
away or driven to take refuge in the higher parts of
the country, and with this the streets resume their
normal attractions as hunting-grounds.

On evenings of those specially oppressive days
in summer that wind up with a violent storm from
the north-west, the kites mount in hundreds into
the upper air, where they wheel and drift about
seemingly without purpose, but probably really in
pure enjoyment of the cool currents that set in aloft
long before there has been anything to relieve the
stagnant heat at lower levels, and whilst any breeze
moving there is still breathing from the south.

Very slight defects in their plumage often give
rise to curiously great effects in the flight of kites.
Any imperfection in the tail-feathers specially serves
to impart a markedly unsteady character to it. One
feels disposed to wonder how they manage to get on
at all during their moults, unless they either change
their feathers in the insensible fashion in which many
evergreens change their foliage, or in the kaleido-
scopic way characteristic of deciduous trees in the
tropics ; the habits of most raptorial birds seem to be
quite incompatible with any prolonged period of
seriously impaired flight, such as that attending the
moult of most other birds.

Ill

MYNAS

" Striped squirrels raced, the mynas perked and picked."

— The Light of Asia.

1 The stare, that the counseylle kan bewrye."

— The Assembly of Foulis.

" Before her goes, nodding their heads,
The merry minstrelsy." — Ancient Mariner.

IT seems hardly right in any way to associate mynas
with kites, for, in place of being carrion-fed robbers,
they are birds of most genteel and refined habits, and
it was only because my first introduction to both of
them was almost simultaneous with arrival in India
that I come to think of them together. As we get
to know more of the country we begin to realise that
there are several very distinct kinds of mynas, but
almost everywhere Acridotheres tristis is our first
familiar acquaintance among them (Plate II. 1). A
very creditable acquaintance he is, too, with his
sober dress, that in the level sunshine of mornings
and evenings is glorified by bronzy tints, and his
familiar and amusing ways. Starlings have the

24 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

same eager and dainty way of pacing and running
about over the grass, but the common mynas have
none of their mean and cheap look, and, though
they may be as self-satisfied as any starling ever
was, it must be allowed that they have much more
reason to be so. A starling in spring, sitting on a
bough in an ecstasy of self-content over the
strangely creaking torrent of noises that he fondly
believes to be a song, may make one feel as one
does whilst listening to an amateur recitation; but
this is never the case where a myna is concerned.
One has no sense of shame or sadness in listen-
ing to him as he nods his head and flutters his
wings to give point to his song.

I can never cease to have a grateful memory of
the way in which a myna helped to while away the
weary and rather home-sick hours of my first hot-
weather in Calcutta. He and his wife had elected to
place their nest on the cornice beneath the beams in
one corner of the open roof of my room, and were
constantly coming in with fresh stores of building
materials. It was quite refreshing to see the supreme
satisfaction that they derived from the progress of
their work — a satisfaction that every now and then
became so acute as to call for a short rest and
jubilant little song. Merely to watch the construc-
tion of a myna's nest is a liberal education ; it is like
watching the steps in the formation of a local museum.
Their taste in materials is so catholic that one never

MYNAS 25

knows what curio may not be brought in. Sticks,
straws, feathers, rags, small bones, and pieces of paper
are all deemed valuable, and a very special worth
would seem to attach to the cast skins of snakes, for,
in any case where these are attainable, they are
almost sure to be worked into the growing heap of
rubbish. The pity is that in their effort to bring in
exceptionally bulky materials they are apt to drop
them about, and, although snake-skins and feathers
may be interesting and even decorative additions to
the furniture of a room, great pieces of paper or rag,
of unknown origin and very doubtful purity, can
hardly be regarded as desirable additions to one's
surroundings.

Mynas always make themselves entirely at home
in a house, taking it completely for granted that
they are quite at liberty to drop in and stay whenever
and for as long as they like. Even when the open
spaces above the railings of a verandah are netted or
wired up, they refuse to recognise it as a notice of
warning against trespass, but squeeze their way in
between the rails whenever the whim seizes them to
do so. They persist in asserting a right-of-way, and
never show any sense of guilt or confusion when
detected, but merely quietly withdraw without any
unseemly haste or flurry. In this they are curiously
unlike the crows, who are just as ready to pay
uninvited visits, but who are so well aware that they
ought not to do so, that the terrors of detection at

26 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

once reduce them to a state of helpless, hopeless
idiocy whenever they are caught poaching in a place
from which there is no way of precipitate exit.
There is, of course, this great difference in the two
cases, that the mynas have only looked in from
civility or polite curiosity, whereas the crows have
done so with felonious intent ; but, even allowing
this, it seems strange that a sense of guilt should
lead such hardened and habitual criminals as crows
are to lose their heads so completely as they do in
such a case.

It is a never-ending joy to watch mynas pacing
and racing about over the grass in search of worms
and insects. They never hop, but step and run
lightly from place to place, always looking alert and
well-dressed. When a pair of them have come across
a desirable lawn, they very soon come to look upon it
as their private property, returning to it every morn-
ing and evening with the greatest regularity, and,
where the space is a limited one, showing extreme
jealousy of any intrusion by other birds, and specially
by any of their own relatives. During one season
a pair appropriated the little lawn at the back of
my house, and would not endure the incursions of
the brown shrikes who haunted the neighbouring
shrubbery and were occasionally tempted out upon
the grass by the presence of specially alluring insects.
They were also constantly engaged in hunting away
a pair of pied starlings who had a nest in a tall tree

MYNAS 27

in the corner of the garden, and, not unreasonably,
thought that they were entitled to the run of the
turf. Their extreme excitability and overflowing
energy make them rather apt to quarrel among
themselves, and one sometimes sees an otherwise
most affectionate couple squabbling fiercely over the
possession of a worm destined to be food for their
nestlings. Their scuffles often take place in odd
places, and I have seen a party of them having a free
fight on the body of a cow, who lay, placidly and
indifferently chewing the cud, quite undisturbed by
their struggles and cries. They love the company of
cattle, and, along with common white egrets, are
constantly to be seen following the cows and
buffaloes, who, in pushing their way along through
the grass, dislodge clouds of insects from their lurking
places in it. Whilst questing for worms and insects
in the grass they pace quietly along, spying warily
about, turning over all the heaps of cow-dung to
have a look beneath them, and every now and then,
making a sudden dash at some desirable object at a
little distance.

Few birds venture to stand up to a myna, and
there are very few that a myna will hesitate to
assault. Even crows are afraid of them, although
quite ready to torment them when a chance of
doing so advantageously happens to turn up. One
may often see a crow teasing a myna who is busy
on the grass near the foot of a tree, dodging round

28 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

and round, running out to tweak the myna's tail
when his back is turned, and then fleeing from
his wrath to the other side of the tree. A party
of mynas, consisting of several males and females,
once selected the top of a low terraced roof, just
below my verandah, as a site for courting and
quarrelling. The ladies formed a sedate and
attentive gallery of spectators on the top of the
parapet, whilst the gentlemen held a tournament
below, pacing around, singing at one another, and
every now and then engaging in furious scuffles,
in which they grappled with beak and claw and
fell over, so that the roof was often strewn with
struggling couples of fluttering and scolding com-
batants. Crows are always on the spot in the event
of a shindy of any kind, and, in this case, quite
a mob of them very soon gathered to criticise the
conduct of the fray. For a time they were content
to play the part of mere onlookers and form excited
and conversational rings around the duellists, but
presently their irrepressible desire to interfere in
other people's affairs led them on, first to crowd
in more and more closely, and then to pluck at the
skirts of the fighters. The latter were so com-
pletely absorbed in mutual attack and defence
that, for a time, they paid no attention to the
impudent interference, but, when they did con-
descend to notice it and separated, it was pretty to
see the precipitate flight of the crows,

MYNAS 29

In the neighbourhood of Calcutta their pairing
season seems to take place in the beginning of the
year, for it is then that one oftenest sees violent
contests among the males, such as that just
mentioned. The birds that take part in these frays,
either as spectators or as actors, are seemingly
young ones of the previous season, or widows and
widowers who have lost their mates ; for the
constancy with which they are to be met with in
pairs at all times of year seems to indicate that
their matrimonial alliances are permanent. During
the intervals between nesting seasons they assemble
every evening in countless numbers in order to
roost in certain favourite trees, coming into these
in pairs and small parties that continue to converge
from all quarters long after every available perch
must seemingly have been occupied. The trees
selected as bed-chambers are such as provide very
dense cover, and in Calcutta mangoes and Mimusops
elengi, trees that abound in urban gardens, are those
usually chosen. During the latter part of autumn
and the whole of the cold weather, many of the
gardens in the European part of the town are
nightly tenanted by countless multitudes of mynas,
who go out in the morning to the suburbs and the
country around, and return to town again towards
sundown. Were they content to go quietly to bed
there could be no objection to this, but, unfortun-
ately, they cannot settle down for the night without

SO COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

much wrangling for accommodation and vociferous
gossip over the events of the day ; practices which,
in popular sites, give rise to an ear-splitting and
well-nigh deafening din. Every one must be familiar
with the discordant hubbub that emanates from a
large roost of common starlings, but that is nothing
to the din that a flock of mynas can give rise to.
The Residency at Katmandu lies on the brow of
a slope overlooking a wide expanse of rice-fields
on the farther side of which are some dense groups
of trees. These used to be, and very likely still
are, tenanted every night of the cold weather by
myriads of mynas ; and, evening after evening, the
tumult attending their settling down for the night
could be distinctly heard all across the wide inter-
vening space. A second fit of noisy talk precedes
their outgoing in the morning ; and, on brightly
moonlit nights, it is never certain that some of
them may not awake to chatter or even sing.
At all times they seem to be light sleepers,
for any sudden gust of wind during the night,
though in many cases it leaves the crows quite
undisturbed, is generally enough to rouse them
up to shout. Like most of their near relatives
and many other kinds of birds, they are very
fond of the liquor that is to be found in the
lower part of the great, stiff corollas of the silk-
cotton-trees in the early morning, and, when a
number of them are competing for it, a din,

MYNAS 31

almost equal to that of roosting-time, issues from
the trees.

In the neighbourhood of Calcutta mynas nest
all through the hot weather and the early part
of the rainy season, and as, in the plains at least,
they prefer to use buildings rather than trees as sites
for their nests, it is not always easy to keep them
from invading the interior of houses in their quest
for eligible places. There are certainly some grounds
for refusing to allow them to settle in inhabited
rooms, for, though they do not, like sparrows,
resent the entrance of any one into their domain
with noisy vociferation, they are very apt to scatter
unpleasing rubbish over the floors, and one is not
always disposed to listen gratefully to the loud and
cheerful songs with which they diversify their
labours. When once they are fairly settled, how-
ever, it is almost impossible to harden one's heart
to the point of turning them out ; their complete
assurance that they have a perfect right to be
where they are, and their outspoken satisfaction
over the progress of their work appeal to one's
feelings in a way that can hardly be resisted. After
the eggs are hatched out the parents have a rough
time of it. They spend the entire day from dawn
to dusk in incessant journeys backwards and
forwards between their hunting-grounds and nests ;
indeed, as has been already mentioned, so eager
are they over their work as often to have little

32 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

tiffs over the possession of specially delectable worms
or insects in total forgetfulness of the fact that
they are labouring for a common end. When either
of them has collected as much as its bill will hold
it comes in, generally pausing at the brim of the
nest to answer the eager cries of the young birds
with one or two cheerful notes, before proceeding
to feed them and then emerge to sail off once more
on widespread, white-barred wings in quest of fresh
supplies. They are very attentive to their young,
and carefully escort and feed them long after
they are well able to provide for themselves. Such
family parties are for some time readily recognisable,
owing to the colouring of the young birds and to
the fact that the latter every now and then make
exorbitant and wholly unreasonable demands to be
fed. In many cases the association would seem to
last up to the next breeding season, as, all through
autumn and the early half of winter, mynas are
very often to be found going about in small parties
that may well represent one or two parents with
a brood of the previous season.

The only other representatives of the Sturnidce
that are permanent residents of the immediate
vicinity of Calcutta are the pied starlings, Sturno-
pastor contra. They are not nearly such attractive
birds as the common mynas ; for their colouring is
coarsely laid on in a way that recalls that of certain
of the ornithological inmates of a Noah's ark ; their

MYNAS 33

heads have a debased look, and they have neither
the pleasant notes nor the alluringly familiar ways
of their relatives. Like the latter, and very often in
company with them, they spend their nights, save
during the nesting season, in huge mobs, which,
if possible, are even more vociferous than those
of mynas. At sundown the din proceeding from
such assemblies is often so overpowering as to render
even the concerts of the crows or of the great
autumnal crickets temporarily inaudible. Although
roosting in and haunting gardens, they never show
any desire to enter houses, and they invariably nest
in trees. Their choice of nesting materials is almost,
if not quite, as indiscriminate as that of mynas, and,
as they have no special desire for privacy in family
life, and often build gregariously, trees, such as
tamarinds, that provide convenient sites, are often
much disfigured by the results of their architecture.
The nests, although to all appearance very incoherent
and carelessly ordered, are, in fact, wonderfully dur-
able, and seem to be used for many successive years
by their proprietors. Processes of annual repair
begin to take place in April, and by the middle of
May the nests are in good order and tenanted. The
relatively late period of nesting is probably connected
with the nature and position of the nests. Those of
the common mynas are placed in holes in walls or
other protected sites in or about buildings, and must,
consequently, be equally safe at any time of year;

34 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

but where large and conspicuous heaps of rubbish
are to be attached to trees there is an obvious reason
why the process should be deferred until the crop
of leaves that falls in spring has been replaced by
a fresh supply of protective foliage. Like mynas,
the pied starlings manifest entire satisfaction with
their nests, and when busily engaged in feeding
their young can never enter their houses, even when
their mouths seem to be inconveniently full, with-
out pausing to utter one or two cheerful notes of
self-congratulation .

Pied starlings overflow with energy and always
seem to be in a hurry. When questing over a
plot of grass they never pace daintily about as the
mynas do, but race along in a frenzied way that
almost recalls the air of possession with which
mason-wasps go about their business. They are
almost as jealous of any intrusion on their favourite
hunting-grounds as mynas are, but by no means so
plucky in resenting it by active assault.

Several other kinds of mynas and starlings appear
in Calcutta as visitors, usually during the winter
months. At the time that the silk-cotton-trees are
in bloom they are regularly visited by large flocks
of Acridotheres fuscus l and Temenuchus malabaricus?
the latter species perhaps furnishing the very noisiest

1 Owing to the kaleidoscopic revolutions in zoological nomenclature,
these birds will be found in the " Fauna of British India " as j&thiopsar
fuscus and Sfocpwa malabarica.

Common Mvna. i>. 2:

Black-headed Mynas. p. 34.

To face p. 34.

MYNAS S5

members of the mixed company that attends these
drinking bouts. A few stray specimens of Temenu-
chus pagodarum, the beautiful black-headed myna so
abundant in Southern India (Plate II.), and of the
bank-rnyna, Acridotheres ginginianus, also make their
appearance at the same time. I have never seen the
common starling in the open near Calcutta. Large
numbers of specimens are brought into the bazaars
of the town in winter, but they are all derived from
Behar. Blyth records the visits of flocks of rose-
pastors to the flowering silk- cotton-trees, but, what-
ever may have been the case in his time, they
would seem now to be very rare birds in the
neighbourhood of Calcutta. Owing to its very
conspicuous plumage and habits, it is very unlikely
to escape notice, but I find no note of its occurrence
in the records of thirty years' observation.

IV

CHOWS

" The Craw put up her sooty heid,
Frae the nest whar she lay,
And gied a flaff wi' her roosty wings,
And cried ' Whar tae, whar tae ! '
' Tae pike a deid man lying
Ahint yon muckle stane.' "

—Border Ballad.

" As I was walking all my lane
I heard twa corbies makin' a mane,
The tain until the tither say,
' Whar'll we gang and dine the day.' "

— Border Ballad.

REMINISCENCES of the common Indian1 crow are
concerned with experiences which ranged from rage
and disgust to the keenest admiration and amuse-
ment. There surely never was such an impishly
clever bird. The common English magpie may
run him close, but it is only when domesticated
that he can be regarded as a serious competitor,
and, even then, the devil by which he is possessed
is hardly so inventive and constantly on the alert

1 Corvus splendens is considerably larger than a jackdaw, but smaller
than a rook.

36

CROWS 37

as that which is immanent in an Indian crow.
Even the most depraved magpie seems to be subject
to occasional intervals of comparative innocence,
during which his appetite for malignant mischief
slumbers, but this can hardly be said of the crow,
who, even when you think him fully occupied in
attending to his own affairs — even when busily
feeding or in all the throng of nest-building — seems
to have an eye open all the time for any opportunity
for wanton mischief, and whose keen sense ol
humour and restless energy seem hardly ever to
flag. During the stifling heat of a thunderous
afternoon he may for a time be reduced to sit,
gasping through gaping mandibles and incapable
of anything beyond sotto voce talk ; or, again, during
a storm of driving rain, sodden plumage, and
incapacity to struggle against the fury of the blast
may lead to temporary depression. But in all other
circumstances he is prepared to show himself in
his normal character as an irrepressible street gamin,
ready for any fray, opportunity for theft, or occasion
for annoying and tormenting his neighbours. As a
rule, he is quite ready to say, with Madame de
Longueville, when exiled from Paris and condemned
to stay with her husband in Normandy, " Je n'aime
pas les plaisirs innocents," but at rare intervals he
unbends so far as to partake of them, and I once
saw a party of crows playing a harmless game
among themselves for quite a long time. They

38 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

had come in for the evening and, before going to
roost, had assembled on a flat roof on which a
number of fragments of wood were lying about, in
order to play a game of the following kind. One
of them, taking up a stick, ran off, and was pursued
by his comrades until one of them succeeded in
twitching it out of his beak, and, in his turn, became
the object of pursuit ; the process being repeated
again and again, and seeming to give the utmost
satisfaction to the company. A solitary bird may
sometimes be seen playing about in a vague way,
but it is only rarely that a number of them rise to
the level of playing a continuous and co-operative
game, as in this instance.

When one thinks of the endless series of excite-
ment and more or less disreputable adventures that
crows must have gone through during the course
of their day's outing, it seems strange that they
should have energy enough left, on returning to
the neighbourhood of their roosts, for anything but
quietly going to bed. But they never show any
signs of fatigue, and invariably, unless they return
unusually late, spend quite a long time in bathing
and gossiping over the events of the day. As
they come in, they do not at once make for the
trees in which they intend to pass the night, but
congregate on the tops of buildings or the upper
boughs of thinly-foliaged trees and there converse
noisily for some time. Every now and then one

CROWS 39

of the company seems to make a remark or tell a
story that shocks even their depraved sense of
propriety, and a general dispersion takes place
amid loud cries of reprobation; but the desire for
further scandal soon brings them all back, and it
is only after several such interruptions that they
finally separate for the night. Every evening
throngs of crows, mynas, and common pond-herons,
Ardeola grayi, come trooping in from their
hunting-grounds in the surrounding country, and
converge towards their roosts in the trees of the
gardens and streets of the European quarter of
Calcutta. The mynas usually fly in small flocks
or family parties, the crows either solitarily or in
packs, and the herons always singly. The mynas
make straight for their roosts ; the crows interrupt
their journey in order to bathe, and on reaching
home, waste much time in idle talk before going
to bed; and the herons often vary their homeward
flight by swooping aside after passing insects.

Crows never show the tranquil enjoyment of
cool evening breezes that kites do, but are always
fully occupied in bathing, gossiping, or playing
until the last moment before retiring to rest.
Even during the coldest weather they persist in
having a bath either on their homeward journey or
after they have arrived at their night-quarters,
going down to the ponds and splashing and
fluttering most energetically in the shallows. When

40 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

once they have betaken themselves to their roosts
they very rapidly settle down and never make a
din like that which issues nightly from a tree
tenanted by mynas ; they have, of course, had a
good talk beforehand, and, as they do not roost so
closely packed together as the mynas, there is less
occasion for disputes for the possession of particular
perches than there is among the latter birds. They
seem to sleep more soundly than mynas do, but
on moonlit nights occasional drowsy utterances
may be heard ; and, in event of a thunder-storm
with vivid lightning or violent gusts of wind,
sudden outbursts of expostulation occur at intervals.
At dawn they fully make up for any reticence
that they may have shown overnight; the clamour
is then truly astonishing and quite preventive of
sleep until use has inured one to it. I cannot
forget the feeling of almost desperate nervous
irritation that beset me for many weeks after I
had come into town from living in the Botanic
Garden, which in those days was practically free
from crows, to a house in a garden where dawn
was made hideous by crows. To any one in full
health the uproar may soon cease to be annoying,
but it remains a persistent source of trouble to
invalids by rousing them up at the very time at
which they have the best chance of a little
refreshing sleep. It is odd that so serious a
nuisance should be so passively endured as it is.

CROWS 41

One constantly hears complaints of it, but it is very
seldom that any serious attempt is made to reduce
it. On the contrary, any action of that sort which
may be taken is often objected to on the ground
that crows are excellent scavengers. Now this is
quite true ; but at the same time there can be no
question that the number of crows who roost in
Calcutta is very much in excess of the supply of
food provided by the refuse of the streets, and
that a very large percentage of the birds are mere
night-lodgers who do their scavenging in the
surrounding country, and only come into town
when their day's work is over. Moreover, the
number of such crows tends to increase steadily,
not only owing to annual increments of young
birds, but also to the diminution in local supply of
food that ought to attend improved sanitation of
the streets. So long as no steps are taken to limit
the population of useless lodgers, it must go on
growing until all available sites for nests and roosts
in the trees within the limits of the town have
been fully occupied, and this without any local
benefit whatever. A very little observation will be
enough to satisfy any one that this is the case.
Every morning sees the departure of innumerable
crows streaming out into the country; and every
evening sees the process reversed, the outgoing and
incoming streams of birds crossing those of the
babus who spend their days in the shops and

42 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

offices of the town and their nights in the suburbs
and the outlying villages beyond.

There are several reasons why so large a number
of crows should be found at night within town limits.
In the first place, crows must always, owing to the
nature of their diet, find areas thickly peopled by
human beings convenient hunting-grounds. They
need not necessarily be permanent residents there ;
but wherever trees of a suitable kind are found in
the streets and gardens of a town, they will naturally
offer special attractions as sites for roosting and
nesting, because of the restrictions regarding the use
of firearms and the relative security from birds and
beasts of prey within urban limits. An abundant
supply of food and relative security will, therefore,
account for the presence of a certain number of
crows as permanent residents, but the chief cause of
the excessive number of the population is the per-
sistent habit that the birds have of returning to
roost and nest in the immediate neighbourhood of
the sites in which they were born. It is, however,
this very habit, annoying as it is to the occupants
of neighbouring houses, that provides an effective
means of largely mitigating the evil. Every garden,
and to a certain extent every tree, constitutes a
separate parish, and is inhabited by a distinct com-
munity, which is being constantly recruited by the
birth of young natives ; but only exceptionally by the
arrival of immigrants from other and overcrowded

CROWS 43

places. All, therefore, that is necessary in order to
prevent the increase of the population, or to diminish
or ultimately abolish it, is to check the annual
increments of young birds. Even crows, clever and
cunning though they be, are subject to accidents,
and, apart from these, must eventually die of old
age ; so that any strictly localised community of them
will gradually diminish and ultimately die out if not
recruited. All, then, that is necessary to convert
any garden from a pandemonium to a haunt of peace,
is the exercise of a certain amount of patience, and
the steady destruction of all nests for a term of years.
The work of destruction involves a good deal of toil,
more especially where many trees have to be dealt
with, as the old birds are most persevering in their
desires for a family, and go on building nest after
nest to make good those that have been done away
with. But the labour is amply repaid by the result-
ing quiet, and after a few years a very little attention
is enough to keep this up permanently. My last
garden in Calcutta was, when I acquired control of
it, in the possession of a great colony of crows ; but,
for many years before I left India, very few roosted
or attempted to nest there, because I had set my
face from the outset steadily against all successful
local hatching.

When a colony of crows has been allowed to
establish itself in any urban garden it is difficult to
deal efficiently with it in any other way ; municipal

44 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

regulations interfere with any effectual use of fire-
arms ; poison, besides being open to other objections,
is inefficient owing to the extreme wariness of its
intended victims ; and attempts at establishing a
reign of terror, by means of fireworks or other
noisy demonstrations, seem generally to cause more
annoyance to the human inhabitants of the neigh-
bourhood than alarm in the desired quarter.
Almost the only speedily effective means of
reducing the number of crows in a garden is to
secure the services of a professional bird-catcher for
a time. This has the advantage of being not only
a profitable but also a highly entertaining adventure.
The expert arrives about sundown, provided with
a sufficiency of bird-lime and a bundle of bamboo
rods fitting into one another like the joints of a
fishing-rod, and, when the crows have settled down
for the night, but whilst a certain amount of light
remains, he sets to work. He quietly approaches
the foot of the tree he has chosen, and, having
determined on an eligible point by careful scrutiny,
applies some of the lime to the slimmest of his rods,
and goes on quietly and steadily passing it upwards
among the branches, fitting in joint after joint of
the series until the tip has arrived at striking
distance, when a sudden, slight inclination brings it
into adhesive contact with his victim, who is forth-
with hauled down by main force, struggling and
expostulating wildly as he descends. The whole

CROWS 45

performance is a very curious one ; one wonders
at the amazing tenacity of the lime that can with-
stand the struggles of such powerful birds; and,
even more, that the capture and outcries of one
after another of them causes so little alarm among
their neighbours that several of them may be taken
almost from the same perch. It is no easy matter
to disturb crows who have settled down for the
night, or to determine beforehand what will serve
to do so. I once spent a long and happy evening
in helping a friend to send fireworks into a tree
tenanted by an obnoxious colony of crows, without
eliciting any result save the utterance of a few
drowsy caws ; and yet, a little later on in the same
night, the sudden striking of a match in order to
light a pipe was enough to give rise to a perfect
torrent of outcries and the precipitate exodus of
a throng of crows from among the branches.

Crows show evidence of a truly disinterested love
for mischief, and, consequently, never know what it
is to spend a dull moment ; there is always some-
thing at hand to be tormented or destroyed in the
spare moments that may intervene in the pursuit
of things to eat. Should one be suffering from a
fit of fever and have lain down in the hope of for-
getting discomfort in sleep, a crow is almost sure
to find one out and light on the shutters of any
open door or window in order to peer into the
room and make offensive remarks. When the

46 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

punkahs are carefully wrapped up in paper and
stowed away for the winter beneath the roof of
the verandah, it is not long before the crows are
hard at work unpacking them and strewing the
floor with a litter of torn paper. If one leaves a
book lying in any place to which they can gain
access, one may surely reckon on finding pages torn
out of it within a very short time ; and, if one has
any particularly pet plant coming into bloom, they
are as likely as not to tear off the flowers as
quickly as they unfold. Any animal pets are, of
course, even more subject to their attentions, and,
unless in wholly inaccessible places, are constantly
liable to having their food purloined and their lives
rendered a burthen by persistent and ingenious
persecution. Most wild animals, too, have a bad
time wherever crows abound. As a rule, kites and
vultures are left in peace unless when a competi-
tion for food arises. Occasionally, however, after
the kites have begun to nest, and long before their
own building time has set in, a party of crows will
be suddenly smitten by a sense of the possibilities
of sport to be derived from interference with their
neighbours, and will assemble to criticise and some-
times even to intervene actively in the work of
building. Even king-crows, Dicrurince, in spite of
the respect that their pluck and dash usually inspire,
occasionally come in for a share of annoyance. I
once saw a party of crows in the Valley of Nipal

CROWS 47

interrupt their homeward journey at sundown, in
order to return again and again for the pleasure of
disturbing some drowsy king-crows and causing them
to rush forth in pursuit. Any strange raptorial bird
is at once surrounded by a noisy mob ; a belated
owl has a very bad time of it until he can find
some impregnable retreat, and any stray sea-eagle
that may venture into a garden to have a look
at the ponds, is very soon driven off by intolerable
persecution. The arrival of a palm-cat or civet in
a garden is announced by a tumultuous assembly
of crows, and even palm-squirrels, should they stray
out into the open, and especially among grass long
enough to hamper their movements, are immedi-
ately set upon. Monkeys are certainly not very
canny subjects for persecution, and seem to be
generally respected in places where they abound,
but when some were let loose in the Zoological
Garden .in Calcutta they were constantly escorted
about by vociferous retinues of crows.

When crows are engaged in mobbing any formid-
able bird or mammal they assemble in immense
numbers, blackening the branches of the neigh-
bouring trees with their hosts, and keeping up a
continuous hubbub of cawing ; gradually crowding
in closer and closer around their victim, but ready,
on any sudden movement on its part, to disperse
for the time being in a perfect tempest of execra-
tion. Crows were always among the worst enemies

48 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

to contend with in the Zoological Garden at Alipur.
Large collections of captive animals must everywhere
demand very careful supervision, but there are
certain special difficulties attending their manage-
ment in tropical countries. In a Zoological Garden
in Europe, if sufficient space, suitable temperature,
good water-supply and housing, judicious feeding,
and general sanitation be provided, there is hardly
anything left to be attended to save precautions
against invasion by rats and mice. But the in-
mates of tropical gardens are constantly exposed to
the attacks of hosts of other enemies. Venomous
snakes haunt the shrubberies and other coverts, and
cause much mortality, especially among ruminants ;
crocodiles are always ready to avail themselves of
any opportunities of establishing themselves in ponds
and playing havoc among the water-fowl; civets,
mungooses, Paradoxuri, and wild cats are for ever
on the alert for forays on the aviaries; troops of
jackals race howling around every night, and, if
they can, invade the paddocks and terrify and
injure the inmates ; kites and eagles are for ever
floating about overhead, ready to stoop on any un-
protected bird or small mammal; and, as though
all this were not enough, multitudes of crows throng
ceaselessly around, busy with misdeeds of one sort
or other; stealing food, tormenting animals out of
pure devilry, disturbing them when trying to rest,
inflicting serious and often fatal injuries on those

CROWS 49

that are sickly, and especially on any that may be
suffering from skin diseases or cutaneous wounds.
Even where they inflict no serious injuries they
constantly worry and annoy animals to such an
extent as to give rise to a degree of nervous irrita-
tion that must seriously affect their well-being.
Even the stolid indifference of a ruminant cow is
not always proof against the attentions of one or
two crows as they go hopping and cawing about
over her body, pickaxing in her back, mining in
her ears and nose, and now and then giving a
dangerous dig at one of her eyes.

Hardly any living things seem to be permanently
exempt from their annoyance ; even in places where
particular animals have every right to be, and crows
are pure intruders, any casual encounter is almost
certain to expose the former to insult if not to
actual injury. One would have thought that river-
tortoises might have escaped, but even they are
sometimes as hardly tried as other less protected
animals are. I once had an excellent occasion of
observing this during the course of one of many
golden forenoons spent in "wise passiveness," in a
kiosk at a corner of the river-face of the lower
platform of the Taj. The Jamna was just begin-
ning to fall after the end of the rains, and large
banks of yellow sand were forming islands in its
shining stream. One of these lay immediately
beneath the bank of the Taj Garden, and numbers

D

50 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

of large tortoises were " coming up out of the
river," like Joseph's cattle, to bask, or rather to try
to bask, in the sunshine, for it was only here and
there that one for a time escaped the attentions
of a party of crows, who were enjoying themselves
to the utmost in tormenting them. It was really
quite exhilarating to see how the birds danced round
their victims, watching for chances to run in and
plant incisive digs "in safe and soft places," and
then beat a precipitate retreat. The tortoises were
certainly as " grieved " as those that, according to
the pages of " Nature," are frequently added to the
collections in Regent's Park; now and then they
snapped viciously at their tormentors, but for the
most part they were content to draw themselves
as far as possible under cover of their armour, and
await an opportunity of edging their way down-
wards towards the water. Even when they had
been fairly routed the crows gave them no rest,
but danced around them and obstructed their retreat
as much as possible to the very end. After a time
the charms of this game palled, and the demons
took to running up and down at the edge of the
water and frightening away any fresh tortoises who
might be foolish enough to wish to land. When
tired of this, too, they had a high time in digging
a huge bull- frog out of his burrow in the sand,
but, when he suddenly emerged and went off in
a series of great leaps, they were so much startled

CROWS 51

as to leave him in peace and return to their former
play. Soon, however, judgment fell upon them,
for a couple of red-wattled plover, Sarcogrammus
indicus, who had for some time been looking on
with manifest disapproval, suddenly assaulted them
and drove them off, complaining loudly, to the
bank.

Almost the only occasions in which one sees
crows behaving respectfully are those in which they
come into close quarters with their immediate rela-
tives, for they certainly never venture to treat the
Indian corbie, Corvus culminatus, with unseemly levity.
Where one or two corbies are in possession of some
gruesome delicacy, the crows cannot help congre-
gating enviously around them, but they do so with
the utmost respect, are relatively silent, and never
venture to approach very closely, far less to make
any attempts at theft.

Quite independently of their artistic apprecia-
tion of the value of mischief for mischiefs sake, and
of their morning and evening concerts, many of their
habits are very annoying to their human neigh-
bours. It is never safe to leave articles of food
for a moment unguarded in any place to which they
can gain access, and the trouble that they give in a
garden is endless. It is bad enough at any time,
but comes to a climax in the nesting season, when
their eager search for building materials leads them
to play havoc among treasured shrubs and creepers

52 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

by wrenching off twigs and sprays in the most
recklessly destructive fashion. In the neighbour-
hood of Calcutta they begin to build in the latter
part of January, and thereafter, until the end of
May, the work goes on more or less continuously.
In some seasons nesting is over much sooner than
in others, as its duration is, to a great extent,
determined by the nature of the weather. Should
their first nests be plundered by any predaceous
animal, destroyed by human agency, or wrecked by
storm, they at once begin to build anew, and,
therefore, in seasons in which violent storms abound,
nesting necessarily goes on much longer than when
only a few occur. When a catastrophe does over-
take a nest containing young birds in an advanced
stage of development, but not yet fit to do with-
out a habitation, and should any of them survive,
their parents sometimes show great intelligence in
providing for them. In April 1883 a crow's nest
was pulled down in a garden in the European
quarter of Calcutta. One of the two young birds
that were in it fell to the ground and was killed,
but the other lodged among the branches in its
descent without serious injury. Great excitement
of course prevailed among all the crows of the
neighbourhood, and then the parents proceeded to
make a new platform of sticks beneath and around
their surviving offspring.

CROWS — continued

" Wahrend ich nach andrer Leute,
Andrer Leute Scliatzen spahe,
Und vor fremden Liebesthiiren
Schmachtend auf und niedergehe :

" Treibt's vielleicht die andren Leute
Hin und her an andrem Platze.
Und vor meinen eignen Fenstern,
Augeln sie mit meinem Schatze." — HEINE.

ONE of the most curious points connected with
the nesting of crows is that birds so strong and
bold and of such exceptional intelligence — birds
that are so constantly full of nefarious schemes in
regard to the nests of other species — should be
victimised by the koils, Eudynamis orientalis, as
successfully as the most feeble and foolish birds
are by other kinds of cuckoos. It seems very
strange that they should not recognise and get rid
of the intrusive eggs and young birds, neither of
which at all closely resemble the proper inmates
of their nests, and it is even more remarkable

54 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

that the young koils should escape persecution on
leaving the nests in which they have been reared.
Mature birds are at once, attacked and bullied,
and one would certainly have expected to find
young ones, after they have left the nests of their
involuntary foster-parents, subject to like treat-
ment from the general body of crows. But they
are not; and one may see them for a long time
going about quite at their ease and wholly un-
molested in an environment swarming with crows.
Their immunity is certainly not to be accounted
for by the appearance of their plumage, for, by the
time that they are ready to leave the nest, they
are fully dressed in speckled grey suits so closely
resembling those of mature females of their own
species that, when I first observed the phenomenon,
I was filled with astonishment at what at first
sight seemed to be an exceptional instance of an
unmolested hen-bird. It is, however, possible that
for some time their coats retain enough smell of
crows to protect them from assault.

However loose their morals may be in some
respects, crows seem to be very faithful in their
sexual relations. At all times of year affectionate
couples may be seen going about in company, or
sitting sociably side by side during the heat of the
day, conversing in low tones and carefully attend-
ing to each other's toilet. Under such circum-
stances they are apt to be morose to outsiders,

CROWS 55

driving them off contumeliously should they attempt
to intrude on their privacy. They are also very
affectionate parents, and it is quite ludicrous to see
the way in which young birds, almost up to the
time that they are about to enter family life on
their own account, will every now and then affect
to be fledglings, cowering down in front of their
parents with fluttering wings and gaping beaks,
and successfully persuading them that they ought
to be fed. It is not easy to imagine what their
moral code can be, but they certainly seem to have
one, any transgression of which meets with general
reprobation, and sometimes with condign punish-
ment, during the course of which the sinner is
fallen upon, hustled, knocked down, and generally
maltreated by an indignant and vociferous mob.
The punishment in such cases, moreover, is not
the result of any precipitate impulse, or the mere
sequel to a fray, for it is usually only carried out
after prolonged and serious discussion of the matter.
They are always deeply affected by the sight of a
dead relative, collecting in crowds to gaze at the
corpse and discuss the sad event, and becoming
wildly excited over any human interference with
the remains. A crowd of crows is as easily
assembled as one of human beings, and often on
quite as futile grounds. Only let one or two
crows settle down together and begin to clamour,
and forthwith the air is blackened by troops of

56 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

them streaming in in order to find out what is up.
The emergence of a flight of white ants is certain
to assemble all the crows of the neighbourhood,
and the event can be detected at a considerable
distance by the throngs of crows, kites, and bats
that attend it. The crows for the time being
assume a habit of flight like that of insectivorous
birds, fluttering and wheeling about in the air, like
bee-eaters, as they drift to and fro through the
ascending swarm and pick up insects with their
beaks.

As a rule, crows do not quarrel much among
themselves; indeed, they are usually so fully occu-
pied in attending to the affairs of other animals
as to have little time for this. Now and then,
however, tiffs do take place, and, in the course of
one of these, I have seen one of the combatants
hold his adversary for a time dangling by the tail
and protesting wildly at the indignity of his treat-
ment. Disputes, again, are not uncommon during
the nesting season, as there are always some
depraved couples who prefer stealing materials from
their neighbours' edifices to taking the trouble of
collecting them for themselves. Crows are so wary
and suspicious that merely to look at them from a
distance through a field-glass is enough to make
a party of them disperse as soon as they become
aware that they are being watched. At the same
time, however, they are so impudent as to crowd

CROWS 57

about one whenever there is any food in evidence.
Even when they are habitually fed they very rarely
show any signs of real tameness or gratitude, but,
like common sparrows, take their benefactions as
though they were stealing, and had a profound
contempt for the donor as an easy victim to their
predatory craft. At one time I used to feed a
great troop of them every morning and evening;
but, although they so fully identified me as a
source of supply that they never assembled for
their daily dole whilst I was absent from Calcutta,
and immediately resumed attendance on my return,
only two out of the whole throng ever ventured to
take anything directly from my hands. They were
very proud of themselves for doing so, and used
to alight close to me, one on either side on the
top of the railings of a flight of steps leading down
from the verandah to a long terrace-roof a little
below. There they would wait in dignified com-
posure, never condescending to join the noisy
scuffling of their companions. As a reward for
their civilised behaviour they were usually treated to
a biscuit each, in place of the scraps of bread that
were thrown to the mob, and used to wait quite
composedly whilst their friends were struggling for
the inferior diet, in full confidence that their turn
would arrive with the end of the vulgar entertain-
ment. So fully persuaded were they that they
would eventually be treated with distinction that

58 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

pieces of bread handed to them were thrown away
as beneath their notice. It was hard to resist the
temptation of occasionally teasing them by affect-
ing an intention of defrauding them of their special
tribute. If the biscuits were in evidence from the
outset of the entertainment, their minds were at
rest; but if kept hidden, it was amusing to note
the anxiety that gradually set in as the distribution
went on, and the growing doubt as to the wisdom
of rejecting actual bread in favour of hypothetical
biscuit (Plate III. 1).

The great variety in the notes that crows are
masters of seems to come very near to definite
language ; it is more especially difficult not to
credit them with articulate talk when one comes
across a pair of them sitting for a long time side
by side, conversing gently in low tones, and wholly
absorbed in an exchange of sentiments. Crows are
really very handsome birds, and it is a pleasure to
see two of them together on the mid-rib of a
curving coco-nut leaf, and to note their untiring
and restless curiosity that rarely flags for a moment
save during the hottest part of an oppressive
summer's day. Their heads are never at rest, but
are ceaselessly jerking from side to side. Their
ear-coverts are constantly elevated, and their crests
every now and then are raised with an air of
critical attention. The metallic scale-like feathers
on the throat are beautiful, and are frequently

CROWS 59

erected owing to the curious way in which the
upper part of the surface to which they are attached
is puffed out. The plumage generally seems to
be very easily wetted ; and, at times when that of
other birds looks quite normal, becomes so soaked
and matted as to show numerous whitish streaks
and lines where the pallid down beneath the large
feathers is exposed. In consequence of this, crows
detest continuously wet weather, and are more
subdued under its influence than at other times,
sitting perfect images of hopeless misery in the
most sheltered sites they can find, and hardly
caring even to converse whilst things are at the
worst. Their discomfort naturally reaches a climax
when violent wind accompanies the rain. During
the course of the only severe cyclone that visited
Calcutta in my time, there was an enormous
mortality among the crows, and for some days all
the roads and open spaces were strewed with dead
and crippled birds. Whilst the storm was at its
worst all the crows who could manage to do so
took refuge at the lee-side of walls, where they lay
flat on the ground, beaten upon by the pitiless and
pelting rain. One does not ordinarily sympathise
with crows, but under these circumstances one
could hardly fail to do so. Even during the brief
but violent storms that form such a characteristic
feature of the hot weather in Calcutta, large
numbers of crows often come to grief from being

60 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

dashed against buildings by the force of the wind,
and the havoc among nests and nestlings is very
great.

The only other kind of crow that occurs about
Calcutta is the great Indian corbie, Corvus culmin-
atus.1 He is strangely unlike his smaller relative
in all his ways, being a solemn, serious- minded
bird, quite devoid of levity, and intent on his own
material interests in place of always keeping one
eye open for chances of wanton mischief and idle
amusement. This does not, however, render him
a desirable neighbour, for he is always ready to
attack any weak or injured animal with his cruel
pickaxe of a bill. But his assaults are conducted
on strictly utilitarian principles, and do not spring
from any aesthetic sense of the beauty of being a
nuisance ; they mean business, and it is the desire
of food, and not any sense of humour, that prompts
them. Corbies are not nearly so common as crows,
and are never found in large flocks, but only in
pairs or, at utmost, in small parties that never
venture far into the town, but haunt the out-
lying areas and the suburbs. Wherever the body
of a dead animal of any considerable size may
chance to lie exposed, one or more corbies are almost
sure to be in attendance, along with common crows

1 Corvus culminatus of Jerdon is C. macrorhyncus of the "Fauna of
British India " ; it is a bird considerably larger than C. splendens, and
nearly of the size of a rook.

Indian Crows and Corbies (pp. 58 and 62).

[To face p. 60.

CROWS 61

and vultures ; and any stray corpses that may float
down the river usually carry them as passengers.
Human corpses are, fortunately not nearly so often
to be seen in the Hugli as they used formerly
to be; but, when one does come drifting along, it
generally conveys one or two of these black ghouls,
excavating in it with their great beaks and now and
then cawing aloud with sombre satisfaction.

Their ordinary call is very distinct from that of
the crows, being a high-pitched, prolonged " Keeah,"
in place of a short querulous caw, but they have an-
other strangely grunting note oddly like the sound
uttered by buffaloes. The common call is very
characteristic, and at once announces the presence
of one or two corbies even when the air is ringing
with the cries of hosts of common crows. They
never build in colonies, like those of the crows, but
isolated nests are to be met with in trees in the
outskirts of Calcutta at the same time of year that
their relatives are building. The eggs bear a close
resemblance to those of the crow, but are of con-
siderably larger size. During winter, like many
other animals, they rejoice in the rise in temperature
that takes place when the sun gets up in the
morning, and in order to get the benefit of it as
early and as fully as possible, they usually take up
positions on the summits of lofty trees when the
light is growing. There they sit on exposed
branches, sunning and warming themselves and

62 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

calling aloud at intervals. In such circumstances
they generally say alternately, " Kah, kah, kah," and
" Keeah, keeah, keeah, kok," but sometimes the
last syllable of the second phrase is omitted. At
the same time, they perform a series of strange
gesticulations, depressing their heads, stretching
out and fluttering their wings, and extending their
necks to the utmost. As the sun gets higher their
talk is often interrupted by the need of dressing
their feathers, and a little later they take flight for
the day. When they have hit upon a good site
for this morning ceremony they return to it day
after day with wonderful regularity, and seem to
resent any intrusion upon it very highly. A party
of them used to frequent the tops of some of the
tall casuarinas near the superintendent's house in
the Botanic Garden at Shibpur, and one morning
when they arrived, one bird found his usual perch
occupied by a kite. In his indignation he first tried
to dislodge the intruder by a torrent of outcries,
and then, as this failed to produce any result, laid
a firm hold with his beak on the tip of the long
slender bough on which the kite was seated, and,
closing his wings, hung down, swinging in mid-air,
and bending the branch so abruptly that the kite,
in order to avoid being thrown off it, was fain to
take wing and leave the coveted perch to its right-
ful owner (Plate III.).

VI

CUCKOOS

"Sure he's arrived,

The tell-tale cuckoo ; spring's his confidant,
And he lets out her April purposes."

— Pippa passes.

"The merry cuckoo, messenger of spring,
His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded."

—SPENSER.

ONE can hardly imagine an Indian garden without
a large population of cuckoos — without the ringing
notes of ko'ils, the crescendoes of " brain-fever birds "
and the hootings of " crow-pheasants," not to speak
of the shrill pipings of the pied Coccystes and the
melodious voices of plaintive and common cuckoos.
The koi'l l is the best known and most widely diffused
of all the commoner species, and the only one that
habitually ventures far into the interior of towns ;
for wherever crows elect to build, one may be sure
that ko'ils will accompany them in order to make
use of their nests. Sir Edwin Arnold writes of
their " nest-notes rich and clear " ; but whilst this

1 The koil, Eudyna/mis honor ata, is a good deal larger than a common
cuckoo, but the uniform and intense black colour of the male birds seems
in some degree to act as a visual diminutive.

64 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

description of the notes may be accepted as fairly
correct as regards their sound, it is likely to give rise
to some confusion as to the nests. They certainly
are not the property of the ko'il, as neither he nor
his wife either know or care to know how to build
one. All honour, however, is due to birds that can
successfully cuckold the Indian crows, and, whilst
other cuckoos are content to impose upon birds of
relatively feeble physical power and intellect, pit
themselves against such really formidable antagonists.
Even the physical and mental advantages that the
crows possess afford insufficient protection, and,
indeed, it is questionable whether the very elabora-
tion of intellect that renders them so exceptionally
suspicious does not, in this instance, make for their
undoing. The order of events is this : when every-
thing is ready and a desirable nest has been chosen,
the cock-koil, conspicuous in his shining black
plumage and crimson eyes, seats himself on a
prominent perch, whilst the hen, in modest
speckled grey garb lurks hidden among dense
masses of neighbouring foliage. He then lifts up
his voice and shouts aloud, his voice becoming
more and more insistent with every repetition of
his call, and very soon attracting the attention of
the owners of the nest, who rush out to the attack
and chase him away. Now comes the chance for
his wife, who forthwith nips in to deposit her egg.
Very often she does this successfully before the

CUCKOOS 65

crows have returned, but every now and then she
is caught in the act and driven off like her husband,
uttering volleys of shrill outcries.

The extreme differences between the plumage
of the cock and that of the hen in this case leave
no room for doubt as to the part that each sex
plays in accomplishing their felonious purpose ;
that of the male being clearly to distract attention
by his conspicuous appearance and imperative out-
cry, and that of the female to utilise her sober
colouring as a means of lying hidden until she sees
a favourable chance for invading the coveted nest.
They certainly serve to show very clearly how
efficiently the insistent cry of the male makes for
the successful conduct of the nefarious schemes of
his wife. Had such differences in sexual plumage
been normal to cuckoos as a group, no debate could
ever have arisen as to the limitation of the charac-
teristic call to the male sex. But it can hardly be
supposed that they have arisen in this case merely
in order to afford a clue for the solution of an
ornithological problem, and, hence, some other and
more satisfactory explanation of their origin must
be looked for. It may possibly be found in the
exceptional difficulties that the species has to
encounter in successfully foisting off its eggs upon
foster-parents of great strength and high intellectual
endowment. Crows are not only formidable
enemies when provoked, but are also exceptionally

66 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

clever and wary. Hence the possession by the
male cuckoo of an insistent and distracting call is
not enough to give the female such a good chance
of doing her part, as it will where she has to deal
with birds of lower mental and physical power ; and
it has accordingly been reinforced by the evolution
of differences in plumage, serving to render the
one sex very conspicuous and the other protectively
obscure. The shining black plumage and bright
red eyes of the male koil are specially adapted to
attract attention in the sites he chooses to call
from, while the subdued greenish-grey tints and
white spots and bars of the feathering of the female
serve to make her almost invisible among the
broken lights and shades of the coverts in which
she lurks when awaiting a chance for depositing
her eggs.

The male koil has three very distinct calls ;
the first — "the nest-note" — is the well-known one
from which the species derives its common name ;
the second is entirely different, and is constantly
uttered at dawn; and the third, which is common
to both sexes, consists of a torrent of ear-splitting
shrieks indicative of alarm. The name-call is
constantly to be heard during the earlier part of
the year, and specially from the end of January until
far on into the hot weather; or, in other words,
during the whole of the nesting-time of the crows,
but at other times it is almost entirely replaced by

CUCKOOS 67

the two other cries. During the time that it
prevails it is for ever ringing through the air, so
that in the neighbourhood of Calcutta it is the
ko'il, far more than the hawk- cuckoo, that merits
the name of the " hot-weather-bird." To what
extent it is voluntarily purposive — how far the
bird realises its utility in attracting crows — remains
uncertain ; but to some extent, at all events, it is
evidently purely reflex in origin, as on moonlit
nights, and even sometimes on very clear nights
devoid of moonshine, it may be heard ringing out
at intervals all through the night. The second
cry is one of the trials of the dawn, and must have
been the cause of much cursing in houses sur-
rounded by trees supplying abundant food to
frugivorous birds. It consists of an outrageous
torrent of shouts, sounding "kuk kuu, ktiu, kuu,
kuu, kuu," repeated at brief intervals in tones loud
enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers, and most
exasperating from its occurrence just at the time,
when after a hot night, rendered ghastly by oppres-
sive air and sluggish pankhawalas, a certain degree
of coolness sets in to give some chance of a little
refreshing sleep. The third cry is a mere cataract
of shrill shrieks — " heekaree karees " — like those of
Angelica in The Rose and the Ring, when she
heard that Bulbo was about to be executed — uttered
under stress of alarm and often to be heard during
the course of the laying season on occasions when

68 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

either a male or a female koil is fleeing before the
just wrath of infuriated crows. It is apparently
the only loud call that the females are able to
produce, and in their case is not invariably an index
to alarm, for I have heard a caged hen utter it
in response to the normal dawn-cry of a male, and
when she was quite free from any cause for anxiety.
Whilst uttering the name- cry the male ko'il sits
well down in a slouching attitude, characteristically
cuculine, throws up his head, opens his beak widely,
puffs out his throat, and dispreads the feathers of
his tail.

The number of koils haunting any particular
garden is mainly determined by the nature of the
trees that it contains and the number of crows nest-
ing in them. Their diet consists mainly of fruits and
buds, and though their taste is very catholic, there are
certain trees affording supplies that they specially
esteem. Among fruits that appear to be most
popular are those of the wild date-palm, Phoenix syl-
vestris ; the berries of various species of Livistona ;
the receptacles of the common banyan, of Ficus nitida
and F. comosa ; and the red-coated seeds of Amoora
rohituka ; and wherever a number of such trees are
present koils are sure to be in attendance when the
fruits are ripening. I cannot forget the consequences
attending an abundant crop of fruit on some
Livistonas which had been allowed to grow up
immediately below a verandah in which I used to

CUCKOOS 69

spend my nights, and how morning after morning
I was aroused by the hubbub of shouts that
issued from the trees. Getting up in order to drive
the birds off only served to wake one more
effectually, and at best put a stop to the din for a
few minutes, so that, until the trees were cut down,
each successive day was ushered in by a state of
nervous irritation during the whole of the time when
the fruit was maturing.

The nature of their diet makes it very easy to
keep them in good health as cage-birds, but, as a rule,
they are very uninteresting pets. They are extremely
voracious and greedy ; so much so that they will feed
from the hand almost immediately after being caught,
but they are equally stupid, and, owing to the way
in which they smear their feathers during their eager
attacks on pulpy fruits, they are by no means so
ornamental as they ought to be, and as they are
whilst at liberty. Now and then an individual bird
may be met with who does show some signs of in-
telligence, and even of somewhat interested affection.
At a time when I had two very tame hen koils, the
man in charge of the aviary in which they were
confined managed to let one of them escape. She
flew off at once into the garden, which was a very
large and abundantly wooded one, and for some days
nothing more was seen of her. One morning,
however, whilst I was going down one of the paths,
she suddenly flew down from a neighbouring tree,

70 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

and, lighting on a shrub close to me, showed evident
signs of a desire to attract my attention. I forthwith
returned to the house and, having secured a plantain
from the breakfast-table, went out into the verandah
and showed it to her. Almost at once she flew over
towards me and lighted on one of the cane blinds
of the verandah, and as I retired inwards, first
followed me and then lighted on one of my hands
and began to feed eagerly on the fruit, so that I was
able to carry her quietly to the aviary and pass her
in through the door. As a rule they are very
peaceable birds, but I have seen one suddenly fly
down from a tree to commit a quite gratuitous
assault on a bulbul who was quietly busy over its own
affairs in a flower-bed below. They are light sleepers,
often waking up to call aloud at any hour of a
brightly moonlit night. As has been already men-
tioned, they constantly begin to shout at or even
before dawn, and they continue to call in the even-
ing far on into the gloaming, and long after the bats
are flickering about in the growing dusk. They have
a strange way of basking in the sunshine, with their
tail widely expanded, their wings drooping, and the
head thrown right over on to the back, so that the
crown of it rests between the shoulders, and the beak
is reversed and points obliquely downwards towards
the tail. The character of their flight varies greatly
at different times ; when they are quite at their ease
it is noisy, laborious, and flapping, like that of the

CUCKOOS 71

" crow-pheasant," but when alarmed, and especially
when pursued by infuriated crows, they can fly very
rapidly, although still in a fluttering fashion, and seem-
ing to drag their long tails after them with a certain
degree of effort.

Common hawk-cuckoos, Hierococcyx varius,1 do
not seem to abound so much in the neighbourhood of
Calcutta as they do in many other parts of India, and
the numbers that are present vary very considerably
from year to year. There is hardly any season at
which their characteristic notes may not occasionally
be heard ; but, as a rule, it is during the rainy months
that they are most frequent, so that the designation
"hot-weather-bird," that is often applied to the
species in other parts of the country, is hardly
applicable to it in Calcutta, where, if any birds
deserve the name, it is either the ko'il or the common
small barbet. They have two very distinct calls.
The first of these, and that from which their common
name of " brain-fever-bird " is derived, corresponds
in function with the " nest-note " of the ko'ils, and
consists of a highly pitched, trisyllabic cry, repeated
many times in ascending semitones until one begins
to think, as one sometimes does when a Buddhist is
repeating his ordinary formula of prayer, that the
performer must surely burst. The other either begins
with one or two of the trisyllabic utterances, and then
passes on into a volley of single descending notes, or

1 They are a little larger than the common European cuckoo.

72 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

sometimes consists of the latter alone. The name-
call is not so closely associated with any special
season — is not so definitely a nest-note as that of the
ko'il is, but from its insistent character it is probable
that its primary purpose is that of distracting atten-
tion, even though the incidence of the two cries seems
to be greatly influenced by meteorological conditions.
During periods of continuous dry weather the name-
call alone is to be heard, whilst the other becomes
more and more audible when damp air and frequent
showers prevail, until during the height of a normal
rainy season it alone occurs. No matter how fine and
settled the weather may seem to be, should the
second kind of call be heard of a morning, it is almost
safe to venture to predict that rain will fall during
the course of the day. Owing to this association of
the cry with the occurrence of rain, no observant
resident of Calcutta is inclined to connect the idea of
the bird with that of extreme heat ; and, in place of
resenting the occurrence of the sound, one comes to
welcome it as the harbinger of grateful moisture and
relative coolness.

They are very pretty birds; the soft greyish
brown and white of their feathering contrasts
pleasantly with the brilliant yellow of their eyes and
legs, and the general effect of the colouring is
strangely hawk-like. So much so is this the case
that whilst they are on the wing it is often very
difficult to distinguish them from shikras, Astur

CUCKOOS 73

Radius, and one often finds oneself looking at a bird
that one thinks is a hawk until it alights and suddenly
assumes a cuculine pose. The likeness is so striking
as to be a positive evil to ihem ; it renders them
liable to be mobbed and hunted by troops of small
birds, who pursue them, not from any disapproval of
their immoral designs on nests, but because they have
mistaken their nature, and (as Linnseus, according to
Gilbert White, did in respect to the common cuckoo)
regard them as birds of prey. When once they have
alighted no such mistake is possible, as they forthwith
sit down in a limply slouching attitude, with their
wings dropping forward so as to touch their perch,
and the tail slightly raised and expanded, altogether
presenting an aspect very unlike the compact and
alert look of a hawk. They have all the furtive,
peering ways of common cuckoos, constantly jerking
themselves from side to side as koils do, and at the
same time puffing out their throats frequently in a
strange way. Whilst at rest, almost the only hawk-
like habit that they show is that of very often
moving their tails about from side to side. They
rarely come to the ground, but now and then one of
them will venture to do so, and alights on a patch of
grass containing store of particularly alluring insects.
They are very wakeful birds ; on brightly moonlit
nights they are constantly to be heard from time to
time ; and, even when there is no moonshine, it is not
uncommon to hear them calling, their notes acquir-

74 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

ing an almost startling accentuation as they ring out
into the darkness. As they usually lay in the nests of
the common babblers the frequency with which they
are to be met with in any particular garden is to
some extent determined by the number of the latter
birds who are in the way of building in it.

The only other cuckoos that are permanent
residents of gardens in Calcutta are the common
" crow-," or " griffs-pheasants," Centropus sinensis,1
who, although not very often seen, constantly
announce their presence by deep-toned hootings
that resound from the thickets and shrubberies in
the mornings and evenings. It is strange that such
large and conspicuously marked birds should be so
invisible as they are, but, owing to their extremely
wary, furtive habits, and the way in which their tints
match those of the dead leaves of the dense coverts
in which they usually lurk, it is only at times of
year when the foliage is unusually thin that they can
often be detected. When they do happen to be
seen they certainly present nothing to suggest to
the uninitiated that they really are cuckoos, so much
so that even within my own experience two instances,
justifying their vulgar name of "griffs-pheasants,"
have occurred. In one of these a friend of mine
came to me one morning in much excitement to
announce that he had seen a pheasant walking on
the lawn ; and in the second a young fellow, who

, l They are considerably larger than koiils.

CUCKOOS 75

had recently arrived in the country, complained with
good reason of the evil flavour of a "pheasant" that
one of his chums had shot near a native village, and
had, much to the astonishment of the servants,
brought home to be cooked and partaken of as a
game-bird. " Crow-pheasants" differ from the
majority of their relatives, not merely physically, but
also morally, as they are not above building for
themselves, but construct nests, consisting of great
hollow masses of sticks, and lay their eggs in them.
The sites that they choose are usually thickets so
dense and impenetrable that, even when one is sure
of the presence of a nest, it is very difficult to detect
it. A pair of them once built in a great tangled
brake of Congea, quite close to my house, and were
constantly to be seen furtively conveying sticks and
rubbish into it, or heard hooting from its recesses ;
but although I often searched for the nest it was
always in vain, as in order to its discovery, it would
have been necessary to clear away so much of the
cover as to disfigure the plant permanently.

It is only by luck that a near view of them is
to be obtained, as they are so well aware of their
incapacity for sustained flight as very rarely to
venture out into the open at any considerable
distance from cover. They certainly could not do so
without running serious risks, as their flight is a
pathetically rudimentary performance, and it is to
their power of rapid running and walking and a

76 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

truly wonderful agility in creeping and climbing
about among the thickest jungle, that they trust as
a means of escape. They may, however, occasionally
be seen in the late evening or early morning,
sauntering in leisurely and meditative fashion over
an open piece of grass, but in these cases they are
always ready for a precipitate retreat to the nearest
cover on the slightest alarm, usually running to it
rapidly, and only attempting to fly in the presence
of very imminent danger. When on the wing
they alternately execute a series of laboured
flappings and short sails on widely- extended, short,
rounded pinions, sinking rapidly as they go, and
seeming to be hardly able to drag their great tails
along after them. They are, however, very orna-
mental objects during their progress when the sun-
light strikes on the rich russet and shining black
of their plumage. Only very rarely is one to be
seen on the wing unless under the influence of
sudden alarm, but I have seen one come flying low
across an open to light on a paling and pace along
it deliberately for some distance before descending
to the grass.

Crow-pheasants begin to cry shortly before dawn,
and are very noisy at a time when the crows are
just beginning to talk, and before the spotted owlets,
Athene brama, have begun their morning fits of
chattering. During the greater part of the day
they are dumb, but in the gloaming they once more

CUCKOOS 77

become vocal, and continue to call until it is almost
quite dark. The common call consists of a series
of deep hooting notes, beginning rapidly, and broken
by pauses that go on progressively increasing in
length. There is a perceptible difference in the
notes of the sexes ; that of the male being the
resonant hooting that usually attracts notice, and
that of the female not so strong and sounding " uk,
uk, uk, uk." A moist state of the atmosphere seems
to prompt them to cry, and in the early part of the
year, during which they are usually comparatively
silent, any heavy fall of rain rouses them up to call
loudly on the morning or evening after its occurrence.
The only condition that seems to be completely
repressive is exceptionally low temperature, but
during the continuance of this they become as silent
as the little " coppersmith " barbets are in like
circumstances. In addition to their ordinary calls
they are able to utter a variety of cries indicative
of alarm. When suddenly startled they sometimes
make off uttering notes like strangled sneezes. At
other times they replace these by a low, shrill cry,
and occasionally, when indignant at the invasion
of some particularly favourite covert, they give
vent to their outraged feelings by a series of
extraordinary " kurrings " and " guckings," not unlike
those that some goat-suckers occasionally utter, and
very alarming to dogs who may have intruded on
their privacy. Sometimes, too, they call very like

78 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

game-birds, walking about and repeating " Kok, kok,"
"kok, kok," very much as a kalij -pheasant often does.
Whilst uttering their common call they certainly do
not always raise their tails, as Jerdon affirms, but
usually keep them well down and jerking about
from side to side, at the same time depressing their
heads and inflating their throats, whilst the whole
body thrills with every successive hoot. When
about to call, they, like other cuckoos, squat down
in a hunched-up attitude, and when they have once
begun to cry they seem to have a great difficulty
in arresting the flow of the series of notes ; for, when
suddenly alarmed whilst calling and too much
afraid to go on hooting aloud, they often continue
the performance under their breath. When engaged
in courting, the male birds make a great show of
their plumage, erecting and spreading out their
great tails and extending and drooping their wings
before the females, who attentively and critically
survey the display. (Plate IV.)

All through the course of the hot weather, pied-
crested cuckoos, Coccystes jacobinus,1 may very often
be seen and heard. They are extremely pretty
birds, with bright black and white plumage, and
conspicuous crests, that make them look so like
great Otocompsas when they take up a position on a
prominent twig, that one can readily understand
why the Bengalis should regard them as "black

1 They are very nearly of the same size as the common European cuckoo.

CUCKOOS 79

bulbuls," and this although they are the chataks
so often mentioned in Hindi and Sanskrit literature.
They resemble koils and differ from "brain-fever-
birds," and " crow-pheasants," in their liking for
conspicuous positions whilst calling. They are
unlike most other cuckoos in frequently calling
whilst on the wing and not in any alarm or anxiety.
When at rest they droop their wings, just as most
of their relatives do, and usually remain quite silent,
but when on the wing they are constantly calling.
The cry is sometimes a highly pitched trisyllabic
one, " pee, pee, pee," and at others a prolonged series
of shrill notes, "pee pe, pee pe, pee pe, peep peep,
peep pe pe peep, peep pe pe peep, peep, peep."
Either of these calls is to be heard very often all
through the course of the dry hot months, but, as
the rainy season approaches, they become less
frequent, and when it is fairly established they cease
to be audible until the succeeding spring. The birds
rarely venture within the limits of the town, but
abound in all the bowery gardens of the suburbs,
flying about from tree to tree, calling loudly all day
long, and usually descending at dusk in order to
roost in the cover of dense shrubs. Like "brain-
fever-birds," they seem generally to lay in the nests
of common babblers. The latter quite recognise
them as undesirable neighbours, and are always
ready to assault them during the nesting season.
Whether they now and then make use of other nests

80 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

is uncertain, but there can be no question that many
kinds of birds regard them with great suspicion.
A pair of bulbuls who had nested in a shrub of
Diospyros in my garden would not hear of any
crested cuckoos roosting in it, and crows and mynas
may often be seen furiously pursuing them. The
lovely Goccystes coromandus l does not occur nearly
so frequently in the neighbourhood of Calcutta as
the previous species does, but isolated specimens make
their appearence at almost every time of year.
They are wonderfully beautiful birds, and have
extremely pretty ways. The rich chestnut and
black of their plumage gives them a certain likeness
to male Paradise-flycatchers in intermediate feather-
ing. When seen at a distance whilst at rest, they
may be mistaken for diminutive " crow-pheasants,"
but when on the wing their rapid flitting progress
serves at once to distinguish them. It is seemingly
unknown in what nests they lay in this region, but
during their visits they certainly must sometimes
want accommodation for eggs, as one that was caught
in the beginning of April deposited a curiously blunt
pale blue finely speckled egg almost immediately
after being caged.

The common Indian cuckoo, Cuculus micropterus,
although, owing to its constant preference for dense
cover, rarely seen, may very often be heard uttering
the peculiar call which is so accurately rendered by

1 It is a much larger bird than C. jacdbinus.

Crow-pheasants courting and calling (p. 78).

Red-winged Crested Cuckoo (p. 80).

[To face p.

CUCKOOS 81

the Bengali name for the bird, " Boukotaku." It
avoids the immediate neighbourhood of the town,
but abounds among the trees in the Botanic Garden
at Shibpur every hot weather. At rare intervals
during the same time of year the melodious notes
of the plaintive cuckoo, Cacomantis passerinus, are
audible for a day or two. Curiously enough, this
cuckoo, like the koil, ventures to visit gardens
well within urban limits.

Vll

BABBLERS AND BULBULS

" The nine brown sisters chattered in the thorn."

— The Light of Asia.
" The shrike chasing the bulbul."

— The Light of Asia.
" It were the bulbul ; but his throat,
Though mournful, pours not such a strain."

— The Bride of Abydos.

BABBLERS so often act as the foster-parents of
cuckoos that there is some excuse for dealing with
them next in order to their nurslings, in spite of
the fact that they have no structural affinity to
them. There are surely very few birds less attractive
on first acquaintance than common Bengal babblers,
Crateropus canorus,1 but the longer one knows them
the more one comes to appreciate their quaintly
diverting ways, and to realise that a garden devoid
of them would be wanting in a constant source of
entertainment. Fortunately they are to be met
with in all real gardens except those situated in
the very centre of large towns, and it is seldom
that the sound of their incessant and voluble con-

1 It is about the same size as a blackbird.

82

BABBLERS AND BULBULS 83

versation is absent for any length of time, unless it
be in periods of violently tempestuous weather, which
is very incommoding to birds of such lax plumage
and feeble flight. They are quite surprisingly ugly
and mean-looking ; something like debased thrushes,
with loose, dirt- coloured feathering, limply s waggling
tails, degraded heads, and a general air of low,
fussy curiosity ; but one cannot but respect the
social and affectionate nature that leads them to
go about so constantly in small companies. Except
during the nesting season they are always to be
found in small parties, usually of six or seven
individuals, from which circumstance they derive
their common Hindi name of sdt bhai, or seven
brothers. These groups, I am disposed to believe,
really consist of family parties representing excep-
tionally persistent examples of those which are
often to be seen in the case of other birds for some
time after the nesting season. In the case of the
common little barbets and in that of the tree-pies,
the young broods of each season go about with their
parents for some time after they are fully able to
provide for themselves, and it may well be that,
in the case of such foolish and feeble birds as
babblers, such family association may have been
of sufficient practical utility to have led to the
gradual evolution of an exceptional persistence of
the habit. The nucleus of any group of babblers,
according to this view, is to be regarded as repre-

84 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

senting a family, but now and then parties ot
twelve or fourteen individuals may be met with,
and in such cases a family group must have been
recruited from without, or two distinct families must
have fused with one another. More frequently
groups are seen in which the number of individual
birds falls below the normal standard, but this may
be readily accounted for as the result of casual
reduction owing to accidents taking place before the
onset of a new breeding season has intervened to
give rise to a general dispersion of the community.

During the greater part of the year every well-
conditioned garden is alive with parties of babblers,
who go rustling around everywhere among the dead
leaves in the shrubberies and keep up a ceaseless
gabble of conversation as they follow one another
about, turning over the fallen leaves and twigs, and
peering and prying beneath them for insects, snails,
and worms. Whilst busy among the leaves they
always have an air of dreading to find some terrify-
ing or gruesome object concealed among them, and
are constantly leaping into the air and starting
backwards as they toss the litter about and call
"peyh, peyh, peyh, peyh." They have no depressing
consciousness of their unsightly look, but seem to
be in the highest of spirits, and are constantly
running races and chasing one another about.

When a party of them is busy among an
accumulation of dead leaves or long withered grass,

BABBLERS AND BULBULS 85

the way in which individual birds are constantly
bobbing up and down, appearing and disappearing
abruptly as they flounce about, has a very comic
effect from a little distance, and it is often hard
to say whether the objects that suddenly leap into
the air are birds or withered leaves. Their flight
is a sad performance. When crossing narrow spaces
of open ground, they either run, or, after executing
an initial series of feeble flappings, sail onwards
with widely expanded wings, their pace flagging
and their line of flight sinking rapidly as they
advance towards their goal. Should they wish to
fly across any comparatively wide space, they can
only do so by climbing a tree at one side of it
to a height sufficient to allow for the rapid descent
that attends their flight. In such cases their mode
of advance is very like that of a flying squirrel,
who, starting from a point high up in one tree,
sails downwards in an oblique line towards the
base of the one that he wishes to reach. Their
feeble flight is made up for by their great activity
in running, and by the wonderful way in which
they can cling to almost vertical surfaces. When
in trees they race along the branches in Indian
file, often jumping over one another as they go,
and run up and down the stems, clinging to the
bark like creepers. The prehensile power of their
feet not only gives them great ease in climbing, but
is also of great use to them in grasping articles of

86 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

food that call for dissection. They are so singularly
inconspicuous in their plumage — so accurately
" dirt "-coloured — that, could they only make up
their minds to give up talking, they might readily
escape notice among the surroundings that they
specially haunt. But this they can by no means
do, and, save when temporarily hushed by the
excess of midday heat in summer, they ceaselessly
gabble from dawn to dusk. Even after they have
retired for the night and are roosting on a horizontal
branch in a closely huddled row, it is long before
they fairly settle down and low-toned drowsy talk
ceases.

They are by no means timid birds, and are
possessed by a spirit of curiosity that almost always
urges them to examine and discuss any strange
visitor who may enter their domain. Should a cat
or dog come strolling by, they hurry up to have a
look at it, coming quite close and low down in
the shrubs in their anxiety to get a good view
of it. Pure curiosity seems to determine their
behaviour in such cases, as they very rarely show
any signs of desiring to mob or annoy their visitors
except during the nesting season, when they become
very aggressive to hawks, king-crows, and cuckoos.
When suddenly alarmed they often flutter off,
uttering a series of shrill outcries very unlike their
common notes. During April and May they cease
to go about in parties, and pairs of them are every-

BABBLERS AND BULBULS 87

where busily occupied in nesting. The nests are
great untidy heaps of rubbish quite worthy of their
architects. They are usually placed at about
eighteen or twenty feet above the ground among the
boughs of small trees or tall shrubs, Lagerstrcemia
regia being seemingly esteemed as affording
especially desirable sites. The material of which
the nests are built is, in many cases, mainly com-
posed of the finer aerial roots of fig-trees, those of
Ficus retusa being particular favourites, owing to
their slender tufted nature ; and the structure is
usually so loose, that, in the absence of the birds, the
eggs and the blue of the sky above can often be
clearly seen through it from beneath, just as in the
case of the nests of some king-crows. When the
birds are sitting an obscurely barred grey tail may
be seen projecting over one side of the nest, and, if
one remain long enough, a cunning alarmed head
is soon thrust out over the other to gaze indignantly
at the intruder. Shortly after mid-summer, or in
Anglo-Indian language, early in the rains, nesting is
quite over and the usual family parties of birds are
to be seen everywhere in full force.

Bulbuls as a group are just as smart and well set-
up as babblers are debased and dowdy. Otocompsa
emeria, and Molpastes bengalensis (Plate V. 1, 2),
are constant inhabitants of the gardens of the
suburbs of Calcutta, and the latter birds may often
be seen and heard well within the limits of the town.

88 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

Both of them are truly delightful, the Otocompsas l
especially being so attractive that one feels quite
sorry for any one who is not familiar with their cheery
notes and dainty ways. The mere sound of their
call is enough to drive care away ; and the sight of
a pair of them coming leaping in through the air to
pitch lightly on the summit of a shrub ought in
itself to make for light-heartedness. It would be
hard indeed to imagine anything more delicately
gay than their plumage is, the rich brown of their
wings, the clear white of their under parts, and
the shining black of their high and pointed crests,
harmonising so well with one another, and being
accentuated by the spots of bright scarlet on the
sides of the head. They are so alluringly tame
and confiding in their favourite haunts, constantly
coming quite close to houses, entering verandahs,
and even nesting in plants in them or under
porticoes, that it seems strange that they should
hardly ever venture out of the suburbs to visit
gardens within the town, whilst their relatives, who
are by no means so familiar in the country, are
regular visitors of many urban enclosures. In
most suburban gardens Otocompsas are always
present, and if there be any caged birds, and
specially any caged birds of their own kind there,
they are constantly in and out of the verandahs in
order to visit them. It is curious that, whilst they

1 They are a little larger than the common red-backed shrike.

,22

BABBLERS AND BULBULS 89

are so common in most suburban gardens on the
south-east bank of the Hugli, they are very rarely
to be met with in the Botanic Garden on the
opposite one ; during the course of several years of
residence there, and in spite of keeping a constant
outlook for them, I hardly ever saw any specimens
of the species, and never came across a single nest.
Otocompsas almost always go about in pairs,
and when more than two are seen in company the
party usually consists of two parents and one or two
young birds who have left the nest not long before.
They seem to be very faithful and affectionate
birds, and it is pretty to note how, when one of a
pair has found some specially delightful fruiting
shrub, it will spread out its tail, flutter its little
wings and call aloud with cheerful notes of summons
to its mate to come and share the feast. They
build from the latter part of February until well on
in June, and always place their nests so low down,
as to make it very easy to study all the details of
building and hatching. It is not, however, always
easy to mark down the exact position of the nests
owing to the crafty way in which they are hidden
away among dense masses of foliage, and to the
elaborate precautions that the .owners take in
approaching them. The precautions are indeed
sometimes overdone, and, in place of securing
the end in view, only serve to attract attention.
A pair of Otocompsas once built in the midst of a

90 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

tangled mass of Banisteria close to one corner of
my house, and had they gone straight in and out of
the cover, the presence of the nest might veiy well
have escaped notice. Instead of doing so, however,
on coming in they went through a regular series of
elaborate manoeuvres that could hardly fail to excite
suspicion. As each bird arrived with a fresh store of
building materials, it pitched first on a tangle of
Petrcea on the near side of the path, hopped about
for a time there in an ostentatiously degage fashion,
then passed on to a neighbouring pot-plant, and
from this crossed over to the Banisteria and
disappeared beneath the foliage at a point close
to which the nest lay.

Whilst a pair is occupied in building, both birds
always come in and go out together. When they
come in with new materials one of them waits
patiently on a neighbouring twig whilst its partner
works its burthen into the nest, then they exchange
places and duties, and finally fly off to collect a
new store, calling out jubilantly to one another as
they go. There are very few birds who seem to
enjoy life more thoroughly than they do, and, even
when hardest at work building or feeding their
chicks, they always seem to be in the highest spirits.
When the nest has been finished three lovely little
eggs, thickly sprinkled with red and purple specks
on a delicate pink ground, are laid at intervals of
twenty-four hours. Incubation lasts for thirteen

BABBLERS AND BULBULS 91

days, and the young birds are so quickly developed
as to be able to leave the nest a week after they
are hatched. They remain, however, for a time
in its immediate neighbourhood, sedulously attended
by their proud parents, who in their anxiety utter
peculiar high-pitched notes, very unlike their
common jubilant cries of " did you, did you, do it."
It is not uncommon for only two of the three eggs
to hatch out, and in such cases the third one, after
having been given a fair chance of showing its
intentions, is ejected from the nest. The nests are
usually placed in shrubs in the open, but now and
then are to be met with in creepers trained on walls,
or in dense pot-plants, such as Panax or crowded ferns.
The other common bulbuls, Molpastes bengalensis,1
are coarser, commoner-looking birds than Otocompsas,
but have many of their alluring ways ; and their
plumage, when looked at closely, shows very special
beauty in the delicate edges of grey and white
that border many of the feathers. Like several of
their relatives, they are great favourites as pets with
the natives of India, one of their special attractions
being their ready pugnacity. One often meets a
man going out for a morning or evening stroll,
carrying a bulbul on the top of a little crutched
stick, and, in the case of people of wealth, the
perch is often composed of valuable materials, such
as jade or one of the precious metals. Like

1 It is a little larger than 0. emeria.

92 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

Otocompsas. common bulbuls usually go about in
pairs, who come leaping along through the air, and,
as they alight, call aloud cheerfully, " hickory dickory
dock." They are not at such pains to hide their
nests as Otocompsas are, and are very catholic
in their choice of sites, sometimes taking one quite
near the ground in a shrub, and at others preferring
a place high aloft in some great tree. They have
a great liking for spider-web as a means of imparting
cohesion to their otherwise rather loosely built nests,
and, where the needles of Casuarinas abound, nests
are often almost entirely composed of them bound
together by strands of web. In consequence of
this, during the nesting season any trees containing
spiders' webs, and especially the great, globular
edifices of social spiders, are constantly visited and
plundered. Although they are ordinarily very tame
and familiar, they have a strong objection to being
watched whilst building, and the only means of
successfully following the details of the process is
to remain at some distance from the site of their
labours and make use of a good field-glass. They
resent any close approach to their nests by torrents
of chattering outcries that are strangely like those
uttered by the common brown shrikes every morning
and evening. The young birds, for some time after
they leave the nest, can be readily distinguished
from mature ones by the rusty tint of their plumage,
and by their foolish, fussy way of getting up

BABBLERS AND BULBULS 93

excitements over dead leaves and other useless and
harmless objects. Their diet is a very varied one;
fruits and buds seem to form their staple food, but
many different sorts of insects are regarded with
favour. During the nesting season especially, they
may often be seen hunting about over the belts of
grass and water-weeds around the edges of ponds,
hovering above them and making sudden descents
in order to pick off the dragon-flies' eggs adhering
to the stalks and leaves. Among the fruits that
they have a great liking for are those of various
gourds, particularly one with beautiful, bright red
pulpy fruits. Like Otocompsas, they seem always
to be in a state of entire content with themselves
and their surroundings. You may often see them
make curious little flights, fluttering outwards from
their perches, and then sailing round again to them
in a way that at first sight suggests the pursuit of
some flying insect, but which in reality is merely
the expression of exuberant nervous energy that
is worked off by active exercise and the utterance
of pleasant little songs.

A very different kind of bulbul that is now and
then to be seen in gardens near Calcutta is the lovely
green one, Phyllornis aurifrons.1 It is certainly
seldom noticed, but this by no means implies that
it is very rare, as birds of such quiet habit and

1 This bird is now known under the name of Cliloropsis aurifrons; it is
of the same size as Otocompsa emeria.

94 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

singularly protective colouring may well fail to
attract attention even where they are relatively
common. Whilst at liberty they are very tame,
doubtless owing to confidence correlated to their
colouring, which renders them almost invisible
among masses of green foliage. In captivity they
are characterised by their greed and by the readiness
with which they become used to cage-life. Almost
at once after being caught they are willing to take
any specially attractive food, such as ripe plantains,
out of their captor's hand. When feeding on such
pulpy fruits they behave very differently from
Otocompsa or Molpastes ; for, in place of breaking
off small pieces and at once swallowing them, as
the latter birds do, they detach large masses and
keep them for some time in the mouth, working
their mandibles about and gradually sucking down
the softened material. They are particularly fond of
the ripening heads of inflorescence of the Kadam-
tree, Nauclea Kadumba, and allow themselves to
be very closely approached whilst busy over them.
Like other kinds of green bulbuls, they are highly
decorative objects as inmates of an aviary, and
are easily kept in good condition, so long as care
is occasionally taken to remove the curious, horny
epidermal sheaths that are apt gradually to form
over the surface of their tongues, and to interfere
with their power of sucking and swallowing their
food.

VIII

DOVES AND PIGEONS

"Who could tell

The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edged round with dark tree-tops, through which a dove
Would often beat its wings." —KEATS.

" The palace that to Heaven his pillars threw,
And kings the forehead on his threshold drew
1 saw the solitary ring-dove there,
And 'Coo, coo, coo/ she cried, and 'Coo, coo, coo.'"

— Persian quatrain at Persepolis.
Quoted by ED. FITZGERALD from BINNING.

SEVERAL kinds of doves and pigeons haunt the
gardens in and around Calcutta. Even in the
smallest garden-closes in the very centre of the
town, so long as they afford a little grass and
a few trees and shrubs, common spotted doves,
Turtur suratensis, are always to be met with,
calling, quarrelling, and building all through the
course of the year. In the well-wooded enclosures
of the outskirts and suburbs they are accompanied by
two species of green pigeons, the hariydl, Crocopus
ph&nicopterus, and the chhota hariydl, Osmotreron

95

96 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

bicincta, together with the surprisingly beautiful
ground -dove, Calcophaps indica. The common
ring-doves, Turtur risorius, and the small brown
doves, T. cambayensis, who are such characteristic
inmates of the gardens of Upper India, are not to be
met with near Calcutta ; indeed, the area is already
so fully occupied by spotted doves, that they would
find it no easy matter to obtain a footing in it
among such aggressive and ill-tempered neighbours.
The geographical distribution of the spotted and
the brown doves presents some noteworthy points.
In a journey by rail from Calcutta to the Punjab
it is curious to observe the abruptness with which
the former species is replaced by the latter near
Moghal Sarai, in the lower part of the North- West
Provinces; and how, from this point onwards to
Lahore, the only locality in which spotted doves
abound seems to be the Botanic Garden at Sahar-
anpur, in which they are present in large numbers
and to the apparent exclusion of the brown species.
Even without seeing the birds, the boundaries of
areas occupied by either species are at once declared
by the great differences in their common calls, for
whilst the brown dove ordinarily cries, " Ku ku ku,
kii ku kii ku ku ku, kti ku kti," the spotted one
says, Kuk ku ku ku," or " Kruu km km kru kru."
Spotted doves, like most of their relatives, are
perfect whited sepulchres of "envy, hatred, and
malice," and are continually squabbling and fight-

DOVES AND PIGEONS 97

ing with one another and with other birds. How
any kind of dove should ever have come to be
regarded as " harmless " must remain an insoluble
problem, for even a very casual observation of their
manners and customs is enough to show that their
meek and peaceable air is an arrant fraud, veiling
selfishness and ill-temper of the deepest dye. A
fairly wide experience of the ways of many distinct
kinds of pigeons and doves has taught me to be
very cautious in confining more than a single pair
of any species within a limited space. No matter
of what kind they may be; all alike — Gouras,
Nicobar-pigeons, fruit-pigeons, turtle- and ground-
doves — are exceptionally irascible and malignant.
The great Gouras are just as ill-natured as any of
their smaller relatives, and are always ready to
annoy and bully any birds that they may come
in contact with, running sidelong up to them and
striking viciously with their raised wings. It was a
pleasant sight to see a Goura, who had just been bully-
ing an unoffending Polyplectron have the conceit
knocked out of him when he proceeded to try on
the same game with a newly imported English
pheasant. He had hardly had time to get his wings
well up ere his intended victim ran in under his
guard and gave him such a healthy dab in the side,
that he was fain to collapse and flee for refuge to
a perch on a neighbouring branch. Nicobar-pigeons
are also very bad neighbours, but their malignity

G

98 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

pales before that of the beautiful green and bronze-
ground-doves. The latter are really quite fiendish
in their ferocity ; and occasionally, not content
with plucking out all the feathers from the necks
of their enemies, actually lay bare the bones of the
spinal column below. Fruit-pigeons appear to be
somewhat better tempered, but this is probably to
be ascribed to their excessive greed, for they are
usually so fully gorged as to be indisposed for any
active exertion.

During their nesting-times spotted doves become
perfect little furies,1 and are always on the war-
path, assaulting and driving off any birds who
may approach their domiciles. No matter how
formidable the intruders may be, the energy with
which they are attacked generally puts them to
immediate flight. Not without good cause, tree-
pies are the objects of their acute dislike, and are
constantly exposed to quite unprovoked assaults
even when there is no nest in question. Spotted
doves, when fighting, strike violently with their
wings, and also pluck out large mouthfuls of feathers
from their enemies' bodies. Under climatic con-
ditions such as those of Calcutta there is no time
of year in which they do not build, but a larger
number of nests are usually to be met with during
the latter part of the cold weather and throughout
the succeeding hot and dry months than at other

1 They are a little larger than common turtle-doves,

DOVES AND PIGEONS 99

seasons. Like those of other doves, their nests are
such foolish little platforms of twigs loosely laid
together, that the wonder is that the eggs can
escape rolling over the sides of them. Rudimentary
though they seem, they are at any rate a step in
advance of the nests constructed by Nicobar-
pigeons in captivity, which are so hopelessly futile
that accidents constantly occur to the eggs and
young birds. They are usually placed in shrubs
or small trees at no great height from the ground,
and are seldom, if ever, built on the inner cornices
of verandahs as those of the common ring-dove of
Upper India often are.

In the morning and evening spotted doves very
often make short, almost vertical ascents into the
air, rushing upwards on " loud-clapping " wings, and
then sailing downwards on a gentle incline with
widely expanded wings and tail. Such flights are
probably sexual displays by the male birds, as the
broad white band, crossing the tail a little above
the tip, is shown off to great advantage during
their downward course. The same band is also
momentarily displayed during the brief expansion
of the tail that takes place at the time of pitching
from a flight. They spend much of their time on
the ground, and are constantly to be seen morning
and evening, trotting about over lawns and garden-
walks. Some seeds appear to be regarded as very
great delicacies, and the fruiting of amaranths, and

100 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

sunflowers is almost surely attended by the presence
of troops of doves. Just before retiring to roost
they come down to have a long drink and a leisurely
promenade on the sloping bank of some pond near
their night-quarters. They are almost always to
be met with in pairs except for short times immedi-
ately after nesting, when family parties, consisting
of two parent birds and one or two young ones,
may be seen going about in company. In spite
of their natural fearlessness and the confidence with
which they go about close to houses, they do not
readily become really tame. Even in places in
which they might well have learned by experience
that they run no risk of being molested they do
not like to be watched, and fly off at once when-
ever they become aware that any one is looking at
them.

The two common green pigeons, the hariydl
and the chhota hariydl, are not uncommon in
suburban gardens at the times when the fruits
of certain trees are ripening ; but it is very difficult
to say to what extent such singularly invisible birds
occur. At times at which trees that they particu-
larly haunt, such as Ficus comosa and F. religiosa,
are in full leaf, it is only when on the wing that
green pigeons are likely to attract casual notice.
One may see a large flock of them come in, but
as they settle down among the foliage the birds
seem to vanish, and it is only by the closest

DOVES AND PIGEONS 101

scrutiny that they can be detected even where
they have been correctly marked down. So closely
does their brilliant green and vinous colouring match
with that of the surrounding leaves, and so quiet
and leisurely are their movements among them,
that almost the only thing that is likely to reveal
their presence is the stripe of bright yellow that
traverses their wings. So invisible, indeed, are
they, that in most cases they are only discovered
when they suddenly take alarm and fly out from
among the branches on their resting-place being
approached even more closely than their well-
founded confidence in the protective properties of
their plumage can stand. This may perhaps have
given rise to the idea that they are commoner
during the latter part of winter and the beginning
of the hot season than at other times of year.
Many trees are then either completely bare or in
very thin leaf, and such large green birds are very
conspicuous when resting on them, but it is
questionable how far any seasonal variation in
their numbers occurs, unless it be in direct rela-
tion to the number of trees supplying suitable food.
Both species are delightful inmates of an aviary,
from their wonderful beauty of colouring, and the
pleasant sound of their calls, which, although not to
be compared with the call, or, rather, the song, of
the green pigeon of the hills, the Kokila, Spheno-
cercus sphenurus, are very melodious and soothing

108 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

in character. As already remarked, they are not
quite so troublesomely pugnacious in captivity as
most of their relatives are, and, as they are very
readily kept in good condition, almost the only
fault that they have as cage-birds lies in the fact
that they very often disfigure the plumage of their
heads in their greedy attacks on pulpy fruits. In
spite of their comparative mildness, it is always
well to be cautious in introducing new specimens
into an aviary already containing a pair ; for, although
they may not do the fresh arrivals any serious harm,
the original tenants are very likely to be inclined
to bully them for a time. When on the war-path
they have a curious way of keeping their tails in
continuous up and down movement.

Bronze- winged ground-doves, Chalcophaps indica,
are fairly common in well-wooded gardens, and their
deep-toned cooing may often be heard. They are,
however, so wary and timid that a casual observer
seldom notices them. A momentary view of one
may occasionally be had, as it darts in rapid, strong-
winged flight from one dense covert to another, but,
as a rule, it is only by dint of careful and patient
observation that there is a chance of seeing them
at close quarters and at their ease. It is, however,
a privilege well worth the time and patience it
costs, to see one of these beautiful birds stepping
rapidly along beneath a dense shrubbery, with the
straggling sunbeams playing over all the wonderful

DOVES AND PIGEONS 103

bronzes, browns, purples, and greens of its plumage,
and the vivid red of the bill and legs, so that it
seems to appear and disappear as it passes in and
out of the patches of light and shade. When in
deep shade they are almost invisible, owing to the
way in which the colouring of their plumage matches
the tints of the green foliage above, and the brown
and purple of the fallen leaves and ground below.
Like most other doves, they are easily kept in
captivity; but they are uninteresting birds, and,
owing to their outrageous pugnacity, it is very
difficult to keep more than a single pair in any
enclosure of moderate size. With almost all Indian
doves and pigeons this is the only difficulty that
arises. The single exceptional case that I ever met
with during a long and varied experience was that
of a purple wood-pigeon, Alsocomus puniceus, obtained
as a nestling from the jungles of Chutia Nagpur.
Although it survived for many months it never
throve in spite of being supplied with everything in
the way of food that seemed most likely to suit it ;
and when it died, clear signs of imperfect nutrition
were found in almost complete absence of ossifi-
cation throughout the whole of its skeleton. The
most striking example of the ease with which
pigeons, as a rule, can adapt themselves to exist-
ence under abnormal conditions is afforded by the
snow-pigeon, Columba leuconota. In the wild state
it is rarely to be seen far from the snow-line, inhabit-

104 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

ing places in the hills at elevations of from 10,000
to 14,000 feet in summer, and only descending to
lower levels with the snow in winter. But, in
spite of this, it will live for years in seeming health
in the damp heat of Calcutta only a few feet above
the level of the Bay of Bengal. It is noteworthy
that two Himalayan organisms — the snow-pigeon and
the dwarf juniper — that thrive exceptionally well in
the lower delta of the Ganges, are not to be found
in the lower hills, but are natives of the inner ranges
on the confines of perpetual snow. Although all
Indian doves and pigeons are, in one way or other,
attractive in captivity, there is none of them to be
compared to the Kokila as a pet, by reason of its
refined beauty, dainty ways, and entrancing call — a
call that is always refreshing to listen to, and that,
even in the worst of the stifling heat of a summer's
day in the plains, is enough to raise visions of the
cool hill-forests in which it is so often heard.

IX

BARBETS

"Alone at his green forge
Toiled the loud coppersmith."

— The Light of Asia.

Two kinds of barbets, the coppersmith, Xantholcema
hcematocephala, and the blue - throated species,
Cyanops asiatica, abound in suburban and out-
lying gardens, and the first may often be heard
and seen, and sometimes even nests, in trees at
the sides of crowded thoroughfares. Coppersmiths
are odd little birds,1 and most fully characteristic
of the group to which they belong in their gaudy
colouring, harsh, dry plumage, wonderfully tough
skin, and insistent vociferation. During periods of
settled, sunny weather, the only thing that seems
effectually to check their desire to call is a certain
degree of cold ; but this is so influential that during
the course of the variable winter in Calcutta it may
safely be assumed that the temperature in the shade
stands at or over 70° F. on any day when their call

1 Their length is somewhat greater than that of a common nuthatch,
but they are proportionately very stoutly built.

105

106 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

is to be heard. As the thermometer rises above
the prohibitive limit they begin to call more and
more frequently, until in the height of summer the
monotonously metallic ringing of their notes goes
on, almost constantly, from dawn to sunset. When
preparing to call they usually take up a prominent
place in the crown of a tree, often clinging to the side
of an upright twig ; and all the time that they cry
they go on constantly turning their heads from side
to side whilst their throats swell and their whole
bodies thrill with the force of their vocal efforts.
The movements of the head give rise to a strangely
ventriloquial effect, so that the successive sounds
might readily be mistaken for the answering notes
of two birds instead of the continuous call of one.
Towards the end of the hot weather, and during
the early part of the rainy season, they cease to
cry so incessantly, because the care of their young
families takes up too much time to leave them
much leisure for any other occupation.

With the onset of the hot weather, they begin
to nest, usually choosing a place on the under
surface of a slanting dead bough, especially at a
point where a side branch has been broken off
and the wood has been softened by the invasion
of fungal mycelium. Though preferring sites of
this nature in cases where they propose to excavate
on their own account, sloth very often prompts
them to make use of ready-made hollows in other

BARBETS 107

positions. The caverns of their blue - throated
relatives are particularly tempting to them, and
they are always on the outlook for chances of
appropriating them ; the fact being so well recog-
nised by the proper owners as to render them very
intolerant of the neighbourhood of coppersmiths
whilst excavating or occupying a burrow. Various
other kinds of birds that nest in hollows also look
upon them with great suspicion and indignantly
drive them away whenever they come prying about
too closely. A pair once fixed on the stump of a
fallen bough on a Poinciana-tree close to my house
as a suitable place for a nest, and set about
excavating vigorously in it. The progress of
their work was, however, seriously retarded for
some time by a pair of dayals, Copsychus saularis,
who were already housed in a natural hollow a
little higher up in the tree. At the outset the
barbets could hardly manage to do anything, as,
whenever they came in and began to dig, they
were forthwith assaulted and driven away. Perse-
verance, however, eventually triumphed, and one
of the birds managed to get in at a time when
neither of the dayals was at home. After a little
envious inspection of their cave, it set steadily to
work on the stump, clinging to the bark with its
fat, pink feet, and hammering and picking away
so energetically that the strokes were quite audible
at a considerable distance, and were soon accom-

108 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

panied by the fall of showers of chips. The chips
were sometimes hammered directly off, but oftener
they were merely loosened by a series of blows and
then picked off and thrown away. Whilst working,
the bird clung to the bark like a wood-pecker,
with the end of its tail pressed closely against the
surface, so as to serve as an additional support
save when it was momentarily jerked outwards on
each successive blow. For a time all went well;
presently the male dayal returned to the tree, but
as he alighted at a point from which the barbet
was invisible, and as, curiously enough, his atten-
tion did not seem to be attracted by the sounds of
the hammering, the work went on uninterrupted
by his arrival. Now, however, the female dayal
also turned up, and settled on a twig commanding
a good outlook, a fact of which the barbet seemed
to be fully aware, as it at once stopped hammering
and lay flat and motionless against the bark. In
spite of all its precaution it was almost at once
detected, and the dayal, after looking at it atten-
tively for a few moments, flew down, drove it away,
and having critically examined the result of its
labours, retired to her own nest. Once again one
of the barbets returned, and was very soon joined
by its mate. The arrival of the latter, was, however,
more than the male dayal could tolerate ; so he flew
over, alighted close to it, set up his tail, held his
bill well aloft, sang in an insulting fashion, and

BARBETS 109

then, falling suddenly upon his enemy, put him
to flight. Encounters of a like nature frequently
recurred, and it was a long time before the dayals
yielded to the pertinacity of the intruders, and
allowed them to go on with their work in peace.

Coppersmiths are ill-natured little birds, and are
apt to commit unprovoked assaults on one another,
or on any other small birds whom they may meet
in the course of their wanderings. This in itself
is enough to make them undesirable inmates of a
mixed aviary, but, in addition to this, there are
difficulties in regard to their food when they are
associated with many other kinds of birds. It is
easy enough to supply them with food that they
like, but unless special precautions are taken they
seldom survive for any length of time. The reason
for this has been pointed out quite recently by
Major Alcock, who has discovered that the sattu,
of paste of gram-flour, which forms such a staple
in the food of many cage-birds, is, in spite of its
being poisonous to coppersmiths, greedily devoured
by them, and that by confining them alone, or only
along with birds that are not fed with .this material,
the difficulty of keeping them in good condition is
done away. Whilst at large they feed on fruits and
buds of many different kinds, the ripening re-
ceptacles of many figs, and especially those of Ficus
nitida and F. rumphii, being particular favourites.

The blue-throated barbet is certainly a much

110 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

more attractive bird, for the colouring of its
plumage, although quite as brilliant as that of
the coppersmith, is free from any crude vulgarity,
and the call, whilst certainly not musical, is not
irksome in its persistence ; and, as it may often be
heard at a considerable elevation in the hills, it is
not necessarily associated with ideas of heat and
blazing sunshine.1 The call is very unlike that of
any of the other common barbets, and consists of
a long series of thrilling notes that are ordinarily
syllabled as " kurrawuk, kiirrawuk, etc., " but are
frequently more like " kukarruk, kukarruk, etc."
They are usually preluded by a number of low,
clucking notes, which often also fill up the pauses
between successive volleys of vociferation. After
the prelude they usually utter one or two half-
hearted calls, and then go off in full cry, as though
worked by machinery, their throats swelling, their
wings quivering, and their tails vibrating with the
successive impulses of thrilling sound. When call-
ing, the birds prefer dense coverts to the con-
spicuous sites chosen by the coppersmiths, and,
unlike the latter, they do not turn their heads
from side to side. They are to be heard during
the whole course of the year, and continue to call
vigorously in the coldest weather. During the
nesting period they are not so noisy as at other

1 It is a much larger bird than the coppersmith, and is not so awkwardly
shaped as the latter is.

BARBETS 111

times, and they take care never to call in the
immediate neighbourhood of their nests.

They are much shyer than the coppersmiths,
never nesting in crowded streets, and being usually
careful to choose well- hidden places as sites for
their caverns. When they do nest close to a
path, the opening of the burrow is always placed
so as to be hidden from view by overhanging
masses of foliage or aerial roots. So well hidden
are the nests, and so cautious are the owners in
approaching them that, in spite of the brilliant
plumage of the latter, it is often only after much
patient use of a field-glass that their exact location
can be made out. That a nest is somewhere near
may often be suspected from the frequent visits of
a pair of birds to a particular tree, but the
information thus obtained is very vague. The
owners carefully avoid going directly to the opening
of their cave on coming in, and will not come in
at all whilst aware of being watched, so that the
work of discovery must be carried on from some
distance. A nest in an old banyan-tree near my
house had its opening so artfully concealed among
a number of descending roots as to be quite in-
visible from the base of the stem, and, as the birds
obstinately refused to approach it so long as any
one remained at all near, it was some time before its
precise site could be found. A field-glass showed
that the birds always came into and went out

COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

from a point near the projecting stump of a
branch at about twenty feet from the ground.
This was accordingly accurately focussed from a
place at a considerable distance; and, after a
weary pause of a quarter of an hour, one of the
birds came into the tree, cautiously approached to
the stump, and at last flew directly to it, and in a
moment vanished into a small round opening on
its sloping, lower surface (Plate VI.). A couple of
minutes elapsed, then a head was seen cautiously
looking out of the opening, and presently thrust out
to take a careful survey of the neighbourhood.
The result seemed to be satisfactory, as the bird
suddenly darted out and went off across the
garden like a streak of green light. An attempt
at closer examination of the nest by climbing up
the tangled network of aerial roots around the
stem of the tree was very speedily put a stop to
by swarms of stinging ants, Sima rufonigra, who
were running about over the bark and resented
the intrusion on their thoroughfare in a fashion
that made it desirable to drop to the ground
without delay. The presence of the ants must
have been a great protection to the nest, but it is
curious that its owners should seemingly have
escaped all molestation from them as they went in
and out.

The vigour with which the birds work affords
a real mental tonic by showing that hard work can

BARBETS 113

be efficiently done even under the conditions of
damp heat characteristic of a summer's day in
Lower Bengal. Much happy time was once spent
in watching the progress of a nest in the dead
stump of a mango-tree at the edge of a paddock
from the other side of which all the details of the
work could be telescopically followed without risk
of alarming the miners. They began to dig on the
morning of the 4th of May at a point about five
feet from the ground, and it was most satisfactory
to see how chips of the wood began to fly under
their vigorous efforts. The work went on in a
series of shifts, each bird taking a turn at it for
about a quarter of an hour, and then going out
for a holiday of the same duration, but always
being back in a neighbouring tree in good time to
relieve its partner. In the course of twenty-four
hours the cavity had become so deep that the bird
at work in it disappeared completely for twenty
or thirty seconds at a time, and then came to the
orifice in order to throw away a mouthful of chips,
have a careful look round, and again vanish. They
continued hard at work for the next few days,
and, as the length of the tunnel increased, were
longer and longer hidden in it, until, on the 10th
of May, it was ready to be occupied. Another nest
was examined after the young birds had left it.
(Plate VI.). The entrance was smoothly circular, and
had a diameter of 1'87 inches. On cutting a vertical

H

114 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

section through the stump a complete view of the
nest was obtained. The opening led into a horizontal
tunnel 3 inches in length, forming the vestibule of
a vertical shaft which ended in an oval chamber.
The front of the shaft was 175 inches distant from
the outer surface of the side of the stump in which
the opening was situated. The outer wall of the
terminal chamber was of course proportionately
thinner. The depth from the floor of the vestibule
to the bottom of the chamber was 9 inches, and
the diameter of the chamber at its widest part was
375 inches. The walls of the cavity were through-
out blackened, and those of the narrower parts of
it were polished, owing to the friction exerted on
them by the plumage of the birds in going in and
out. In this case the nest was placed very low,
with its opening only 4 feet above the ground,
but, in spite of this and the fact that it faced
directly out upon the main approach to a house,
it remained for some time undiscovered, owing to
the perfect concealment afforded by the drooping
foliage of a great clump of Cymbidium aloefolium
that capped the stump, and to the extreme wari-
ness with which the birds usually visited it. So
effectual was the concealment that the nest would
probably never have been discovered had it not
happened that one of the birds came out one day
just when some one was passing by the stump.
In specially retired places they seem to become

BARBETS 115

much more reckless in their choice of sites, as I
have known a pair to nest in the top of a small
headless palm in the Botanic Garden in an open
space of grass, which they had to traverse every
time they came and went.

As in so many other points, blue-throated
barbets differ from coppersmiths in being quite
easy to keep in good condition in an aviary
without any special precautions in regard to their
diet, but whether this be owing to their not being
addicted to sattu, or to their being able to eat it
with impunity, remains uncertain. One would
hardly have imagined that such strong birds were
ever liable to be caught in spiders' webs, but my
friend Major Prain once sent me a specimen that
he picked up in the Botanic Garden, lying helpless
on the ground and closely enshrouded in strong
strands of web. This took place at a time of year
when gigantic black and yellow spiders hang their
huge nets vertically across openings between adjoin-
ing trees, and the bird, in pursuing its ordinarily
headlong course, had come in contact with one of
these, carrying the greater part of the fabric with it
by the force of sudden impact, but, at the same
time, wrapping itself up so closely that further
flight was impossible.

X

DAYALS, ETC.

" Proud Maisie is in the wood,

Walking so early ;
Sweet robin sits on the bough,

Singing so cheerly." — SCOTT.

IN recalling the experiences of Indian gardens there
are very few birds to which thought reverts more
affectionately than to dayals or "magpie robins,"
Copsychus saularis.1 They have so often been the
occasion of "home thoughts from abroad," as
they superintended gardening operation almost as
confidently and sang almost as sweetly and
plaintively as robins do in England ; and, moreover,
they are such pretty birds — the males in brilliant,
shining black and white and the females modestly
clad in slate and grey (Plate VII.), and both with
such large bright eyes and daintily lively ways — that,
quite apart from old associations, they can hardly fail
to be objects of very friendly regard. Then, in the
plains of India there are so very few birds whose
notes really deserve to be described as songs, that

1 They are considerably larger than common robins.

116

DAYALS, ETC. 117

one feels specially grateful to any who, as they do,
sing truly and strongly throughout the greater part
of the year. As with English robins, their songs
begin to be heard early in autumn ; and from that
time onward they go on increasing in strength and
frequency until, after a short time of comparative
quiescence while the nests are being built, they come
to their fullest perfection during the period when
incubation is going on. The song, as soon as heard,
is gladly welcomed as confirming the promises of the
returning migrants, not, "that winter is over and
gone," but that it will soon make its much-longed-for
arrival. At the opposite side of the year, too, the
cool, clear little songs are very refreshing and cheer-
ing in the mornings and evenings of cruelly hot days,
when they serve to suggest that, after all, life is quite
tolerable, even under the trying conditions of the
time.

With all their familiarity, they have not quite the
assurance that so often leads the brown-backed robins
of Upper India to invade the interior of houses*
One of the latter birds, Thamnobia cambaiensis,
served greatly to enliven the tedium of a long
solitary day spent in the dak-bungalow at Jullundur
by the frequent visits that he paid to my dressing-
room. The attraction in it was the mirror, in which
he admired himself with ceaseless satisfaction ; afford-
ing a striking example of the ease and readiness
with which birds generally recognise their reflected

118 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

images, whilst animals of much higher intelligence,
such as dogs, seem to have so little natural aptitude for
doing so. Dayals, however, make up for any slight
want of confidence by the distinction and grace of
their sprightly habits. Like European robins, they
are very pugnacious little beings, and many fierce
duels take place among the males during the pairing
and nesting seasons. Some of the conflicts that
precede marriage seem to point to no very highly
developed aesthetic sense in the male birds, as violent
feuds may often be seen to rage over very dowdy and,
as one would fancy, unattractive females. Whilst a
pair of rivals are contending for the favour of a lady,
they make a brave show of all their attractions,
spreading their tails and partially expanding their
wings so as to display their brilliant black and white
markings to the fullest advantage, nodding their
heads, and singing loudly and defiantly at one
another. When once paired they seem to be very
faithful and affectionate, and at all times of year
whenever one bird makes its appearance it is pretty
certain that its mate is not far off.

They breed during the hot- weather months, and
usually place their nests in hollows in trees. In most
large gardens, several pairs will be found nesting
every year, each of them having a certain, well-defined
territory of its own, and furiously resenting the
intrusion of neighbouring couples. They are very
methodical in their habits at all times of year, and

DAYALS, ETC. 119

may almost always be met with in particular places
at particular hours. Regularly each successive
morning and evening during the nesting season the
male bird of each pair takes his place on some
prominent twig close to the nest, and treats his
sitting mate to a series of sweet, cold, plaintive little
songs. The sight of one of them, " bright in a light
and eminent in amber," sitting on the summit of a
mango-tree in fresh, spring foliage, with his bright
black and white plumage shining out in brilliant
contrast to the golden green and bronze of the young
leaves and the clear pale blue of a cloudless sky
above, is one not to be readily forgotten. Should
any of his neighbours intrude on the territory of the
songster he breaks off his music at once and goes
upon the war-path. The intruder is usually so
conscious of ill-doing that he rarely ventures to
show fight until he has reached the narrow zone of
neutral ground intervening between his own estate
and that of his neighbour. Here, however, repeated
conflicts occur, and then the warriors retire, each
within his own marches, and there strut about for
some time, singing insolently at one another before
returning to their domestic duties.

When alarmed they utter hoarsely chatting
notes, and the male birds, if suddenly startled whilst
on the ground, accompany these with a series of jerk-
ing movements, in the course of which their tails
become so extremely erected as to point obliquely

120 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

forwards. In addition to such alarm-notes, they
have a churring cry that is usually repeated for some
time after they have retired for the night. Their
flight is of a peculiarly violent jerking nature ; and
with every successive impulse in it there is a brief
divergence of the snow-white feathers of the tail.
In the evening they are usually to be met with in
pairs on open spaces of grass, moving about in short
series of hops, and every now and then pausing for
a moment in order to pick an insect daintily up.
When so engaged they soon become very tame in
places where they are not molested, and will follow
one about very closely, seeming to take advantage
of the disturbance among lurking insects caused by
passing footsteps. Now and then one of them will
take to behaving exactly like a flycatcher, settling
on a projecting bough and making repeated fluttering
excursions to secure passing insects and return with
them to its perch. Like so many other common
Indian birds, they seem to continue to go about
in family parties for a good while after the young
ones of the past nesting season are well able to
take care of themselves, as they may be observed
in groups of three or four until quite far on in the
rainy season. The young birds, until after their
first moult, bear a general likeness to the mature
females ; but are greyer, have less defined markings,
and show a reddish brown tinge in their primary
wing-feathers. The Indian redstart, Ruticilla rujiven-

DAYALS, ETC. 121

tris, which appears as a winter-visitor, has a great
resemblance in many of its ways to the dayal, but
has a quite peculiar habit of wriggling its tail about
in tremulous movement either on alighting after a
flight, or after a series of hops along the ground.

Dainty and attractive as the ways of dayals are,
they are certainly not so elfishly alluring as those
of the white-throated fantails, Rhipidura albicollis.1
There is something quite uniquely fascinating in the
sight of one of them hopping, wheeling, and darting
about among the leaves, and, whilst it lasts, it seems
very doubtful whether Spenser was right in saying, —
"Sith none that breathe th living aire doth know,
Where is that happy land of Faerie."

They are very common in the neighbourhood of
Calcutta, especially during the cold weather, when
the clumps of bamboos in the bowery suburban
lanes are full of them going through all their
fantastic evolutions. They are never at rest, and
their surplus energy is constantly overflowing in
sweet little songs that begin more or less like
those of the dayals, but soon subside into a series
of mere chirping twitters. When not actually
singing they often repeat a note, sounding like
"twait" and very similar to the common call of
the Paradise flycatcher, or that of the beautiful
blue Hypothymis azurea. Their tails are almost
ludicrously large, and, when fully expanded like

1 It is of the same size as a common pied wagtail.

122 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

miniature peacock trains, they become so con-
spicuous that, as the birds perform their curiously
abrupt revolutions, it seems almost as though the
rest of the body were turned by them. When
a fantail flies across an open space with its train
trailing along behind it, the broad end seems so
much detached from the rest of the body that,
like the racketed end of the tail of a flying
bhimraj, Dissemurus paradiseus, it looks like a
second bird or a large insect pursuing its owner at
a fixed distance. They are wonderfully plucky
little birds, and will fearlessly attack dogs that
intrude on their privacy, flying out at them with
widely expanded tails, and coming down to the
lowest boughs of shrubs to sing defiance at them.
Mango-trees are very great favourites with them,
probably because the horizontal habit of the
branches affords specially convenient sites in which
they can dance, spread out their tails, and revolve
with ease and security.

Whilst fantails are most attractive when perch-
ing, Paradise flycatchers, Terpsiphone paradisi,1 are
specially delightful on the wing ; and the first
sight of one of them, floating softly along and
seeming to swim through the air in a series of
gentle impulses, gives rise to a very lasting mental
impression. As one of the mature male birds flies

1 The body is little larger than that of a common grey wagtail, but a
male bird, with fully developed train, may have a total length of as much
as 21 inches.

DAYALS, ETC. 123

along through the leafy coverts, in which they
are most at home, the snowy whiteness of his long
waving train gleams out in the light of the
scattered sunbeams that struggle downward through
the branches, and produces effects quite unlike those
that attend the flight of any other kind of bird.
They are not very common inmates of gardens
about Calcutta, but stray specimens may now and
then be met with at almost any time of the year,
and, at the beginning of summer, small parties
of them, apparently in quest of good sites for
nests, often visit quiet areas, such as those afforded
by the more secluded parts of the Botanic Garden.
Such parties include birds of both sexes, some of
the males being in all the splendour of fully
developed trains and mature black and white
colouring, whilst others have trains of chestnut
or are still feathered like the females. At all
other times of the year it is very rare to
see any but short-tailed, chestnut and black birds.
There are few other birds that pass through such
an astonishing change in the characters of their
plumage as the males of this species do. Even
in their first dress, and before they have acquired
their wonderful trains, they are strikingly beautiful.
They have such full, bright, black eyes, such rich
chestnut tints in the wings and tail, contrasting
with the shining black of the head and the snowy
white of their underclothing, and their movements
are so exceptionally graceful that it is hard to

124 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

cease from watching them, and when they are in
all the glory of full dress, they must be to every
one a source of wondering admiration as they leap
lightly about from twig to twig and float hither
and thither among the branches.

Whilst travelling about over the boughs, they
continually utter twittering notes, with occasional
louder calls, so like those of the blue flycatcher
that, until the birds come into view, it is im-
possible to make out which species one is listening
to. Now and then, too, the male birds break
out into sweet little songs. They are very lively
and cheerful birds, always on the move ; and the
males constantly flirt their great trains about,
separating and closing and undulating the long,
trailing plumes in a wonderful way.

The blue flycatchers, Hypothymis azurea,1 although
not so strikingly conspicuous as the preceding species,
are hardly less beautiful and have all the fascinating
ways of their relatives. They seem to visit Calcutta
only during winter, but are fairly common then,
going about among the trees and constantly calling
to one another in loudly imperative double notes.
They seem to overflow with nervous energy, erecting
their crests and jerking and opening their tails as
they hunt systematically over the leaves, and every
now and then darting out to secure a flying insect.
When they are working over trees in fading foliage,
the beautifully soft, dusky cobalt of their plumage

1 This is altogether a smaller bird than the Paradise flycatcher, and has
no train like that of the males in the latter species.

DAYALS, ETC. 125

comes out in striking contrast with the surrounding
tints of brown and yellow. They are shy birds,
and absolute stillness is necessary in order success-
fully to study their ways, but no one would
grudge the exercise of a little self-control where
the reward of it is such an exhibition of graceful
beauty. When a pair of them have found a garden
to their liking, they seem to visit particular parts of
it regularly at special hours, so that, after their
presence has once been detected, there is little diffi-
culty in securing opportunities for observing them.

It is comforting to find that the common iora,
Mgithina tiphia,1 is no longer regarded as a sort
of bulbul ; for, though one was fain to believe that
there might be satisfactory grounds for this view,
it always remained a mystery to the casual observer
how any close relationship could co-exist with such
extreme unlikeness of habit. loras are constant
inmates of gardens in Bengal, and, though they
may often escape notice owing to their small size
and the way in which the green and yellow tints
of their plumage match those of the surrounding
foliage, their very peculiar notes must be familiar
to every one who takes any heed of garden sounds.
They go about in couples, and, when a pair is
hunting over the leaves of a tree in quest of
aphides, small grubs, or other insect-food, one
constantly hears answering calls of " pe e e e, whew."
In addition to this call they have several other

1 It is a little smaller than a common robin.

126 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

notes ; during the breeding season a very distinct
one may often be heard, consisting of a long
series of shrill cries, '* whe, whe, whe, whe, whe,
whe." From the circumstances in which it is
uttered, this call would seem to be peculiar to the
male birds, and to form an element in their sexual
display; for, on careful approach to a site from
which it is audible a short exercise of quiet
watching will be rewarded by the sight of an iora
in brilliant plumage, suddenly emerging to make
a short upward flight, and then sink vertically for
some distance through the air with drooping wings
and elevated tail, calling loudly all the time it
descends to its mate, who is at no great distance
off among the boughs. Much of their food seems
to consist of spiders; and when they are hunting
for these among the leaves, creeping from one to
another and often hanging back downwards as they
go, they have a very tit-like look. The nests of
many Indian birds are highly attractive objects,
but very few of them are quite so beautiful as
those of ioras, moulded closely over the upper
surface of a horizontal bough in the form of a
shallow cup, compactly built up of fragments of
lichen woven together by masses of spiders' web,
and anchored by strands passing round their founda-
tion and any neighbouring twigs. The felt of web
and lichen gives the nests a delicate grey tint that
renders them very invisible among their surroundings.

DAYALS, ETC. 127

Both the scarlet-backed and TickelTs flower-
peckers, Dicceum cruentatum and D. erythrorhyncus?
are frequent visitors of the suburban gardens of
Calcutta. Individuals of the former species can
hardly fail to attract notice, owing to the wonderfully
brilliant colouring of their plumage, but their little
relatives, although fairly abundant throughout the
whole course of the year, are apt to be overlooked
in consequence of their extremely small size and
sober colouring. They are indeed ludicrously small,
and make even such pigmies as common honey-
suckers, with whom they are often associated,
look quite considerable fowls. They come in in
large numbers during the hot weather in order to
take advantage of the abundance of flowering shrubs
and trees that are then in full bloom. The beauti-
ful vermilion spikes of blossom that cover the trees
of Sterculia colorata seem to be special favourites
with them, and the contrast between the tints of the
little brown and olive birds and the flaming masses
of bloom is very effective. Whilst travelling about
among the flowers they keep up a continuous low
chirping, and every now and then call aloud,
" Chew hu, chew hu, etc," in quite disproportionately
vehement notes, that are probably intended to
announce their presence to their comrades. When
seen at close quarters their most remarkable features
are their short, broad bills, which have a beautifully
rosy tint in young birds.

1 They are both quite curiously small birds, the second species being
much smaller than a wren.

XI

HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS

" The grey eggs in the golden sun-bird's nest

Its treasures are." — The Light of Asia.

THE common little yellow honeysuckers, Arach-
nechthra zeylonica,1 certainly deserve one of the
first places in any record of the birds of gardens
in Calcutta, for there are very few species that are
so common or so attractive. The flowering shrubs
are constantly alive with their twinkling wings,
their cheerfully imperative little calls are to be
heard from dawn to sunset, and they have such a
happy audacity in their choice of nesting-places that
ignorance of their ways can hardly be accounted for
save by wilful blindness. The male birds (Plate VII.)
are surprisingly beautiful in gleaming crowns of
metallic green, violet throats, rich reddish-brown
wings and backs, and bright canary-yellow under-
parts ; and the females, although very quietly dressed,
are so sprightly and so delicately formed as to be
hardly less attractive. It is indeed a joy to see a

1 They are a little larger than wrens, but much more slenderly built
than the latter.

128

Black-headed Oriole (p. 185).

Female Dayal (p. 116).

Male Honeysucker (p. 128).

[To face p. 128.

HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS 129

pair of them courting ; hopping about lightly from
twig to twig in their sprightly way, calling cheerfully
to one another, and jerking and flapping their little
wings about. They are almost the only birds who
are not, for the time being, subdued by persistently
heavy rain, and, even throughout a tropical down-
pour, they go on fussing and twittering around in
perfect unconcern. Their food consists mainly of
small insects and of the nectar of many different
kinds of flowers, and whilst securing it they often
hang hovering for a time on rapidly quivering wings.
When hunting for insects among pensile leaves,
such as these of Cassia sumatrana, they grasp
them with their strong feet, and hang suspended
and swinging, very often head downwards ; and, when
dealing with trumpet-shaped or tubular flowers, they
either alight on neighbouring twigs within reach of
the mouths of the corollas, or hang hovering in front
of them prying into and rifling the depths with
their long, slender, curved beaks. The curious
narrow tubular flowers of Hamelia patens are
very special favourites, owing to the large store of
nectar in their lower ends ; and during the whole
time that the shrubs are in flower they are sure
to be alive with honeysuckers every morning. In
this, and doubtless in many other cases, they seem
to play a very important part in securing cross-
fertilisation ; for, by the help of a field-glass, one
can clearly see that every time their bills are with-

i

130 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

drawn from one tube and thrust into another, they
are thickly smeared with golden pollen ; and when
flowers from which they have just been feeding are
examined, the long oval stigmas will be found coated
with adhering grains. In rifling the flowers, there-
fore, they confer a benefit on the plant, and do
not play the part of mere robbers, like the great
brown hornets, who share their liking for the nectar,
but who, in order to reach it, drill holes through
the corollas below the level at which the anthers
lie.

Curiously enough, they do not seem to care
for the fluid in the corollas of the silk-cotton-trees,
which is so attractive to so many other kinds of
birds that the trees, when in full bloom, become
noisy and riotous taverns thronged with excited
topers. The unopened flowers of Hibiscus rosa-
sinensis are greatly frequented in the early morning,
on account of some attractive material to be found
at the bases of the petals. Erythrinas are also very
popular ; the clusters of their bright red flowers
are very often alive with a throng of clinging and
fluttering little thieves ; and an even more charming
picture presents itself when the latter are busy among
the deep green foliage and tufted crimson inflorescence
of Hcematocephala Hodgsoni.

Their nervous energy is astonishing, and in-
cessantly overflows in active movement. They
seem to be quite unable to rest while awake, and

HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS 131

when they have nothing else to do they constantly
turn their heads about from side to side and twitch
and flutter their little wings in aimless activity.
Their perpetual nervous excitement makes them
very pugnacious, and fierce encounters are sure to
take place wherever many of them happen to be
congregated. They are also very ready to assert
themselves in attacks on other kinds of birds, even
when prudence would seem to counsel forbearance.
One that for a long time inhabited an aviary
containing a very miscellaneous collection of birds
was a regular pocket-tyrant, and was never tired
of bullying any of his fellow-prisoners to whom
he had taken objection. One of the objects of his
special dislike was a purple honeysucker, who was
not at all averse to a fray, but who generally came
off second best. Quarrels wrere generally begun
by the yellow bird approaching his purple enemy,
singing at him insultingly, and performing a series
of offensive gestures, nodding, bowing, and jerking
his head from side to side, whilst his foe only scolded
feebly and raised and fluttered his wings so as to
show the splendid orange and scarlet of the axillary
tufts (Plate VIII.). Both birds having done their best
to display their ornaments to the utmost advantage,
a brief tussle would take place, and end in their both
falling to the ground, the yellow warrior generally
being uppermost and ready to fly off and chant
a song of triumph from one of the neighbouring

132 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

perches. The most amusing of his quarrels was, how-
ever, with a lorikeet, Loriculus vernalis. Lorikeets
are usually ill-tempered little beings, and this one,
when put into the aviary, began at once to bully
his neighbours. During the first day of his residence
he carried everything before him. He would hardly
let the honeysucker approach the flowers that were
put in specially for his benefit, running backwards
and forwards along the perch at the ends of which
they were hung up, and driving him off whenever
he tried to come near them. On the following
day, however, the honeysucker had become more
used to the presence of his enemy; the surprise
attending the sudden introduction of a new neighbour
had worn off, and he spent much time in serious
study of the subject ; and by the next morning,
and for some time thereafter, the lorikeet's life must
have been a burthen to him. He was subject to
incessant assaults, in the course of which the point
of a long sharp beak was suddenly thrust into
tender places, and so quickly withdrawn that, by
the time he had turned round in wrath, his enemy
was already at a safe distance and meditating a
fresh attack. This went on for some days until
the honeysucker had established a most whole-
some funk, and, having tired of the excitement
of constant warfare, had subsided into contemptuous
indifference.

There is no month throughout the whole year

HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS 133

in which one may not have the pleasure of watch-
ing their nesting habits, and, owing to their wonder-
ful confidence, the nests are often placed so as to
give great facilities for their close observation. Birds
in India are so little liable to human interference
that, in cases in which they construct their nests
so as to provide special security from the attacks
of the lower animals, they are often very reckless
in their choice of sites. Since the nests of honey-
suckers are suspended from the ends of pliant leaves
or very slender and flexible twigs, there is little
chance of their being successfully invaded by any
intruders except insects, and hence, so long as the
birds can find a convenient place, they do not seem
to care how public it may be. In the last winter
I was in Calcutta, a pair built in a clump of Areca
lutescens at the side of a short flight of steps leading
from the verandah on the south side of my house
into the garden below. The nest was attached to
the pinnae of a leaf arching over the steps, so as
to be quite visible to any one seated at the table
of the dining-room, and so low down that, in going
to and from the garden, it was necessary to stoop
in order to avoid knocking up against it. As a
rule, the nests hang freely, suspended by a sort of
cord, often consisting in greater part of spiders'
web. The cord ends below in a fibrous bag with
an opening, situated towards the upper part of
one side, and surmounted by a projecting cornice.

134 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

In exceptional cases nests may be found fixed
between a pair of large, drooping leaves, the
surfaces of which form parts of the walls or roof of
the bag, and in such circumstances the suspensory
cord and the portico over the entrance are omitted,
and the structure presents a superficial likeness to
a tailor-bird's nest. The omission of the penthouse
over the opening, in circumstances in which pro-
tection from rain is otherwise secured by the over-
arching leaves, affords evidence of a purposive
adaptation to environment that seems to imply the
exercise of something more than reflex action or
hereditary habit. The fabric of the nest consists
of a web of fibres of coarse grass with interwoven
fragments of dead leaves, and the cavity is lined
with a layer of softer materials, such as the pappus
of various kinds of grass and the fine cotton of the
seeds of the silk-cotton-trees. A nest, whilst incuba-
tion is going on, is a pretty sight, for the opening
into the cavity is occupied by the head of the
sitting bird with its long slender beak projecting
and its bright little eyes glancing heedfully around.
It is delightful, too, to see how, when one of the
birds comes in, it causes the whole fabric to sink
and swing as it alights to vanish into the interior,
and then immediately turning round, thrusts out
its head. Perhaps the prettiest picture of all, how-
ever, is to be seen after the young birds have hatched
out and the little parents are hanging on to the

HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS 135

outside of the nest and thrusting their long- curved
bills into the cavity with stores of food.

When several male birds are contending for the
approval of one female, and therefore displaying all
their charms to the fullest advantage, the show of
twinkling wings and brilliant colours is quite exhila-
rating ; while the lady, in place of sitting in chilly
criticism, as so many hen-birds do in like circum-
stances, responds gaily, and, as it seems, impartially,
to all her admirers ; dancing on the twigs, turning
from one to another of her followers, flirting her
little wings and tail about, and chirping aloud all
the while. Their bathing is carried on among wet
foliage ; and it is quite refreshing to see a number
of them splashing about energetically on the top
of a shrub among masses of leaves that hang heavy
and twinkle with a load of adherent dew. Owing
to their small size and bright colouring, and their
habit of constantly jerking their wings about, they
often present a ludicrous likeness to the mechanical
birds that are sometimes attached as additional
attractions to musical boxes. As caged birds they
are very charming, but unfortunately seldom survive
captivity for more than a few days. Out of a very
large number of apparently sound birds that I tried
to keep, only one survived for any length of time.
He, however, was an ample reward for many failures,
and was a constant joy for several years, during which
he remained in beautiful plumage and the highest

136 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

spirits. At first he fed almost entirely on the nectar
and small insects obtained from the flowers with
which he was regularly supplied ; but latterly he
developed a strong taste for the sattu, or gram-
paste, provided for the benefit of various of his
soft-billed fellow- prisoners, and usually insisted on
having the first turn at any fresh supply of it.
He was quite delightful from his sprightly, confident
ways and cheery little songs, and, whenever a fresh
supply of his favourite flowers was given to him,
hastened to greet the donor and feed from his hands.

There is not much opportunity of becoming
familiar with the ways of the purple honey suckers,
Arachnechthra asiatica, in Calcutta, because, although
so common in many other parts of India, they are
there almost entirely replaced by the species just
described. From the limited experience that I have
had of them, however, I am not inclined to think
that the exchange is a bad one, as they do not seem
to be nearly so lively and attractive as their smaller
relatives.

Whenever memory reverts to the experiences
of summer in the plains of India, it can hardly
fail to recall the loud shouts of the tailor-birds,
Orthotomus sutorius,1 as they travel about ceaselessly
among the shrubs. Even at those times of day
when the breathless heat and cruel glare have
reduced almost all other birds to relative silence;
when even the crows sit about in pairs in the shade,

1 They also are very small birds, but are somewhat larger than the
common honeysuckers.

HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS 137

gasping with widely gaping bills and incapable of
anything beyond whispered conversation ; and when
the still and fiery air is only rarely disturbed by
the querulous whistle of a kite, even then the tailor-
birds are all alive with noisy excitement. Whilst
listening to them, or to the cries of other loud-voiced
small birds, one realises the beauty of the dispensa-
tion that has decreed that in the animal kingdom
there should be no necessarily direct ratio between
size and vocal power ; an elephant with a voice on
the scale of that of a tailor-bird would have been
a nuisance to a whole district ! Even the longest
use and wont leave it a ceaseless marvel how such
pigmies can manage to make such a hubbub, whilst
they run and creep about among the bushes, more
like little brown mice than any feathered creatures.
They have two common calls, the first consisting
of an urgent repetition of the syllable "peet," and
the second, even more insistent and sounding, "pe
peep, pe peep, pe peep, pe peep." Long after most
other birds are silent ; after even the crows and
mynas have finally settled down for the night, and
only an occasional belated kite is audible, their call
may still be heard issuing from the flower-beds and
shrubberies, where the birds continue to run mouse-
like about in the gathering gloom, jumping after
the insects lurking among the leaves. When highly
excited over anything they shout their loudest, and,
with their tails so excessively elevated that they

138 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

come to point obliquely forwards over their backs,
look more like demented wrens than anything else.

They are very familiar and confident, and during
their hunts after insects have no hesitation in
coming into verandahs in order to work systematic-
ally over any pot-plants that may be situated
there. It is amusing to note the energy with
which they will scold at dogs who may intrude
upon their hunting-grounds or approach their nests,
and who seem hardly to know what to make of
such audacious and noisy little antagonists. Whilst
engaged in hunting over a shrub they run quickly
along the twigs, shouting noisily all the while, and
every now and then snatching at insects ; and, even
when flying, they continue to call aloud with a
reckless expenditure of breath. Like the honey-
suckers, they bathe among wet foliage, and seem
to find the broad palmate leaves of Livistonias and
other fan-palms particularly convenient bath-rooms,
owing to their rigid surfaces and to the accumula-
tions of water that gather in their furrows and around
the projecting ends of the petioles.

Tailor-birds' nests are to be found in almost
every garden during the latter part of the hot
weather and the beginning of the rainy season.
They are usually set quite low down among the
leaves of shrubs, and, where the latter are of small
size, sometimes within a foot or eighteen inches
from the ground. In most cases the leaves used

HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS 139

in the construction of the nest are of strong, rough
texture, such as those of the common blue Petrcea
or of Ficus hispida ; but now and then a foolish
pair of birds will attempt to make use of other kinds
of leaves in which the texture is not capable of
resisting the strain of the stitches, so that the thread
gradually cuts its way through and leaves the blades
gaping. Disasters of this kind often take place
where the leaves of the common white Ixora have
been used, and half-finished and deserted nests are
therefore often to be met with in the shrubs.
During the earlier part of the nesting season, the
threads for the stitches and lining of the cavity of
the nest are usually formed of the down obtained
from the pods of silk-cotton-trees, and when this
is no longer to be obtained various other fine
fibrous materials take its place. Both threads and
lining are often derived from the fibrous webbing
at the bases of the petioles of the common tadi-
palm, Borassus flabelliformis, and this is often
gathered in such relatively large bundles as to be
very conspicuous in the beaks of the. birds as they
fly to their nests from the trees in which they have
been collecting. In most cases the nests hang
more or less vertically, but now and then they lie
almost horizontally with the opening between the
lower edges of the leaves, an arrangement that
presents obvious advantages in exposed situations as
affording maximal protection from violent driving

140 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

showers. Where a nest is set very low down in a
shrub, the owners in approaching it usually descend
to the grass or weeds below and creep up thence
to the entrance. When sitting they lie very close,
and, when any one approaches the nest, are usually
content to thrust out their long slender beaks and
little brown heads in anxious enquiry without flying
off until their house is actually touched or shaken.

The leaves used in the construction of the nests
generally wilt and die very rapidly although they
do not seem to have been injured in any way save
by the minute perforations through which the
stitches are passed. It must have been owing to
some imperfect account of this fact that Pennant
was led to affirm that "the bird picks up a dead
leaf, and, surprising to relate, sews it to the side
of a living one." A like result takes place in the
case of the leafy structures of some social spiders
and arboreal ants. It is probably due to an inter-
ference with the free access of air to the tissues,
owing to the orifices of the stomata being choked
up by the lining of the nests of the birds and the
fine layers of web spread over the surface of the
inferior epidermis by the ants and spiders.

After the young birds have left the nest, they
are for some time sedulously attended by their
parents, and the parties of little brown creatures
are very attractive as they travel around among the
shrubs and weeds.

CHAPTER XII

BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS

"Nor hawked the merops, though the butterflies,
Crimson and blue and amber, flitted thick
Around his perch." — Ihe Light of Asia.

" Decked with diverse plumes, like painted jayes."

— The Faerie Queene.

THE common Indian bee-eaters, Merops vimdis,1 are,
as a rule, only temporary residents of the neighbour-
hood of Calcutta. Their autumnal return, from the
wonderful regularity with which it occurs, forms an
emphatic reminder of the flight of time — a reminder,
however, that has no unpleasant flavour about it,
seeing that it is an announcement that winter is
about to arrive, and bring with it nimble air and
relative coolness in exchange for the stagnant heat
of the latter part of the rainy season. From a
record of the dates of its occurrence during a period
of eight years, it appears that it took place five
times in the second week, once on the fourth day,
once on the seventh day, and once in the third
week of October ; and from a much more extended

1 They are of nearly the same length as a song-thrush, but are slenderly

built.

141

142 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

series of observations the thirteenth of the month
comes out as the normal date. These dates are to be
taken as referring to the arrival of birds who propose
to spend the winter in the place ; for in almost any
year small parties may be seen and heard, passing
high overhead for some days before any come to
settle down. The arrival of the local residents can
hardly fail to be at once noticed by any one who
takes heed of such events ; for their notes, although
by no means so loud and insistent as those of the
brown shrike, who makes his appearance a few weeks
sooner, are of a very specific nature, quite unlike
those of any permanent residents, and are, moreover,
mentally associated with the approach of the
pleasantest time of the year.

Common bee-eaters are singularly alluring both
in appearance and in the character of their notes.
When seen from behind they look brilliantly green
with golden gleams about their heads ; their wings
have a ruddy bronze tint, and there is a beautiful
patch of blue on the throat — a scheme of colour
which, along with their brilliantly sparkling eyes,
cheerful cries, and confiding familiarity, is well
adapted to command general admiration. Their
ceaseless vigilance is very striking ; they seem hardly
ever to be entirely at rest; their tails are kept in
constant movement, and their heads are ceaselessly
jerked about in the outlook for passing insects. It
is a joy to watch them as they sit on the ends of

BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS 143

boughs, on the top of railings, or in similar sites
affording a good view, every now and then launch-
ing out into the air in a set of rapid strokes,
sailing onwards on widely-spread wings and tail
to secure an insect, and then wheeling suddenly
round to return to their perches, showing a series of
lovely and contrasting hues of bright green, golden
yellow, and warm brown as they alternately present
their upper and under feathering to view. When
they lay hold of an insect the mandibles are brought
together with a resounding snap that may be
heard at a considerable distance. The keenness of
their sight is astonishing, and one of them may
often be seen to sail suddenly out from his perch
on the top of a tall tree, and cross a wide open space
in order to secure a minute insect that has lighted
on the grass at the further side. They sometimes
make mistakes in their captures ; and one may
occasionally be seen to secure a passing butterfly
and almost at once let it go in disgust, so little
injured as to be able to continue its flight with
undiminished vigour. When an appetising insect
of any considerable size has been secured, it is at
once conveyed to a convenient place, and there
mashed up between the mandibles and against
the perch of its captor.

Very few common gar den -birds are tamer than
bee-eaters: they will often alight so close to one
that the glinting of their bright eyes and all their

144 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

little, restless movements can be clearly noted.
Like king-crows, they often swoop down suddenly
over ponds in order to pick up insects from the
surface of the water. At their times of greatest
activity, in mornings and evenings, they have casual
affrays with king-crows over the possession of
specially alluring insects. They do not so often
light on the ground as king-crows do ; but they may
sometimes be seen in large numbers on the surfaces
of freshly ploughed fields, either in quest of suitable
nesting-places, or attracted by the abundance of
exhumed insects, or, in spring and autumn, in
assembly preparatory to migration. Towards the
end of winter those who have spent the season near
Calcutta become much more vividly coloured than
they were on arrival, and by the time that the hot
weather has fairly set in they have disappeared,
save in those exceptional cases in which a pair have
elected to nest in the locality. Their departure
can hardly be determined by dietetic causes, as
other kinds of insectivorous birds continue to find
an abundance of insect-food all through the summer.
It is apparently due to their nesting habits, for,
nesting as they do in burrows in the soil of fields
and banks, in a region like the lower Gangetic
delta, they must naturally meet with great
difficulties in finding sites secure from repeated
inundation during the torrential falls of rain that
frequently take place during the summer months.

BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS 145

Hence they move off to somewhat higher and dryer
regions, and remain there until, with the colder
and dryer days of autumn, insect-food becomes
inconveniently scarce, and they are once again
driven back to milder and damper places. In the
rare cases in which they remain throughout the whole
year in their usual winter quarters, as a few pairs
sometimes do in the Botanic Garden at Shibpur,
the fact is connected with the protection from in-
undation afforded by the presence of pieces of ground
which have been artificially raised above the general
level of the country.

During the rainy season the common bee-eaters
are replaced by their larger relatives, Merops
philippinus.1 They make their appearance in great
flocks, and, along those parts of the railway-tracks
that are flanked by numerous water-holes, are
constantly to be seen in large numbers, seated in
rows along the telegraph-wires and making bold,
sweeping flights in pursuit of insects. As a rule,
they frequent places abounding in reaches of water,
but may sometimes be met with in gardens, where
they are very ornamental, owing to the beauty of
their flight. This is of the same character as that
of the green bee-eaters, but is on a much bolder
scale, and oftener varied by sudden towering ascents.
They are rather shy birds, and their bluish colouring,
although very fine, is hardly so attractive as the
green, gold, and bronze of the common species.

1 They are about one-third larger than M. viridis.
K

146 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

The Indian roller, Coracias indica, now and
then makes its appearance in a garden or among
the trees on the roadsides, but is not at all common
in the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta. Its
comparative rarity within the area is clearly pointed
out by the way in which any who do venture into it
are treated by the local crows as intrusive aliens, and
hence as fit subjects for bullying and annoyance, whilst
in parts of the country in which these birds abound
they are practically exempt from such persecution.
Any stray specimen that may chance to visit a
garden in Calcutta can hardly fail to attract the
attention of the crows, for as though the brilliancy
of its plumage were not in itself enough to render
it conspicuous, it cannot refrain from advertising
its presence by ceaseless croaking notes, quite
unlike those of any of the normal residents. They
are strange birds, almost as stupid as trogons, and
very nearly as beautiful when they flap heavily from
tree to tree, showing all the wonderful cobalt and
ultramarine tints with which their wings are painted.
Owing to the vinous purple hue of their throats,
they are sacred birds — emblems of Shiv, whose throat
became blue in consequence of his magnanimity in
swallowing the deadly poison which was one of the
earlier results of the churning of the ocean when
the gods were in quest of amrit.

Hoopoes occasionally make their appearance in
the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and now and then a

BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS 147

pair of them will remain for some months in a garden.
They do not, however, remain to nest, but take their
departure on the onset of the hot weather. In those
parts of the country in which they abound, the
common Indian hoopoes, Upupa indica, are among
the most attractive features in a garden, as they pace
lightly about over the ground, probing the surface
carefully as they go, and every now and then pausing
to dig vigorously with the tips of their long slender
beaks. They have a peculiarly light, slow, undulating
flight, and look more like great butterflies than birds
as they flap their way along close to the surface, and
rising and falling over the tops of the low trees and
shrubs that lie in their course. They are ordinarily
rather shy birds, and show signs of anxiety and
restlessness whenever aware of notice. Whilst en-
gaged in digging, however, they become so fully
absorbed in their task, that it is easy to approach
them closely. Whilst walking about or digging, they
keep their crests fully depressed, but on the faintest
alarm, and also on first alighting, they elevate them
to the utmost, at the same time nodding their heads
up and down energetically, and taking a careful look
around. They look so daintily beautiful at a little
distance, that it is always a disappointment to find
how coarse and dry the feathering of a dead bird is on
close inspection. Their gentle little cry, " uk uk, uk,
iik, uk," is one of the most familiar garden-sounds of
the hot weather in Upper India, and in addition to

148 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

this, they have another call, " churr, e, e," indicative
of anger or alarm, which may often be heard when
crows or other suspicious visitors invade the neighbour-
hood of their nests. In uttering it they raise their
crests to the utmost, elevate their heads, and nod
violently with every symptom of extreme indignation.
When about to call in the common way, they usually
take up a position on an exposed branch, and then
depress their heads until the tip of the beak almost
touches the breast, the crest at the same time being
laid flat down. When the young birds first leave the
nest, it is pretty to see them trotting about after
their anxious parents, making inefficient attempts at
digging on their own account, but always ready to
run up and have supplies thrust far down their throats
by the long, curved beaks of their guardians.

Fellow-feeling for their animosity to crows is
enough to inspire friendship to drongos ! The notes
of the common king- crows, Dicrurus ater (Plate IX.),1
as they sit dressing their plumage, and filling all the
air in the intervals left between the multitudinous
notes of other birds with ceaseless cries of " cheyk,
chechi cheyk, cheyk chechi chey cheyk," are among
the most familiar sounds that greet the ear of any
one who goes out soon after dawn ; and until far on
into the dusk of evening they may be seen pursuing
their wonderful aerial evolutions after flying insects.

1 They are somewhat larger than a missel-thrush, but the tail contributes
greatly to their length.

Common Kingcrows (p. 148). [To face p. 148,

BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS 149

Their style of flight varies greatly in different circum-
stances. When merely travelling from place to place
they follow an undulating and flapping course, and do
not advance very rapidly, but when in pursuit of
other birds their flight takes on an entirely different
character, and they swoop and dash about with
marvellous speed. When hawking for insects they
take up a position on some prominent site command-
ing a wide outlook. Here they sit alert and vigilant,
and, as passing insects come within convenient dis-
tance, launch out into the air in pursuit. When
their quarry is above the level of their perch, they
either ascend by means of a series of rapid, flapping
strokes, or suddenly vault aloft as if discharged from
a spring, strike at their prey, turn abruptly round,
often performing a complete somersault in doing so,
and sweep back to their places ; when it is beneath
the level of their watch-towers they descend obliquely
to it, and then sweep round in a bold curve on
widely extended wings. There is something very
attractive in the sight of a party of them perched on
the tips of a group of slender bamboos in the late
evening; the long thin shoots, silhouetted against
the brilliant tints of a sky flaming in after-glow,
bend gracefully over under the weight of the
beautifully-shaped birds, who every now and then
leap aloft into the clear air and sail round in long
curving lines. Their flapping flights are very noisy,
and strangely unlike those in which they display

150 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

their speed and capacity for sudden change of
direction.

During the greater part of the year king- crows
are very aggressive, and whilst nesting they are almost
ceaselessly on the war-path. For a short time,
however, in the earlier part of the cold weather, and
probably because they are then moulting, they often
become curiously mild — a fact of which the crows
seem to be fully aware, as they may then be often
seen venturing on liberties which they certainly
would not attempt at other times, and which some-
times verge on positive bullying. Although they
seem to have a very special and well-founded dislike
to crows, they by no means confine their attacks
to them, and during the nesting season there is
hardly any kind of bird, no matter how inoffensive
or how formidable it may be, that is exempt from
assault and battery. Kites and hawks are fallen
upon, ignominiously routed and driven off in dis-
orderly flight, staggering under the influence of
violent blows on the back ; the spotted owlets
are apt to have their evening gossip rudely inter-
rupted ; every passing crow is insulted, and any
stray barn owl, who may have ventured out early in
the evening, or have been delayed in returning
home in the morning, is sure to be detected and
hustled ; and even birds that might have been
deemed quite harmless, such as mynas and king-
fishers, are furiously attacked. The spotted owlets

BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS 151

sometimes take their revenge, for, although meekly
submissive so long as the light is strong, they now
and then turn the tables and play the part of
aggressors when any king-crows have been tempted to
remain abroad unusually late by a supply of specially
attractive food. Even when a king-crow is sitting
on its nest and ought to be wholly absorbed in
incubatory care, it can rarely refrain from rushing
out to buffet any bird who may pass within easy
distance. At any time they are apt to assault and
persecute bee-eaters, but in this case their aggressive-
ness is excusable on the ground that similarity in
diet must almost inevitably lead to acute competi-
tion. They do not, as a rule, seem to be inclined
to quarrel with one another, but now and then
squabbles do arise over some particularly toothsome
butterfly or other large insect.

Like the white egret and mynas, they are con-
stantly to be met with in attendance on grazing cattle
and buffaloes, making use of them as handy perches
from which to sally forth in pursuit of the clouds of
insects that arise from the grass, disturbed by the pro-
gress of their steeds. The amount of insect mortality
to be credited to their account is very great, for all
day long they are ceaselessly on the outlook for prey,
and, far on into the dusk of evening and long after
the bats have joined in the sport, they remain eagerly
hawking around. Even whilst travelling from one
favourite perch to another, they can seldom resist

152 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

the impulse to snatch at passing insects, not with
any serious intent at capture, but merely as the
outcome of reflex, or " to keep their hands in " ; and
many of the mutilated butterflies that are to be seen
staggering about on imperfect wings owe their
crippled condition to such passing encounters.
They seldom come to the ground in pursuit of
insects, and when they do so, sit about in curiously
flattened attitudes, like those of goat-suckers in like
circumstances. Now and then a pair will remain
for a long time, sitting on the ground face to face,
with upraised beaks and occasionally, either alternately
or in concert, uttering their harshly grating cries.
Much oftener they make sudden descents on the
surfaces of ponds either to take a skimming drink
or to pick up insects floating or swimming on the
water. They take their baths in like fashion, only
in this case they skim along over the surface,
dashing and dumping their breasts into the water as
they go, and returning again and again to repeat the
process until their plumage is well wetted and they
betake themselves to a neighbouring tree in order
to complete their toilette. Like most other purely
insectivorous birds, they keep their heads in almost
ceaseless motion, turning them from side to side and
glancing needfully around even when they seem to
be resting.

In the neighbourhood of Calcutta the common
king- crows build at any time from the beginning of

BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS 153

April to July. The nests are shallow saucers of
dried grass, casuarina-needles, or other fibrous
materials, bound together by strands of spiders'
web, and of such loose texture that in many cases
the sky and the eggs can be distinctly seen through
the floor from beneath. They are generally placed
high above the ground at a point where a horizontal
bough forks so as to afford a conveniently broad
foundation, and are often anchored by strands of
spiders' web, passed round the smaller branches.
Owing to their small size and flattened outline they
are very inconspicuous objects, even when in trees,
like the teak, that are leafless during the greater part
of the time during which they are occupied ; in fact,
at a little distance they so closely resemble knots or
irregularities of the bark that their true nature is
often first detected by the peculiar appearance
presented by the long, forked tail of the sitting bird
projecting over the edge. When the tree contains
nests belonging to other kinds of birds, their owners
are usually tolerated and allowed to come and go in
peace, except when the king-crows happen to be
overflowing with nervous excitement evoked by the
stimulus of passing strangers, and only imperfectly
expanded in assaults upon them. In this case the
surplus may have to be worked off at the expense
of their neighbours. Should a pair of specially
offensive birds, however, set up house-keeping in a
tree close by, they have a very poor time of it, and

154 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

are constantly liable to be attacked as they come
and go. Many entertaining incidents happen under
such circumstances ; and it is curious how in some
cases even the constitutional dislike to crows may
for the time being be forgotten in a common enmity
to kites. Now and then a kite will be attacked
simultaneously by nesting crows and king-crows, and
driven to take refuge with its back to the wall on the
cornice of a house ; a crow sitting close to it and
insulting it with shrill cawings, while a king-crow
swoops and dashes at it from above, filling the air
with angry outcries. Owing to the small size and
peculiar shape of the nests, the heads and the long
tails of the sitting birds project quaintly on either
side, and show very conspicuously from beneath.
After the young ones are hatched their heads may be
seen reaching out in eager expectation of the insects
that are brought in in ceaseless succession from
dawn to dusk by the devoted parents. It is pleasant
to note the intense satisfaction with which a king-crow
regards its nest. When a sitting bird comes in from
one of its frequent raids upon passers-by, it does not
at once resume its place, but sits down beside the
nest and bends over it, thrilling with an admiration
that keeps the long forked tail in vigorous sidelong
motion. Both parent birds share in the task of
incubation, and relieve one another at short and
regular intervals.

During the course of winter stray specimens of

BEE-EATERS, ROLLERS, AND DRONGOS 155

the white-bellied drongo, Dicrurus ccerulesceus, may
often be seen about Calcutta. They often establish
themselves for a long time in particular gardens, but
seem never to nest in the neighbourhood. In
addition to a harshly chattering cry, like that of the
common king-crow, they have another note of a
melodious, plover-like nature.

XIII

KINGFISHERS

" And scarce it pushes
Its gentle way through strangling rushes
Where the glossy kingfisher
Flutters when noon-heats are near."

— Paracelsus.

11 The pied fish-tiger hung above the pool."

— The Light of Asia.

KINGFISHERS are nowadays so sadly rare within the
British islands that it comes as a surprise to any new
arriver in a tropical country to find how common
they can be the^re. Common they certainly are, but
at the same time they can never cease to be objects
of admiration from the quaintness of their habits
and the wonderful splendour of the plumage in most
species ! Two species, Alcedo ispida and Halcyon
smyrnensis, are constant residents in the suburban
gardens of Calcutta, and frequent visitors of the
numerous ponds that lie scattered here and there
even in the most densely populated parts of the town.
So long as it abounds in fish and Crustacea, they do
not seem to be at all fastidious in regard to the
quality of the water that they frequent ; and may

156

KINGFISHERS 157

often be seen sitting in profound scrutiny of pools
of the foulest and most repulsive appearance, where
the brown fluid " creams and mantles " with clouds of
tawny and cupreous-green algal growths and gives
off an overpoweringly offensive odour.

The common small Indian kingfisher, Alcedo
ispida, is now usually regarded by experts as a
miniature variety of the European species, from
which it differs only in size and the habit of fre-
quenting urban areas. Unlike Halcyon sinyrnensis,
it thoroughly merits its name, as its diet consists
exclusively of fish and other aquatic products.
Specimens are therefore rarely to be met with save
in the immediate neighbourhood of bodies of water,
but they are so abundant there that almost every
pond of any size is usually tenanted by one or more
birds, who return to particular watch-towers at
special times of day. Any site affording a free out-
look over the surface of the water seems to satisfy
them ; where there are trees on the bank this is
supplied by overhanging boughs ; and, where there
are none, prominent points on the masonry of walls
and ghats, posts, or fishing platforms, or even the
ripening heads of Nelumbium-inflorescence project-
ing from the surface of the water will serve the
purpose. Here they will sit by the hour, " still as a
stone," save for their nodding heads, and intently
on the watch until a favourable opportunity arises
for a sudden plunge after a small fish that has un-

158 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

warily approached the surface of the water. Often
enough the prey escapes, and then it is pretty to
see the bird return to its perch, shake off a shower
of glittering drops, preen its feathers, and then settle
down once more to its vigil. When disturbed whilst
fishing, they dart suddenly off, uttering keen little
cries of alarm and flying round and round for some
time over the water before returning to their perch
or taking up a new one elsewhere. Most of their
fishing is carried on in the way just described ; but
now and then one will remain for some time on
the wing, darting about hither and thither over
the water, occasionally hanging and hovering on
trembling wings, and then descending with a sound-
ing splash, until, having secured a fish, it makes off
with it to a convenient dining-room. When fishing
in this way, their presence is often first revealed by
the water, as their small quivering bodies are almost
invisible to lateral vision against a shaded back-
ground of foliage, while their reflected images stand
out in sharp relief against the mimic sky of the glassy
surface of the pond.

They fly at a great pace, looking like living
streaks of blue or brown as their upper or under
surfaces present themselves to view ; but, when
sitting quietly and projected upon a background
of dull green foliage, they might readily escape
notice were it not for the brilliantly metallic streak
of light blue on the back, and the vividly white

KINGFISHERS 159

point of the nape as it is forced up between the
shoulders by the abrupt flexure of the neck over
the erect little body. When they have secured a
small fish, it is at once conveyed to a convenient
site in which it may be mashed and hammered into
a state fit to be swallowed ; not uncommonly the
place first chosen is found to be unsuitable, and is
abandoned for a better one. They are by no means
shy birds, and when they have found a good fishing-
station, will often continue to occupy it in complete
disregard of the close presence of people who may
be passing to and fro carrying water, or otherwise
occupied on the bank beneath ; but, at the same
time, they are careful to choose secluded places for
their nests, and never excavate their burrows in
such exposed banks as the common Halcyons often
select.

Halcyon smyrnensis is even more of a garden-
bird than the little kingfisher is, as it is by no
means dependent on the presence of water for a
supply of food.1 They do, indeed, often fish, but
the staple of their diet consists of insects of many
different kinds, shrews, mice, and small reptiles and
batrachians. These, whilst often specially abundant
on the banks of ponds, are yet readily attainable in
many other places in sufficient quantity to allow
the birds to spend much of their time in fields,

1 This is a much larger bird than Akedo ispida, and is specially dis-
tinguished by its brilliant red bill.

160 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

gardens, the outskirts of woods, and other waterless
places, so long as they provide trees or other con-
venient perches and commanding outlooks. They
are very noisy birds ; every now and then, whilst
resting, they open their great red beaks and cry
aloud, "Whee, hee, hee, hee, ee," and, on taking
flight on any sudden alarm, they utter a torrent
of rattling shrieks, much like those of the common
gold-backed woodpecker. Even whilst on the wing
they are not silent, but continue to repeat a high-
pitched note at brief intervals. On the onset of
the breeding season in the beginning of summer,
they become still more vociferous, and are constantly
to be heard crying aloud from the tops of lofty
trees. The sexual displays of the male birds at
this time, more especially when several of them
happen to be courting the same female, are really
splendid, while they turn their backs to her, crouch
down, nod their heads, and spread and flutter their
magnificent blue and black wings in eager competi-
tion. As a rule, the ladies seem to take all this
show very calmly, only occasionally flirting a little
with one or other of their admirers ; never dreaming
of interrupting any meal that may be in progress
when the entertainment comes off, and, even in
the very midst of it, always keeping an eye open
to the approach of any succulent insect. Their nest-
ing burrows are usually excavated in the steep banks
of ponds, and especially at points where the exposed

KINGFISHERS 161

roots of trees descend over the surface and provide
convenient perches. During the breeding season
they are very ill-tempered, and make furious and
unprovoked assaults on passing crows and kites,
and, indeed, on any birds, however inoffensive,
who may happen to approach their domain more
closely than they like.

Much of their time is taken up with the pursuit
of insects quite away from any ponds or other bodies
of water. While so occupied they usually take up
a position on a low bough overlooking an open
grassy space, and at intervals make sudden descents
to secure their prey ; but occasionally they will hawk
around for a time on the wing, and sometimes,
though rarely, really hover. They treat their
victims just as the little kingfishers do, taking them
to places where they can be readily hammered about
and softened before being swallowed. When their
booty is a fish, it seems usually to be more or less
disabled in the process of capture, the dorsal muscles
being often ruptured right down to the spinal column,
and, in any case, so much injured as to interfere with
efficient co-ordinate action (Plate X.).

As cage-birds, these two common kingfishers
differ from one another very much as the two
common barbets do. The little Alcedo rarely
accommodates itself to captivity, but the Halcyon
does so readily ; and, although never becoming really
tame, will continue in full health for a long time,

L

162 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

very soon learning to help itself to live fish in any
water that the aviary may contain.

Whilst neither so abundant nor so generally
distributed in gardens as the species which have
just been described, and hardly ever venturing into
the town proper, the magnificent blue and buff
garial, Pelargopsis gurial,1 are by no means rare
visitors of well-wooded suburban enclosures, and
may almost always be met with in considerable
numbers in the Botanic Garden at Shibpur.
There, at certain times of year, their character-
istic and ringing cries of " peer, peer, purr ; peer,
peer, peer, purr " are to be heard resounding through
the air all day long, and particularly during the early
morning. When about to call in this way, they
take up a conspicuous position on the top of a
tall tree, and remain there for some time, crying
aloud at brief intervals, but now and then they
utter the same notes feebly and imperfectly whilst
flying from one tree to another. Occasionally whilst
at rest, and much oftener when on the wing, they
utter another call sounding "kuk, kuh, kuh, ktih,
kuh, kuh, kuh," but they do not seem to have
any note exactly corresponding with the loudly
cackling alarm-cry of Halcyon smyrnensis. Their
flight is laboured, heavy, and ungainly, the body
and head being extended in a straight line, and
the wings in constant flapping movement as though

1 It is a grand bird, about fifteen inches in length.

Fish dropped by a Kingfisher (p. 161).

Pied Kingfishers (p. 163).

[To face p. 162.

KINGFISHERS 163

finding it a hard task to sustain the weight of the
great head and monstrous dull-red beak. Only
just before it ceases, on approaching a perch, does it
assume a more seemly character as the bird sweeps
round on widely spread and apparently motionless
wings. When about to call they sit up very erect,
and spread their great wings so as to show all the
shining azure of the back and the greenish-blue
quills to the fullest advantage ; exhibiting as they
do so a strange association of splendid colouring
with heavy, ungainly form.

In the thickly-wooded country of the suburbs
of Calcutta, where ponds and swampy hollows
everywhere abound, and devious lanes are tunnelled
through heavy masses of foliage, garials are con-
stantly to be met with, and often nest in
burrows excavated in the mouldering walls of
the mud-huts that lie buried in the jungle. They
are the easiest of all the common kingfishers to keep
in good condition in captivity ; a fact that there were
frequent opportunities of ascertaining in the Zoo-
logical Garden in Alipur, as families of nestlings
were often brought in for sale by the natives of
the outlying villages. Unfortunately, they are not
at all attractive pets, as they are very dull and
sluggish, and seem never to utter their peculiar call
when in captivity.

Another kingfisher that sometimes makes brief
visits to gardens is the black and white Ceryle

164 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

varia1 (Plate X.). Now and then a pair will come
in to hawk and hover over the ponds and fill the
air with their strange, piercing cries; but they are
essentially birds of the open country, and only
occasionally stray in from the broad reaches of
rice-fields in which they abound. They form a very
conspicuous feature in the ornithology of a railway-
journey through well-watered parts of the plains of
India, as they find attractive fishing-grounds in the
numerous water-holes at the sides of the embank-
ments, and convenient resting-places on the telegraph
wires and posts.

Although so common in the channels of the
Sundarbans, the great brown-winged kingfisher,
Pelargopsis amauropterus, seems never to wander
into the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta,
but another characteristically Sundarban species,
Sauropatis Moris, may sometimes be seen about
the ponds in the Botanic Garden.

1 It is somewhat larger than a blaebird.

XIV

EGRETS, HERONS, ETC.

"An herneshawe, that lies aloft on wing."

— The Faerie Queene.

11 For as a bittur in the eagles clawe,
That may not hope by flight to scape alive,
Still waytes for death with dread and trembling awe."

— The Faerie Queene.

"The hoars night-raven, trump of dolefull drere."

— The Faerie Queene.

THE ponds in the open spaces and gardens of
Calcutta, and the innumerable weed-grown swamps
and hollows of the suburbs are frequented by
many other water-loving birds besides kingfishers ;
common " paddy -birds," and sometimes cattle-egrets,
venture far into the thickest parts of the town,
and in the outskirts, other herons, coots, jacanas,
and white-breasted water-hens are associated with
them.

Paddy-birds, Ardeola grayi? are at all times
to be met with in abundance, hardly ever being
absent from any pond of considerable size, and
often being stationed all round the margins of the

1 They are about the size of whimbrels.

1C5

166 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

water, like rows of miniature sentinels. They are
comparatively large birds, but, in spite of this, they
often become strangely invisible when they draw
in their long necks, and crouch down among the
reeds and dried grass, whose colours match so
closely with the buff and brown tints of their
feathering. During the breeding season it is true
that the plumage of the male birds loses its fully
protective colouring, and presents rich maroon and
snowy white hues that are very conspicuous during
flight, but even then, it is curious to note how
one of them seems to vanish as it alights, closes
its broad white wings, and assumes the wonderful
statuesque immobility so characteristic of herons.
There are few more beautiful objects than a male
paddy-bird in full breeding plumage flying low
across a background of deep indigo storm-cloud,
and the disappearance of all the brilliant tints as
the bird alights in one of his accustomed haunts,
is a never failing subject for surprise. Whilst
lurking in these "at times when the nuptial
plumage is absent they are so invisible that one
is often startled by their sudden flight almost
underfoot; and, even when carefully marked down
as they light, it is curiously hard to distinguish
them, as they crouch in wary immobility among
the reeds in well-founded confidence in their
protective colouring.

As is the case with the crows, many more

EGRETS, HERONS, ETC. 167

paddy-birds are present within urban limits at
night than during the day, owing to the fact that
large numbers who spend the day in fishing in
the ponds of the surrounding country return to
roost every night in certain favourite trees in the
gardens in the town. They are like the crows,
too, in usually preferring to roost in the immediate
neighbourhood of the places in which they have
been hatched, although sometimes a tree in which
no nests are ever built will be nightly occupied
by a large colony of lodgers. Evening after evening
numbers of them may be seen, returning in pairs
or small parties from the outlying country in
company with the homing mynas and crows; but,
unlike them, often interrupting their onward course
to hawk after passing insects. On approaching
their night-quarters they drop down to them in
wide curves from the upper sky, and, once arrived,
they settle quietly down without any preliminary
ceremonies or talk, like crows and mynas, merely
scuffling a little over the possession of specially
convenient places. As a rule, they are late in
rousing themselves up in the morning, and do not
set out towards their fishing-grounds until the sun
is already well up. Tamarind-trees seem to be
specially attractive roosts, and may constantly be
seen bristling all over with lazy tenants, sleepily per-
forming their toilette in the strong light of the sun,
long after it has risen high enough to render them

168 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

very conspicuous objects among the softly feathery
deep green masses of the surrounding foliage.
Their breeding places in the gardens of the town
are usually located in mango -trees, whose stout,
.stiff ramifications are well fitted to support the
huge masses of rubbish which they are pleased to
regard as nests ; but it is not easy to know
what it is that determines the selection of particular
trees or groups of trees. If the first nest or nests
established in a tree be left undisturbed, they are
very apt to form the nucleus of large colonies which
within a short time become very offensive from
their strong smell and from the unsightly accumula-
tions of guano, debris of fish and molluscs, and cast
feathers that disfigure the leaves of the trees and
litter the ground beneath.

During the nesting season the birds waste much
time over awkward and laborious attempts to
detach dead twigs and small branches from neigh-
bouring trees, swaying about on their long, slender
legs and twisting their necks and beaks in a
pathetically patient way in struggles with coveted
fragments that refuse to be torn off. As they
find such difficulty in detaching dead twigs they
never think of attacking living ones, and so do not
do the damage to a garden that crows do when
building. The greater part of their time is passed
in the immediate neighbourhood of water, where
they wade in the weedy shallows fringing ponds

EGRETS, HERONS, ETC. 169

and swamps, or float on rafts of matted vegetation
that often sink so far beneath them as to give them
the appearance of swimming. Sometimes, however,
they venture quite far out over the surface of lawns
or other open grassy spaces abounding in large
insects. In such cases they step about firmly and
comparatively quickly, so long as they are not
stalking any particular victim, but whenever they
sight a desirable insect their gait at once changes,
each leg is alternately and cautiously thrust out
to its full extent and planted gingerly and quietly,
whilst the beak serves as a pointer, extended in
the line of the neck, which is fully retracted until
within striking distance, when it darts out like a
liberated spring.

Cattle-egrets, Bubulcus coromandus,1 are so essen-
tially birds of the open country, where they can escort
the browsing cattle and buffaloes as they brush
through the grass and dislodge the lurking insects,
that it is curious that they should ever be found
in small gardens ; but every now and then a few
of them will take a fancy to come in regularly
day after day for some time to inspect the banks
of ponds in enclosures even in the middle of the
town and surrounded by bustling traffic. Although
seldom seen on the ground there, parties of them
may often be observed from the most crowded
streets, flapping slowly across the upper sky with

1 This bird is somewhat larger than the common paddy-bird, and is
distinguished by its pure white colouring.

170 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

their shining white plumage gleaming out against
its pale blue background as they travel from one to
another of the multitudinous swamps surrounding
the town. The attitudes which they assume when
at rest are often strangely grotesque (Plate XI.).

Various other sorts of herons visit and some-
times permanently settle in the large and quiet
gardens of the suburbs. The commonest of these is
the chestnut bittern, Ardetta cinnamomea, pairs of
which often appear for a few days, flying about
among the trees around ponds and crying aloud to
one another. In large enclosures, such as the
Zoological Garden in Alipur, they sometimes stay
to nest, usually choosing a dense clump of screw-
pines for the site of their building operations. The
Indian reef-heron, Leptorodius asha, that is so
common in the tidal channels of the Sundarbans;
and the little green heron, Butorides javanica, do
not venture close to town nearly so often, but now
and then may be seen in the dusk of evening, fly-
ing about over open grassy spaces. Night-herons,
Nycticorax griseus,1 are to be heard almost every
evening as they pass high overhead in the late
dusk, calling loudly to one another at brief intervals
as they go. They rarely establish a permanent
settlement within the limits of a garden, but when
they do meet with one that suits their fancy they
congregate within it in such numbers as to become
a great nuisance unless there be a very large amount

1 They are larger than cattle-egrets, and much more stoutly built.

Colony of Night-herons at Sunset (p. 171).

Cattle-egrets resting (p. 170).

[To face p. 170,

EGRETS, HERONS, ETC. 171

of space to spare for their accommodation. Not
many years before I left India, a wooded islet in
the Zoological Garden at Alipur was invaded by a
colony as a roosting and nesting site, and, although
the event was at first welcomed as adding a new
and attractive feature to the place, there can be no
question that it was in the end most destructive
to the beauty and amenity of its immediate sur-
roundings. During the first season only a limited
number of birds established themselves, but year
by year more and more made their appearance,
and within a short time all the trees were thickly
tenanted. The aspect presented by the island
towards the end of each breeding season, with all
the trees bending beneath the weight of the nests
and thronged with birds drowsing away the sunlit
hours, was most remarkable. Even more curious was
the sight that presented itself in the evening as the
colony gradually roused up for the night (Plate XI.).
As the sun went down drowsy voices began to be
heard, at first at wide intervals, and then more and
more frequently, until the air was full of the sound.
At the same time signs of unrest began to appear;
birds began to shift about from place to place or
make short flights out over the water ; and as the
dusk deepened they set out, at first in pairs and
small companies and then in a ceaseless stream that
lasted until it was hardly distinguishable in the
growing gloom save by the multitudinous cries of

172 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

"wak, wak," that issued from it. Every now and
then a bird would set out without its mate, and on
finding that it had done so, would return and wheel
round and round over the island, crying aloud
until it was joined, and affording a practical
demonstration of the utility of their habit of con-
stantly calling to and answering one another during
the course of their nocturnal journeys. I do not
know what the history of this colony has been since
the spring of 1897, but even then it had increased
to such an extent as to overflow from its original
place on the island, and invade trees on the banks
of the pond so much as to call for repressive
measures.

In addition to all these residents and casual
visitors of gardens, specimens of the great white
egret, Herodias alba, and occasionally of other large
herons, may now and then be seen " trailing it with
legs and wings " athwart the sky far above the
noisome streets of the town and the densely- wooded
suburbs, as they travel to and fro between their
feedingrgrounds in the endless morasses of the open
country around. All herons are apt to be uncanny
inmates of a mixed aviary, but I have never known
any of them quite so bad as an old male Herodias
alba, who for many years inhabited the Zoological
Garden in Alipur, and who, when in full breeding
plumage and all the glory of snowy plumes and
vividly green cere, was one of the greatest ornaments

EGRETS, HERONS, ETC. 173

of the collection. He was a most inveterate mur-
derer; now and then he would seem to repent of
his misdeeds, but the reformation was temporary,
and presently a new victim would fall before the
attacks of his fatal dagger of a beak. His reputa-
tion at length became so bad that he was kept
either in solitary confinement or only in the com-
pany of other birds, such as cormorants, snake-birds,
or purple-coots, who were quite as ill-conditioned
and almost as formidable as himself.

Wherever there is a quiet pool with reedy
margins and patches of dense cover on the banks,
white-breasted water-hens, Amaurornis phoenicurus,1
are almost always to be found, calling loudly to
one another as they wade in the shallows or pace
over the lawns, jerking their short erected tails
as they go, and in summer and autumn often
followed by their small, black, downy chicks. They
do not limit their walks to the immediate neigh-
bourhood of water, and are often to be seen
stepping about over wide spaces of grass, searching
for insects, and ready on the slightest alarm to
race off to the nearest cover. They look very
smart and alert when seen from a little distance,
stepping lightly about in their shining greenish -
black coats and white waistcoats, but on closer
inspection have a strangely imbecile expression,
owing to the shape and colouring of their heads.
Their nests are placed either in dense masses of

1 They are of very much the same size as common moor-hens.

174 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

vegetation, such as clumps of screw-pines, on the
banks of ponds, or out among the tangled jungle
of reeds, Nymphasas, Nelumbiums, and other aquatic
plants that usually covers so much of the surface
of the water. They are by no means shy birds,
and may often be seen wandering tranquilly around
quite close to groups of native huts, or wading and
swimming among the weeds in a pond populous
with bathers and water-carriers. Captivity appears
to be a very light trial to them, and they seem
to be quite contented in very small enclosures
entirely devoid of any tangled undergrowths like
those which they naturally haunt. Coots, Fulica
atra, are by no means so abundant near Calcutta
as water-hens, usually preferring the conditions
provided by the rice-fields and wide areas of marsh
of the open country ; but they may sometimes be
seen swimming about in the weedy pools of water
that in so many places flank the lines of railway
as they emerge from the town.

Common jacanaV, Metopodius indicus? are rarely
to be met with in gardens ; they are so purely
aquatic in habit as to demand wider spaces of
swamp and weedy water than are ordinarily found
in small enclosures. They may, however, often
be seen in the Botanic Garden at Shibpur, and
used to build regularly every year among the
thick growth of weeds covering the surface of a
large pond close to the superintendent's house.

1 They are nearly of the same size as a common redshank.

EGRETS, HERONS, ETC. 175

It is always a treat to see them, stepping lightly
over the yielding surface of the rafts of floating
weeds, lifting their huge feet, with drooping toes
that look like bundles of twigs, high out of the
water at every step ; and when they are followed
by a troop of sooty, downy fledglings, the picture
becomes even more alluring. They rarely come
to shore, and when crossing from one pond to
another, in place of running over the intervening
space like water-hens, they prefer to fly. They
present an odd appearance on the wing, owing
to the disproportionate size of their feet, which
becomes particularly conspicuous when the legs are
dropped just before the bird pitches on the surface
of the weeds and expands its toes which have
been gathered up into a bundle during flight. A
very rare visitor to the ponds in Calcutta is the
water-pheasant, Hydropliasianus chirurgus, a bird
equally astonishing in appearance and voice, looking
like a demented silver-pheasant as it floats among
the submerged weeds, and makes the air resound
with loud mewing cries.

Every now and then stray specimens of the
little cormorant, Phalacrocorax javanicus, take a
passing fancy for a garden-pond, and haunt the
water and the surrounding trees for a time ; and
more rarely a snake-bird, Plotus melanogaster, makes
its much more interesting appearance. Both birds
sometimes find a pond sufficiently attractive to

176 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDFA1

lead them to make use of it as a permanent place
for roosting and breeding. This, however, is hardly
an event to be desired, even by those who are most
interested in the study of their habits ; for they
are as gregarious as night-herons, and the establish-
ment of one nest is sure to be followed by that
of others in steadily increasing numbers, until the
place is disfigured and rendered intolerable by
accumulations of rubbish and an overpowering
stench of guano and decomposing fish. It is not
easy to make out what particular features in a
place serve to render it attractive as the site of
such a colony. The presence of well- wooded islets
is, doubtless, influential in determining the choice,
but it alone will not suffice. The great system of
ponds in the Botanic Garden contains many wooded
islets, but yet neither night-herons, cormorants, or
snake-birds ever showed any inclination to settle
there during all the years that I was in Calcutta ;
while an island in the Zoological Garden in
Alipur, which is 'much nearer to the town and
far more frequented by visitors, was some years
ago occupied by immense colonies of all three
birds. In this case the place was not invaded for
many years after it had been thickly wooded ; and
when the invasion began, it was not occupied by
all the three kinds of birds at once. For many
years the only species who nested in the island
were a certain number of paddy-birds, common

EGRETS, HERONS, ETC. 177

mynas and sturnopastors ; but in the spring of
1894 it was suddenly invaded by a troop of night-
herons, who adopted it as a roost, and a little
later in the season nested in it. During the
following year they did so in greatly increased
numbers, and remained in undisputed possession; and
it was not until the next season that cormorants
began to appear, at first in small numbers, but
afterwards in such constantly increasing multitudes,
that every available nesting-place seemed to be
fully occupied before any snake-birds came forward
as claimants for accommodation. Such a colony is
a truly remarkable sight during the breeding season,
when all the trees and shrubs are fully tenanted by
birds and bowed down under the weight of the
crowded nests. A continuous performance of " Box
and Cox" goes on for many weeks, as the herons
go out at dusk and return at dawn to drowse out
the daylight hours, during which the other members
of the community are busily fishing.

Various kinds of wild ducks occasionally make
brief halts in garden-ponds during the course of
their autumnal and spring migrations. They seldom
stay for more than a day or two, but, where they
light upon a pond to their liking, they will occa-
sionally make it their head- quarters for a season, and
even return to it year after year. An instance of
such an event occurred in the Zoological Garden
at Alipur, where one of the ponds was, for six or

M

178 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

seven years, regularly tenanted by a widgeon during
the cold-weather months. The bird spent its first
winter as a captive with clipped wings in a tiny
and very dirty pool in the enclosure belonging to
a rhinoceros, but appreciated the security and
abundance of food so highly, that it returned year
after year with such regularity that its appearance
in its winter quarters used to be annually recorded
in the local newspapers along with that of dis-
tinguished cold-weather visitors to Calcutta from
Europe and the various hill stations.

XV

WEAVER-BIRDS, SHRIKES, ETC.

"For here there is a Bird (having its Name from the Tree it
chuses for its Sanctuary, the Toddy Tree) that is not only
exquisitely curious in the artificial Composure of its nest
with Hay, but furnished with Devices and Stratagems to
secure itself and young ones from its deadly Enemy the
Squirrel ; as likewise from the Injury of the Weather."
— Dr JOHN FRYER'S Account of India.

WEAVER-BIRDS, Ploceus baya,1 are not uncommon
around Calcutta, but rarely reside in gardens,
because the tadi-trees that they contain are usually
crowded in among others in a way that prevents
the tips of their great fans from hanging free, and
so renders them less protective sites for the attach-
ment of pensile nests than they are in the case of
isolated trees. The three kinds of trees in which
the nests are most commonly to be found are
tadi-palms, Borassus flabelliformis ; dates, Phoenix
sylvestris ; and babuls, Acacia indica. Of these
the first seems to be the greatest favourite, as,
whilst in parts of the country in which they do
not occur, the other two trees are made use of; in

1 This bird is of the size of a chaffinch.

179

180 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

Calcutta, where all three abound, it is the tadi-trees
that are almost invariably chosen. In them the
nests are hung from the radiant fringes of points
that border the leaves crowning the long, slender
shafts of tall trees; and, owing to their pensile
nature and elevated situation, they must be ex-
ceptionally secure from the attacks of predatory
animals. Towards the beginning of the rainy season
the birds acquire their full breeding plumage, in
which bright yellow tints abound, and a little later
the nests are fully occupied. In the early part in
August, young birds, almost ready to fly, are often
exposed for sale in the bazaars, but, although readily
tamed, they are very undesirable additions to an
aviary containing other kinds of small birds, as
they are very aggressive, and are possessed by a
deeply-rooted desire to hammer in the skulls of
their neighbours, which, as Abdur Rahman in his
autobiography remarks of a Baluchi tribe of similar
disposition, " naturally causes disputes."

Brown shrikes, Lanius cristatus,1 are extremely
common around Calcutta throughout the greater
part of the year, and are conspicuous objects in
the gardens of the suburbs and outskirts of the
town. They come in suddenly and in great numbers
in September, usually during the ten days ranging
from the 12th to the 21st, but occasionally not
until some time in the fourth week. A record of

1 In size they resemble common red-backed shrikes.

WEAVER-BIRDS, SHRIKES, ETC. 181

the dates on which they appeared in twelve separate
years shows that in nine of them they arrived during
the earlier and in three only in the later period.
Their departure seems to take place more gradually.
During the latter half of April their numbers
steadily diminish ; a few linger on into May, but by
the middle of the month all have gone. It is much
easier to ascertain the precise dates of their arrival
and departure than it is in the case of most other
migrants, owing to the noisy way in which they
advertise their presence all the time that they
are resident. On some still muggy morning or
evening in mid- September, when the heat and damp
are enough to make mere existence seem a burthen,
and when it is hard to imagine how any living thing
can hanker after unnecessary exertion, a loud,
imperative chattering suddenly strikes the ear, and
one gladly wakens up to the fact that the brown
shrikes have really arrived, and that the year is
wearing on towards the happy time when stagnant
heat will be replaced by the dry and cool breath
of northerly breezes. Blyth is not strictly correct
in saying that " its harsh chattering affords the
earliest intimation of the advent of the cold weather
in Calcutta," as his audible intimations are preceded
by those of the great autumnal crickets, and its
arrival by that of snipe, and usually of both the
white-faced and the grey wagtail. It is not very
easy to account for the origin of their habit of

182 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

persistently chattering every morning and evening.
Nowadays, at all events, it is clearly not a sexual
call, as it is in full force when the birds arrive in
autumn, many months before the approach of the
breeding season, and continues almost unabated until
they leave for their nesting grounds in the following
summer. It does not seem to be a lure- call. Indeed,
whilst a bird is chattering, he seems to be too much
absorbed in the performance to have any attention
to spare, and, during the course of his busiest
hawking throughout the day, he is usually quite
silent. From the fact that the chattering is par-
ticularly emphatic and frequent both when the bird
first arrives and again towards the time of their
departure, it is possible that the habit may be of
some use in assembling and keeping flocks of them
together before and during migration. However,
the habit may have originated, it is now so deeply
ingrained in their nature that it seems to be im-
possible for the birds to begin or end the day without
indulging in it. When about to do so, they take up
a position on some projecting twig or prominent
point on the top of a shrub or low tree, and there
pour forth a torrent of rasping notes, while all the
time their tails are elevated and in constant motion,
waving about from side to side in a series of sweep-
ing curves, so that they seem to be actually rotated.

Besides this chattering call they sometimes utter
another and very distinct one. This is of a loudly

WEAVER-BIRDS, SHRIKES, ETC. 183

screaming nature, and is very like that of a common
bulbul when in great terror and distress. From its
character it may well be a lure- call adapted to
attract small birds into convenient striking-distance ;
for, although their usual prey consists of insects and
small reptiles or batrachians, they sometimes do hawk
at birds. I have seen one that was seated on a rail
overlooking an open space of grass make a fierce
dash at a wagtail, Motacilla borealis, that rose from
the ground as I approached, and, though he failed
to secure his prey, the vicious and audible snap
of his bill seemed to indicate clearly that he meant
business. They do not seem very often to impale
their victims, probably because these are usually easily
broken up ; but when they have secured a lizard
they sometimes fix it down on a stout thorn so as
to have a point of resistance whilst working at the
hard, tough skin. The times of their arrival in
early autumn, and departure in late spring, seem
to indicate that their nesting takes place either at
no great distance, or else in some highly elevated
or far northern land. Their plumage is very quietly
coloured as compared with that of many of their
relatives, but its subdued brown tints come out
very effectively amongst masses of deep green foliage,
and, like all true shrikes, they have a very alert,
intelligent look. They begin to call with the earliest
dawn, and continue to do so in the evening far on
into the deepest dusk, and long after the bats are

184 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

whirling and sweeping around in myriads. They
are the only true shrikes that are habitual residents
of Calcutta, but Lanius nigriceps occurs so abun-
dantly in winter in the Sundarbans that stray
specimens must almost certainly now and then
visit the gardens of the suburbs.

The large cuckoo-shrike, Graucalus macii,1 is not
uncommon, especially during the latter part of
winter, generally making its appearance in pairs
that work their way methodically about over trees,
prying carefully under the leaves, and passing from
one hunting-ground to another with leaping flight
and shrill cries. Now and then, too, a garden will
be temporarily adorned by specimens of the large
scarlet minivet, Pericrocotus speciosus,2 but these are
not at all common, and when they do occur it is
almost always in the form of solitary males or
females, and never in the large parties that are so
often to be met with in other parts of India. The
males especially are truly splendid objects ; and the
picture presented by one of them in the hills, seated
on the top of a tree on a steep slope, with all the
glowing scarlet of his plumage projected against
wreaths of snowy white mist steaming up from
the depths of the gorge below, is one that cannot
easily be forgotten.

It is grievous to think that in England any rare

1 It is rather larger than the great grey shrike of Europe.

2 This hird is nearly of the same size as a song-thrush.

WEAVER-BIRDS, SHRIKES, ETC. 185

or beautiful bird that may chance to visit the country
is sure to be almost immediately slaughtered by some
ruffian with a gun; and that English gardens are
thus deprived of the amenity that they might other-
wise gain from the occasional presence of orioles.
The mere remembrance of the grace of their leaping
flight as they pass in and out among the trees,
gleaming in golden plumage and calling to one
another "in full-throated ease," is enough to make
the returned Anglo-Indian rejoice that his life was,
at one time, passed in a land where it was possible
to meet with such beauty, and to make him feel
that some climatic evils are far more than made
good by their attendant blessings.

All gardens in and around Calcutta, so long as
they contain a few well-grown trees, are sure to be
frequently visited by black-headed orioles, Oriolus
melanocephalus (Plate VII.), who, although rarely
nesting within urban or suburban limits, show that
they are natives of the immediate neighbourhood by
appearing at every time of year and in all stages of
feathering. It would be hard to imagine any plumage
more beautiful than that of the mature male birds
with its brilliant contrasts of vivid yellow and shining
black ; and though that of the females and young
birds is not so striking, owing to the greenish tone
and streakiness of the yellow parts, it has very
decided beauties of its own in its delicate gradations
and pencillings of colour. They have a truly

186 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

astonishing variety of notes, almost all of them
charmingly melodious in character. As a rule,
they go about in pairs, who pass from tree to
tree " crying and calling " to one another at brief
intervals. When they are in their very fullest voice
the one bird cries, " Yu, hu a yu," and the other
almost immediately replies, " Tu hu ee " ; when very
much out of voice they often can do no more than
cry "Te hee," like Alisoun in the Millers Tale;
and between these extremes there is a whole range
of very distinct calls that only agree in conveying
a sense of joy and fulness of life and melodious
contentment with it. All of these are highly
characteristic and distinct from the notes of any
other kinds of birds, save one or two of the most
fluty cries of the common tree-pies. It is delightful
to see any living things so full of the pure joy of
existence as a pair of orioles always seem to be
when they come leaping through the air into a
garden, calling as they go ; or, after they have
alighted in a tree, chasing one another about from
bough to bough with their golden plumage shining
out among the surrounding green. Now and then
a solitary bird will take to haunting a garden for
a time, making its appearance regularly day after
day at a particular time, in order to visit certain
trees and talk softly to itself as it goes on its
way ; but it is only when in pairs, or in a small
family party of three or four birds, such as may

WEAVER-BIRDS, SHRIKES, ETC. 187

sometimes be seen soon after the nesting season,
that they fill the air " with their sweet jargoning."
The solitary birds occasionally seem to be soured
by the want of companionship, and travel round
hustling other birds and knocking them off their
perches out of gratuitous ill-temper — conduct of
which paired birds are never guilty. In addition
to the manifold modifications of their regular
melodious calls, they sometimes utter harshly caw-
ing notes, and the young birds for a time indulge
in churring cries somewhat like those of starlings.
Orioles, as a rule, do not stand captivity well, for,
though strangely tame when first taken, and usually
ready to feed from the hand, they seldom survive
for any length of time after being caged, probably
owing to want of sufficient variety in their food,
which, under natural conditions, is of a very varied
character. The maroon oriole, Oriolus traillii, seems
to be an exception to this rule, as on several
occasions specimens of it have remained in excellent
health for a long time in the aviaries of the Zoo-
logical Garden at Alipur.

In all well-wooded gardens those Ishmaelites,
the common tree-pies, Dendrocitta rufa,1 are for
ever wandering around in search of what they can
devour, and calling to one another in a wonderful
variety of notes. The commonest and most
melodious of these consists of the three syllables

1 They are nearly of the same size as a common English magpie.

188 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

" ku ku kee," repeated at intervals of about half a
minute's duration, but often it is somewhat modified,
and then they will cry, " Kee ku kuku," or " Kuku
kee," with great emphasis on the final syllable, or
" Kuku kee ku," or one of a pair will go on saying,
" Kee ku," while the other replies, " Kya kya kyuk."
The last of these calls has not the fluty character
of the previous ones, and forms a sort of transition
towards the hoarsely chattering volleys of sound in
which they often indulge, more especially when
startled or fleeing before the attacks of other birds.
Besides all these calls they have a whole range of
low-toned notes that fill all the intervals between
the fits of loud chattering with which a family party
enlivens its prying progress from tree to tree. One
of the commonest of these conversational notes
consists of the syllables " chaek chaek," repeated in
subdued tones and varied intonation.

The number of them to be met with in a garden
varies greatly at different times of year, and even
from day to day. Sometimes for several days a
garden will seem to be full of them, so constantly do
their various calls resound ; and other periods occur
during which they are only seen and heard at wide
intervals. The time of year in which they usually
appear in largest number is the rainy season, when
they are going about in little family parties, con-
sisting of a pair of old birds and two or three young
ones, who are readily distinguished from their parents

WEAVER-BIRDS, SHRIKES, ETC. 189

by the relative shortness of their tail-feathers. They
are often curiously methodical as to the time of their
visits and the order in which they inspect the
different parts of the garden. During one spring
a solitary bird used to make a tour every morning
shortly after dawn along the upper verandah of
the superintendent's house at the Botanic Garden.
He always came in at the eastern end of the
verandah, and lighted sideways on an iron-rod that
supported the cage of a piping-crow. Thence he
flew up to the cornice beneath the beams of the
roofs, and worked his way along it, searching care-
fully for spiders in all the crevices as he went, until
he arrived at the western end, from which he flew
out with a loud call into a great casuarina on the
river-band. They are usually very abundant in the
Botanic Garden, and this may be one reason why so
few small birds nest there in spite of the abundant
cover and the quietness of the locality.

Tree-pies are always on the outlook for plunder,
and may often be seen flying about with stolen eggs
in their bills. It is small wonder, therefore, that
most of their neighbours regard them with extreme
disfavour. Almost all the common birds of gardens
are ready to attack them, but perhaps their most
inveterate enemies are the spotted doves, who are
at once on the war-path whenever a tree-pie makes
his appearance, and pursue him about relentlessly,
pecking and buffeting until they have driven him

190 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

out of their domain. The exceptionally conspicuous
and defenceless nature of their nests, and the fact that
eggs and young birds are to be found in them at all
times of year are very sufficient reasons why doves
should show a special animosity to such marauders.

Tree-pies have a somewhat laboured and strangely
noisy flight, but when once fairly on the wing pre-
sent a quaint and attractive likeness to the pheasants
that so often enliven the backgrounds in Pintur-
icchio's frescoes. Owing to the distribution of the
colouring, and the relative sparseness of the webbing
of the basal part of the feathers, the tail of a bird
seen on the wing at a little distance often looks as
though it were racketed. As might be expected
of birds of such generally depraved habits, they
are constant and riotous participants in the drinking
bouts attending the flowering of the silk-cotton-
trees. They are not nearly so easily tamed as the
common European magpie, even in cases where
they have been taken quite young. An old bird,
that was for long one of the inmates of an aviary,
never showed any signs of becoming at all familiar,
and to the end of his captivity always got into a
great fluster and dashed wildly about whenever
any one approached his prison. In this persistent
wildness they are very unlike the common blue
Himalayan magpies, who are very readily tamed, and
then show all the charmingly eldritch tricks of
European magpies in captivity.

XVI

SPARROWS, WAGTAILS, AND PIPITS

"As faint as feeble twitters
Of sparrows, heard in dreams."

— ANDREW LANG.

IF we live in a large town either in Europe or in
India, sparrows, like the poor, are always with us.
There are, however, certain characters in tropical
sparrows that are correlated with their environment,
and are unfamiliar to any one whose experience has
been confined to temperate regions. The Indian
house-sparrow has now been degraded from
independent specific rank, and is regarded as a
mere race of the common Passer domesticus ; but
there can be no question that, to the superficial
observer, the bird shows some very distinctive
features, especially in its colouring. This is much
richer and less dingy than in the European bird,
whose feathering has none of the slatey and almost
blue tints that ornament that of male Indian
sparrows. European sparrows are audacious and
impertinent enough, as every one knows ; but houses

192 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

in India are so constructed as to allow of birds of an
intrusive disposition asserting themselves in a way
that is unknown in European and specially in
Northern European regions. In the British Islands,
sparrows, however much they may abound and
appropriate outbuildings, very rarely venture to
invade the interior of inhabited houses, and,
when they do so, are usually a source of annoyance
rather on account of their terror and insensate
attempts at escape, than from any disposition to
maintain their ground. In India matters are very
different. The numerous doors and windows almost
always standing widely open afford easy ingress
and egress; and the large and lofty rooms,
with their heavy projecting cornices and open
roofs traversed by cross beams, at the ends of which
chinks and cavities abound, provide such store of
convenient hiding- and nesting-places that it would
be strange indeed were birds like sparrows not to avail
themselves of them. Take full advantage of them
they certainly do ; and on entering a house in which
they have been allowed to establish themselves, it
is only to find oneself regarded as a troublesome
intruder whose impertinence merits the noisiest
expression of resentment. In such cases it often
takes months of patient struggle to abate the
nuisance. The contention reaches its height when
the right of the lodgers to nest and rear young
families on the premises comes into question.

SPARROWS, WAGTAILS, AND PIPITS 193

Nothing short of personal experience can enable
any one to realise the difficulty there is in convincing
a pair of sparrows that they are not to be allowed
to do so. Again and again one may spend a weary
half-hour chasing a scolding, chattering bird round
and round the room, driving it from the cornice to
the punkha-frame and back, until at last it is driven
to take refuge in some almost inaccessible fast-
ness in the former. Nothing short of a flaming
torch of paper attached to the end of a long billiard-
cue or a fishing-rod will then suffice to expel it,
and, if at length success crown your efforts and the
bird flies cursing from the room, the respite is but
brief, as either it or its mate is sure to be back again
almost at once, scolding away as madly as ever.
Should the birds be allowed to gain the day, a
period of relative peace ensues while building,
hatching, and rearing are going on, so that it would
almost seem to be a waste of eflbrt to interfere with
the establishment of a nest. Any such dream is,
however, rudely dissipated when the young birds are
ready to leave their nursery, and the old ones, in a
frenzy of parental anxiety, furiously resent the pre-
sence of any one in the room, and fill the air with an
insistent and ear-splitting torrent of bad language.
In these circumstances hatred to sparrows rises to
a pitch that almost equals that of one's wonted
animosity to crows, and even a tender-hearted man
is driven to murderous measures. A long driving-

N

194 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

whip forms a most efficient weapon, especially when
aided by a sporting terrier, ready to pounce on any
bird who falls to the ground, and whose joy in doing
so tempers one's regret at being so merciless. Violent
measures of this kind abate the nuisance for a time,
but the only efficient remedy lies in closing all the
windows and the openings of verandahs with wire-
netting of a mesh fine enough to offer an obstacle to
free passage in full flight, since the mere fact of the
network being present is quite enough to render
most birds, unless endowed, like mynas, with a
fearlessness based on conscious merit, very cautious
of venturing within any space bounded by it.

In their other habits Indian sparrows are just
as irritating as their European relatives. Like
them they persist in keeping up an intolerable
chattering conversation long after they have retired
to roost, and like them they are exasperatingly un-
grateful and quite unable to appreciate any kind-
ness that may be wasted on them. Any one who
has been in the habit of continuously feeding wild
birds must be well' aware of the way in which the
ungracious habits of sparrows come to get upon
the nerves, and become a very leaven of animosity.
All other birds, even crows, understand kindness.
When a regular store of food is offered to them
they may come to consider that a right has been
established, and may even imperatively demand
their dole at the wonted hour, but they quite

SPARROWS, WAGTAILS, AND PIPITS 195

recognise the friendly nature of the transaction.
But to feed sparrows is to "throw pearls before
swine," for, no matter how long and regularly
they may have been cared for, they never cease
to regard the acquisition of a meal as a theft
successfully carried out by their own slimness and
at the expense of the donor's imbecility.

Like so many other gregarious animals in India,
sparrows seem to be occasionally subject to destruc-
tive epidemics, causing a large, though temporary
reduction in their numbers. The town and suburbs
of Calcutta are usually peopled by throngs of
sparrows ; but in the years 1895-6 they fell away
greatly in numbers, and were, for a time, so rare
that, even when carefully looked for, it was only
at wide intervals that one or two were to be met
with during the course of long walks and drives
through their favourite haunts. Before I left the
locality in the spring of 1897, a perceptible increase
had taken place in their numbers, and at the
present time they are probably as abundant and
annoying as in earlier years.

On some morning in the early half of September
the ear will be greeted by certain small keen notes
that have not been heard for many months, and
you will know that the common wagtails have
returned for the season. Two species, the white-
faced, Motacilla leucopsis, and the grey, M. melanope,
are for many months constantly to be met with

196 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

on the walks and lawns of suburban gardens, and
may even now and then be seen in crowded
thoroughfares within the town. They arrive almost
simultaneously, sometimes one, sometimes the other
making its appearance first, but the grey bird on
an average a little the earlier. There are few
birds of more refined elegance than specimens of
Motacilla melanope in good plumage. They are
not, indeed, so surprisingly lovely as the Enicuri
that are to be seen on the mossy paths and the
beds of streams in the outer Himalaya, looking
as though they were always freshly dressed in
new suits of black and white velvet; but their
form is wonderful in its delicate slimness, the tints
of grey, white, and yellow in their feathering
harmonise in special and quiet beauty, and the
easy lightness of their gait, as they step and run
along the ground or suddenly dart forwards in
pursuit of insects, is a perfect lesson in deport-
ment. Then they are so alluringly tame, merely
running on in front of one and expostulating at
being disturbed ; and, if persistently followed along
a narrow path, making off on a brief, undulating-
flight to pitch anew a little way ahead in a way
that gives one the fullest opportunity of becoming
familiar with them. They seem to be very faith-
ful in their matrimonial arrangements, as, during
the whole time of their stay, they are almost
invariably to be found going about in pairs.

SPARROWS, WAGTAILS, AND PIPITS 197

The white-faced wagtails are hardly so attractive,
being commoner and coarser in appearance, and not
nearly so daintily refined in their ways. Although
they are much oftener to be met with close to
houses, they are not by any means so tame as
the grey birds, and when disturbed fly off at
once, uttering loud, shrill notes of alarm.

Until comparatively recent years, Motacilla
borealis used to be a winter resident of Calcutta
in much larger numbers than either of the wagtails
just named. Up to the year 1881, immense flocks
of them were always to be found on the open plain
surrounding Fort William ; but after that time
they began to become less and less abundant every
successive season, and during the earlier part of the
following decade, only a few stray birds were to
be seen. These great assemblies took place in
autumn and spring immediately after the southern
and before the northern migration, but during the
whole course of winter considerable numbers of
birds were always to be met with. At first sight
it seems somewhat hard to account for the almost
complete desertion of the locality during recent
years, seeing that no buildings have been allowed
to encroach upon it, and that it retains most of its
principal characteristics. The fact is probably to
be ascribed to the diminished supply of insect-food
resulting from modern improvements in surface
drainage, and to the great increase of traffic brought

198 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

about by the excessive popularity of golf among
the European residents of Calcutta, and the general
adoption of cricket and football by the native
population. That the latter factor has really had
some influence is rendered probable by the fact
that, during the same period in which the birds
deserted the locality, foxes and otters, both of
which were regular residents there, almost entirely
disappeared. Be that as it may, the absence of
the birds is a matter for regret, as they are very
ornamental objects, especially when in full breeding
plumage, which many of them assume before taking
flight in April. Brilliantly coloured as they then
are, they are quite surpassed in splendour by the
two yellow wagtails, Motacilla citreola and M.
citreoloides, stray specimens of which used often to
be found associated with them, especially just before
the spring migration and after the assumption of
nuptial plumage.

The only other members of this family that
occur abundantly jn the gardens of Calcutta are
the Indian tree-pipit, Anthus maculatus, and the
Indian tit-lark, A. rufulus. The tree-pipit is only
a passing visitor, making its appearance usually in
small flocks, among the very earliest of autumnal
immigrants and remaining in considerable numbers
until the succeeding hot weather has fairly set in ;
but the tit-lark is a permanent resident. When
the tree-pipits first arrive they are usually in fine

Iii an Indian Garden.

[To face p. 198.

SPARROWS, WAGTAILS, AND PIPITS 199

plumage and brightly marked, but they gradually
become much less ornamental during their stay.
They frequent garden walks, stepping about over
them very much as wagtails do, but on the
slightest alarm take flight to the nearest trees, and
there walk about along the branches in a way that
wagtails seldom or never do. All the time that
they are on the ground and whilst pacing on the
branches they keep their tails in constant rocking
motion, and on preparing to take flight they have
a strange habit of swaying themselves about for
a time. When alarmed or anxious they go on
repeating a peculiar highly-pitched note at brief
intervals.

Anthus rufulus thoroughly merits the name
Jerdon gives to it of "the Indian tit-lark," for it
is singularly lark-like both in appearance and ways.
It is sure to be found in almost every garden
containing open spaces in which the grass is kept
down by grazing, or is only mown at comparatively
wide intervals. In the old days, when the grass
in the Botanic Garden at Shibpur was allowed to
run wild, tit-larks, together with small button-quails,
Turnix dussumieri, used to haunt the place in great
numbers; but with the increased regard for horti-
cultural amenity that marked the management of
the late superintendent, Sir George King, both
birds gradually appeared in diminishing numbers,
and are now rarely to be seen within the limits of

200 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

the garden. Where suitable grass-land is present
tit-larks begin to frequent it in large numbers at
the onset of the hot weather in spring, and are
very soon busily engaged in building their nests
under strong tufts of grass, or beneath projecting
clods or other objects affording special shelter.
Though one may feel quite sure that a nest is
being built, it is by no means an easy matter to
find it, owing to the extreme precautions that the
owners take in nearing it. By the help of a field
glass it is easy enough to mark down the places
at which the birds alight in coming in, but this
by no means determines the exact site of the
nest, as they never go directly to it, but always
pitch at some distance, and then creep quietly
onwards through the long grass. The best plan is
to watch the birds carefully as they alight, and, if
possible, note the direction in which they move
on ; then to walk rapidly up to the point, keeping
the eyes fixed upon it while doing so in order to
avoid the confusion arising from the uniformity of
the grassy surface ; and finally to examine carefully
and methodically all the strongest tufts of grass
or other likely objects within a certain radius.
By following this procedure the nest may some-
times be found almost at once, but the discovery
is oftener a work of much time and patient search.
The nests are deeply cup-shaped hollows set in
beneath overarching blades of grass or other pro-

SPARROWS, WAGTAILS, AND PIPITS 201

tective objects, and seem, so far as their foundation
goes, to be either natural hollows or depressions
in the soil that have been somewhat deepened
by the birds. The only structural elements in
them are a thin lining of dried grass, and some-
times a certain number of blades loosely inter-
woven over the entrance so as to render it even
less conspicuous than it otherwise would be. After
the first brood has been sent out into the world,
the old birds begin pairing afresh, and during the
latter half of May are constantly to be seen flirting
and chasing one another about from place to place,
showing the white colour of their lateral tail-feathers
very conspicuously as they do so.

One of the most curious points about their
nesting operations is that so large a number of
young birds should survive. In all the lower part
of the Gangetic delta, sudden and furious storms of
thunder, wind, and rain are of frequent occurrence
during the whole period in which the first set of
nests are occupied; and the rainfall, although
usually of brief duration, is often violent enough
to cause temporary flooding of the low-lying tracts
of land in which the nests are ordinarily placed.
In spite of this the young birds seem usually to
come off scatheless, and on going to examine a nest
that by all apparent right should have been flooded
only a short time before, one generally finds all
its little mouse-coloured, downy inmates safe and

202 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

dry. It would seem either that the sites of the
nests are craftily selected in local elevations, or that
the parent birds sit with extreme devotion whilst a
deluge lasts ; but, be the cause what it may, there
can be no doubt that disaster rarely overtakes the
young birds. Accidents must, however, sometimes
take place, and it is perhaps in connection with
the liability to this that the habit of rearing a second
brood has been so highly developed in the species.
After the young birds are hatched out it becomes
much easier to find the nests, as, in spite of the
rapid increase in the growth of the grass resulting
from frequent showers, the visits of the owners in
coming and going for supplies of food more than
make up for the greater density of the cover.

XVII

OWLS

" Then nightly sings the staring-owl,

Tu-whit ;
Tu-who, a merry note."

— Love's Labour Lost.

" Disquiet yourself not ;
'Tis nothing but a little downy owl."

—SHELLEY.

"The cue-owls speak the name we call them by."

— BROWNING.

OWLS are constantly in evidence in an Indian garden.
Each dawn and dusk is heralded by the noisy chat-
tering of the little spotted owlets, Athene brama;
during a great part of the year the mild note of the
scops-owl sounds out of the darkness of every quiet
night wherever trees abound ; and at intervals one is
startled by the sudden shrieking outcry of barn-owls
as they hawk about over the lawns and other open
spaces. With an experience limited to the British
Islands, where at best owls of any kind are relatively
rare, it would be hard to imagine that any of them

203

204 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

can abound to the degree that Athene brama does
in Indian gardens. Almost every tree, such as an
old mango, banyan, or Poinciana regia, containing
convenient caverns passing inwards from points
where branches have fallen and fungi have softened
and excavated the tissues, is inhabited by them and
is often the site of a regular colony. It is in retreats
of this kind that they usually prefer to spend the
daylit hours, but they may sometimes be found
established among the beams of an open-roofed
verandah, though they certainly are not so fond
of such a site as barn-owls are. As a rule, they
spend the whole day in their fastnesses ; but they
are by no means so purely nocturnal in activity as
most other owls are, and may often be seen flying
about in the full blaze of tropical sunshine, apparently
quite at their ease and undazzled by the glare.
One bird for a time chose to spend his days in the
crown of a common date-palm at the side of my
garden ; and I have seen a pair of them flying about
and quarrelling fiergely over a glaring highroad near
Delhi, in the full blaze of the early afternoon of an
April day, and when the hot wind was raging like
the blast from an oven. When they do venture out
in full daylight they are, like other owls, very liable
to the attack of miscellaneous mobs of small birds ;
but, owing to the relative strength of their diurnal
vision, they are not nearly such helpless victims
as most of their relatives are in like circumstances.

OWLS 205

A pair of them, who had taken up their quarters
in the roof of a thatched bungalow in Ambala, used
always to fly out during the day if any one lingered
about in the immediate neighbourhood of their
roost, and were forthwith pursued by a crowd of
shrikes, brown-backed robins, king-crows, sparrows,
and hoopoes ; but they seemed to deal with the
occurrence in a very composed fashion, and to
regard it quite as a matter of course. Just at sun-
down they come out of their lurking-places, and
take up a position on some dead branch or other
exposed point near their caves and overlooking an
open space. It is most diverting to watch them
emerging; one after another, before fairly coming
out, putting forth its queer little round head and
staring eyes through the opening of the cavern.
After they have emerged they usually sit very
quietly for a time as though only half awake, and
are either perfectly silent or occasionally utter a low-
toned " chirrk." Then, all of a sudden, they begin
to chuckle and finally break out into a perfect torrent
of hoarse chattering ; and finally, after having in-
dulged in such exercises for some minutes, they
spread their short, rounded wings and sail off to
their night's hunting. During the course of the
night they are usually very silent, only now and
then one of them will be moved to chatter loudly ;
but at dawn, and just before retiring for the day,
they once again chatter noisily. All through the

206 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

afternoon, and long before it is time for them to
come out, low chuckling notes may often be heard
issuing from trees in which a colony is concealed,
but it is rarely that any of their louder outcries
are to be heard until evening. When, however, a
storm comes up during the afternoon, bringing with
it an accumulation of cloud dense enough to cause
considerable gloom, they are often deluded into
the belief that it is time for them to be stirring
and begin to come out and even to chatter
long before their regular hour. During periods of
excessive and continuous rain their evening concerts
entirely cease, either because they do not venture to
come out at all in such circumstances, or because
they are too much depressed by them to have the
heart to talk. During the time, too, when they
are most fully occupied in attending to the wants
of their young ones they are comparatively silent,
either on purpose to avoid attracting attention to
their nesting-places, or because they have no time
to waste on idle gossip.

They are apt to resent the presence of any
diurnal birds who may have been tempted to linger
abroad after dusk has set in, and may often be
seen making violent assaults on king- crows, who
are specially apt to keep late hours on occasions
when attractive insect-food abounds, and who,
judging by the tame way in which they submit
to be hustled, are quite aware that they have no

OWLS 207

business to be there, "to come and spoil the fun."
Like most other owls they show their displeasure
at having their privacy invaded by a series of
grotesque gestures and genuflections, apparently
with a view to terrifying the intruder ; and there is
something wonderfully comic in such a performance
carried out by such pigmies as they are. Should
you suddenly come across one that has elected to
remain abroad during the day, or that has just come
out for the night, and venture to stop to watch
him, he will first sit up very erect and then suddenly
crouch down, frowning and glaring in a terrible
way, and, should this hint be disregarded, follow it
up by a series of little dashes forward and querulous
cries of " tchu hee ugh." When they spend the
day in the open you may hear them croaking away
softly to one another all through the afternoon,
until the time comes for breaking out into noisy
conversation. Now and then one of them will
venture into a lighted room, attracted by the insects
that throng round the lamps, and sometimes on
awaking in the darkness you may become aware
of the hushed sound of one flying round your bed
in pursuit of moths ; or in the morning may find
evidence of their nocturnal visits in the form of
scattered wings and other insect debris strewn
about over the floor. When they do enter a room
they show no sense of wrong-doing, and are in no
hurry to take their departure. Once on going up

208 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

to my bedroom late at night 1 found it already
tenanted by an owlet who could by no means be
induced to take himself off, although all the doors
and windows were widely open, and he received very
distinct indications that his absence was desired.
He was not in the least flurried, and indeed made
it very plain that he regarded me as the real intruder,
only responding to my attempts to drive him out by
flying from one perch to another on the tops of the
doors, window-sashes, and frame of the mosquito-
net, and thence making insulting and terrifying
gestures at me. So fully determined was he to
remain, that at length I was fain to go to bed,
leaving him in peaceable possession to stay as long
as he liked. Whilst hawking after moths they
sometimes hover in a curious way, and they will
often come to the ground and hunt about over the
grass, squabbling and chattering in competition over
specially desirable articles of food. Their flight in
passing from one hunting-ground to another is of
a very distinctive and curiously undulating character,
in which flapping strokes in quick succession alternate
with leaping swoops on widely spread, rounded
wings. They are very awkward in their attempts
at alighting on slender branches ; clutching at them,
fluttering their wings, and often falling back to hang
struggling for some time before they can regain the
erect position.

Both the common European scops-owl, Scops gin.

OWLS 209

and the collared species, S. bakkamana, doubtless
occur in the neighbourhood of Calcutta ; but, judging
from the character of the call that is usually heard,
and from the size of the birds that are occasionally
seen, it is the former species that is by far the
commoner one in the densely-wooded enclosures
of the suburbs and outskirts of the town. Its
peculiar, short, sudden, mild monosyllabic cry,
a rapidly uttered "thu," sounding out at regular
intervals of about ten seconds from the midst of
dense masses of foliage, may be heard almost every
quiet night during the greater part of the year.
During the hot-weather months, or, in other words,
from the beginning of March to the middle of June,
it is rarely heard; but with the onset of the rainy
season it becomes audible in steadily increasing
frequency, and continues to form one of the most
characteristic night-sounds until the arrival of the
following spring. They are wonderfully beautiful
little birds, looking as though they were made out
of the softest grey and brown plush ; and are
strangely unlike the spotted owlets in their habits,
never venturing abroad in daylight or indulging in
noisy conversation, and being so shy, that it is
only by some happy chance that even a passing
glimpse of them is caught as they fly from one
dense covert to another. Only once, during the
course of nearly thirty years' observation, did I
really have a good view of one in the open. It

o

210 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

was on one of those still nights in autumn, when
swarms of minute, green, homopterous insects-
the so-called " green bugs " of Anglo-Indians — issue
forth in their thousands to throng around all the
wayside lamps. I was passing along one of the
suburban roads at a late hour, and just as I came
to a point at which there was a lamp overhung
by heavy masses of boughs, a scops suddenly
emerged from the latter and flew down to the
cross-bar beneath the lantern, in order to partake
of the feast provided by the insects crowding
round the glass. Once again I succeeded in
coming to close quarters with one in my garden ;
but, although I could see it once or twice as it
crossed from one tree to another, the gloom was
too great to allow of any distinct view of the
details of its plumage. When my attention was
first attracted to its presence, it was calling in a
shrub of Diospyros, and when this was approached
it flew over into a neighbouring tree of Lager-
strcemia, looking as it went like a small Athene
brama. When followed to its second perch, it
could be dimly seen amid the somewhat sparse
foliage of the tree, and, on being closely approached,
it ceased to call in the wonted fashion, and began
to cry aloud so like a young kitten that the terrier
who was with me was completely taken in by the
sound, and began an excited investigation of the
ground beneath the tree.

OWLS 211

Every one who has been in the way of sleeping
in a verandah during the greater part of the year,
and of taking the chances of the nocturnal tempera-
ture there rather than trusting to the capricious and
fitful attentions of a pankhawala, must know the
sensation of being suddenly aroused by a loud and
doleful shriek, that leaves one for a time uncertain
whether it be part of a dream or of objective
origin. If, however, one be used to the sounds
of an Indian night it does not take long to realise
that it was the cry of a common screech- or
barn-owl, Strix flammea, as he passed by in the
course of his nightly wanderings. They are very
abundant in the town and suburbs of Calcutta,
those of them who spend the day within urban
limits usually taking up their quarters in buildings,
in the broad cornices in the interior of verandahs,
in quiet nooks under the wooden sun-shades over-
hanging windows, in church-towers, and in ruinous
or deserted houses. Those that inhabit the suburbs
sometimes act alike, but generally prefer the shelter
afforded by dense masses of vegetation, such as
those provided by thick clumps of canes or
rampant growths of creepers. Quite a large colony
of them used to occupy the great tufts of Nipa
that fringed the island in the large pond close to
the superintendent's house in the Botanic Garden ;
and it was always interesting to watch them coming
out in the evening; one great bird after another

COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

emerging gravely from beneath the overarching
fronds and then sailing off through the dusk on
its nightly rounds.

Indian barn-owls, like their European relatives,
are very intolerant of light, and therefore are
later in coming out for the night than the spotted
owlets ; for the same reason, when disturbed during
daylight from their lurking-places, they are help-
less and bewildered victims of the mobs of small
birds who at once set upon them. When they
have once made up their minds that a shady
verandah or other quiet nook about a house affords
desirable quarters for the day, they become very
familiar, and it is often no easy matter to
dislodge them, though this sometimes has to be
done in order to pacify the minds of the native
servants, who have as great an objection to the
presence of an owl about a house as their English
compeers have to that of a robin, on the theory
that it is of evil omen. This prejudice is so deeply
rooted that it is hard to protect any stray owl,
who may have lingered abroad too long in the
morning, and been driven to take refuge in a
verandah, from being at once turned out instead
of being left in peace until the succeeding evening.
Many years ago, when some of us started a
chummery in a house in the suburbs that had
stood empty for some time, we found a barn-owl
already in possession. He had established his

OWLS

head-quarters over a retreating angle of the cornice
of the upper verandah, and there he sat all day
long, snoring and solemnly blinking, except when
he roused himself up to make terrifying gestures
at any one who paused to look at him in passing.
The servants, of course, clamoured for his immediate
eviction; but this I at first would not hear of, as
he was a most amusing member of the establish-
ment, and beyond creating a certain amount of
mess in the verandah immediately beneath his
residence, did not seem likely to cause any real
annoyance to anybody. Their wishes, however,
were soon gratified. We had hardly been well
settled in the house before one of our chums,
whose bedroom-doors opened on the verandah
immediately opposite the owl's residence, came
down to breakfast one morning declaring that
either he or the bird must leave the house. The
reason for this startling resolution was that, during
the previous night, the owl had not only disturbed
his slumbers by a persistent pursuit of moths
within his room, but, as though to add insult to
injury, had also alighted on the frame of his
mosquito-net and screamed at him as he lay in
bed.

Barn-owls have no regular times for calling like
the spotted owlets, though they often shriek just
after coming out for the night. It is not easy to
see what purpose can be served by their habit of

COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

occasionally screaming at irregular intervals all
through the night, when their time ought to be
fully taken up in hunting for prey.

The brown fish-owl, Ketupa zeylonensis, may now
and then be seen or heard in suburban gardens con-
taining large ponds, but, unlike the barn-owl, the
spotted owlet and the scops, it is not usually
a regular resident in them. None of the Indian
owls that I have been acquainted with are
nearly so attractive in captivity as the European
tawny owl often is ; or, as a truly lovable rock-
owl, hailing, as far as memory serves me, from
Africa, and who was for a time an inmate of the
Zoological Garden at Alipur. He was a delightful
bird, and used to come squeezing close up to the
bars of his cage in order to have his head stroked,
and to confide many things to one in a low-toned,
gentle flow of conversation. Fish-owls and spotted
owlets are usually very savage when first captured,
and sulky and uninteresting afterwards; the barn-
owls do nothing but drowse solemnly all day long,
or hiss and grimace viciously when disturbed ; and
scops-owls, although most attractive and decorative
in the soft beauty of their plumage, seldom survive
captivity long enough to give one a fair chance of
becoming really intimate with them.

XVIII

PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS

" He's green, with an enchanting tuft ;

He melts me with his small black eye :
He'd look inimitable stuffed,
And knows it — but he will not die."

— Fly Leaves.

" Straightway he knew the voice of all fowls and heard withal how
the woodpeckers chattered in the brake beside him."

— The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs.

PARROTS — " common green parrots " — Palceornis
torquatus, the rose-ringed paroquet of ornithologists,
are, in many parts of India, as well and justifiably
detested as crows and sparrows are everywhere by
all right-thinking persons; but in the immediate
neighbourhood of Calcutta they are comparatively
rare, and are consequently rather admired for their
good-looks than hated for their noisy and mischievous
habits. In places where they devastate gardens and
fields, ruin the thatch of roofs by burrowing in its
thickness, and are for ever storming about in shrieking
multitudes, it is hardly to be wondered at that their

315

216 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

beauty of form and plumage and the quaint attrac-
tiveness of many of their ways — points which strike
one forcibly when they are met with only as casual
visitors and in relatively small numbers — are for-
gotten. It is, indeed, wonderful how soon a hatred
for them may arise in places in which they abound.
A striking and unforgotten instance of this occurred
more than twenty years ago in Delhi. A lady, who
had just come up from Calcutta, took me severely
to task for objecting to the flocks of parrots which
swarm everywhere in and around the town, and
with which I was only too familiar, owing to former
prolonged residence in the place. She pointed out
so forcibly that they really were a most attrac-
tive feature in the landscape that I took the
rebuke meekly, and even began to feel somewhat
ashamed of my prejudice against them. Only a
morning or two later, however, we went into the
enclosure of Saftar Jhang's tomb, near the Kutb.
The slanting sunshine was striking in athwart the
light foliage of the trees, and gilding the grey
walls of the cloisters, whilst clouds of green
parrots swept shrieking in and out in endless
succession ; and it came upon me quite as a shock
to hear her suddenly remark, " How delightful this
would be were it not for those abominable birds."
They certainly are capable of being quite uniquely
abominable in certain circumstances. A vision
haunts me of a long forenoon spent in the dak-

PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS 217

bungalow at Amritsar, in an attempt to recover
from the effects of a night of travel and fever that
was rendered futile by a parrot. For some reason
only known to itself, the bird had fallen in love
with a perch on the upper surface of one of the
beams supporting the roof of the verandah, and
there he squatted and carried on a ceaseless flow
of chuckling talk. Again and again I struggled
out of bed and expelled him by means of boots
and other handy missiles ; but all to no purpose ;
for, hardly had I lain down again and begun to
imagine that drowsiness was coming on at last,
when there he was once more in his place, and
" chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, chuckle," began
again in maddening iteration. That bungalow was,
in those days, no place for an invalid, as, even in
the absence of parrots, it was haunted by a demoniac
cock with the most heart-rending voice, which he
was never tired of exercising for the benefit of
the public at all hours of day and night.

Even apart from the annoyance that they cause
by their noisy shrieks, parrots are so destructive
and wantonly mischievous as to give good ground
for the dislike with which they are regarded in
their favourite haunts. It is quite maddening to
see the havoc that they play in fields and gardens.
When a large horde of them descend upon a field
of ripening jodr, the common large-headed millet,
the ravages that they commit by devouring the

218 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

grain might be forgiven, but it is purely enraging
to watch the way in which they cut off head
after head only to throw them contemptuously
aside, or, at the utmost, to do so after having
daintily picked out one or two grains from the
mass. In their malignant love of destruction and
mischief they run crows very hard, and seem only
to fall short of that standard through the happy
ordinance that their mental development has halted
a good way behind that of their rivals. They are,
therefore, incapable of devising such manifold and
elaborate schemes of mischief as the crows work
out, but in so far as intent and disinterested love
of evil goes, there is not a pin to choose between
them. They take the same heart-whole delight in
destruction for destruction's sake, and find the
same bliss in tormenting and annoying other living
things.

Even with the most substantial ground for hating
them, it is almost impossible to withhold admiration
for the brilliant flocks that " cling and flutter " among
the trees, or flash hither and thither, in company
with drifting clouds of whistling swifts, around the
grey and red minars and cloistered courts of tombs,
mosques, and temples ; and, where they are not
inconveniently abundant, one can hardly tire of
watching their brilliant colouring, delicate outlines,
and dainty ways. In any garden in Calcutta in
which sunflowers, especially the large old-fashioned

PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS 219

kind with discs that, as the seeds ripen, attain the
size of cheese-plates, squirrels and parrots are sure to
make their appearance as the heads mature. There
are few more fascinating sights than that of a group
of the beautiful slender birds, with vivid green
plumage and coral-red beaks and claws, hanging
about among the grey-green foliage, or flying from
one place to another and pausing on fluttering wings
before taking up a new position within easy reach of
one of the heavy flower-heads. Nor is it less
delightful to see them feeding on the fruit of a sisu-
tree, Dalbergia sissu. They are very fond of the
seeds, and come in on noisily whirring wings to settle
in small parties among the small, tremulous, greyish
leaves to pluck off the winged fruits and hold them
in one rosy foot whilst their contents are daintily
nibbled out. However "abominable" they may be
they are quite lovely among the pallid green foliage
and warm brown bunches of fruit, more especially
when lighted up by golden afternoon sunshine that
glorifies their emerald plumage and glowing bills and
feet, and brings out in strong relief the orange ring
around their waiy dark eyes. Very beautiful, too,
a parrot looks when seated on the slender bending
branch of a casuarina, with the reddish bark and
feathery green foliage glistening with adherent dew-
drops and projected against a background of palest
blue sky, that melts off towards the horizon into a
soft pinkish haze (Plate XII.). Very admirable also

220 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

are the amazing energy and speed of their whirring
flight; and their attitudes, when just about to alight,
as they hang hovering with extended wings and
widespread tails, are singularly attractive.

Parrots, like crows, are very ready to mob and
annoy any strange bird, especially any large raptorial
one; and a wholly inoffensive eagle may often be
seen a victim to their noisy attentions. At the same
time they usually show a wholesome respect for
common kites, and when a troop of them is busily
engaged in excavating and prying about a tree
in which a kite's nest happens to be, the arrival of
either of the owners of it, sailing in during the course
of the visit, is generally enough to secure an im-
mediate dispersion of the company amid a torrent of
execrations.

The only other parrot that is ordinarily met with
in the neighbourhood of Calcutta is the beautiful
blossom-headed Palceornis rasa. Sometimes in small
flocks, but oftener as solitary visitors, birds of
this species will now and then haunt a garden for
a few days at a time. Even the most inveterate
enemies of the common parrots can hardly refuse to
welcome them, and in Calcutta the matter of regret
is that they should be so rare. Whenever one of
them does enter a garden, the event is at once
made known by a sound of sweet notes, suggestive
of forests along the edges and lower slopes of the
hills, and quite unlike those of any other garden-bird.

Young Parrots for Sale (p. 221).

Rose-ringed Paroquet (p. 219).

[To face p. 220.

PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS

They are almost always talking gently and cheerfully
even when quite solitary, so that a little careful
search is all that is necessary to discover them even
when among heavy masses of foliage. Shortly after
the breeding season great numbers of fledglings of
this species, of P. cyanoceplialus, P. torquatus and
P. nepalensis, are brought into Calcutta for sale, and
you may constantly meet men carrying large wicker
cages, slung over their shoulders, and containing
little mobs of plaintive prisoners, who sit huddled
together in sad small heaps, with all their quaintly-
rounded heads convergent and their budding tails
forming a radiant fringe (Plate XII.). The two
first species are very ornamental and attractive pets,
but it is not so easy to understand why there
should be any great demand for the other two,
and especially for birds like the common parrots,
who, in captivity, are mainly characterised by an
outrageously discordant voice and an excessively bad
temper.

Another Indian parrot that is almost always to
be found in the bazaars of Calcutta is the little green
loriquet, Loriculus vernalis. These birds are certainly
very decorative in an aviary, and, to a certain extent,
are amusing, owing to their odd habit of roosting
upside down and hanging by their claws, but they
are both stupid and ill-tempered, always ready
to bully their weaker neighbours and destroy their
nests and eggs. They are very fond of flowers, not

222 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

like the common green parrots, from a joy in tearing
them to pieces in wanton mischief, but as sources of
food from which they assiduously suck nectar without
doing any injury to the corollas. Like honey-
suckers, they have an especial love for the great
globular flower-heads of the kadam, Nauclea
kadumba. Their dependence on the juices of
flowers may be one reason why it is so often
difficult to keep them in good condition for any
length of time. Those who have had no experience
of the management of any save commonly caged
birds can have little idea of the difficulties and the
mortality that beset the upkeep of an aviary of
miscellaneous birds just removed from their natural
surroundings. It is quite clear that confinement
itself must be more trying to birds that have been
just caught than to those that have been born
and reared in captivity, and who, as that in itself
shows, either belong to species that are specially
adapted to cage-life, or are the progeny of individual
birds of such nature. But this is only one of the
difficulties met with. Many birds, such as the black-
headed oriole and the coppersmith barbet, seem to
take at once to life in a cage, and to be quite
contented with it from the moment that they are
imprisoned, but, in spite of this, it is very hard to
keep them in good condition for any length of
time. In the case of the coppersmiths, this, as
has already been pointed out, may be effected by

PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS 223

keeping them either alone or only along with birds
whose ordinary cage-dietary does not include sattu ;
but no remedial measure has yet, in so far as I know,
been found in that of the orioles. The difficulty in
dealing with the latter bird is, however, probably
also a dietetic one, as it seems to be easy to keep
the maroon species, whose general habits are very
like those of the commoner kinds, in perfect health
under the very conditions that rapidly prove fatal
to its relatives. It is easy to provide carnivorous
and graminivorous birds, with suitable food, and
hence we find them generally standing captivity
very well. Even with them, however, mischief
occasionally arises from the ease with which an
unfailing supply of food can be obtained — an
abnormal condition which sometimes occasions the
development of malformations, such as the over-
growth of the upper mandible that is often to be
seen in pheasants and parrots in confinement.

The sound of the loud, wild, chattering scream
of the golden-backed woodpecker, Brachypternus
aurantius,1 is never long absent from any well-
wooded garden near Calcutta, and every now and
then one of the birds may be seen whilst it crosses
over from tree to tree. When seen in certain
directions and under suitable light they look like
actual streaks of gold, as they leap along through
the air with noisily whirring wings; and, as they
almost always scream aloud on taking wing, there

1 It is a little smaller than the common English green woodpecker.

COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

is little chance of their failing to attract notice.
Now and then one of them may omit to call on
setting out, but, should it do so, it almost always
makes good the temporary self-restraint by a noisy
advertisement of arrival at the next halting-place.
It is always a sight well worth seeing when a wood-
pecker dashes up against a vertical stem and remains
adherent and flattened against the bark in a way
that reminds one of the result that follows when
a " chunam-frog " is chased along the floor until
he suddenly takes refuge on the wall of a room.
Once alit, they go upwards in a series of short
darts over the surface, forming patches of warm
colour against the grey or brownish tints of the
background, and every now and then halting to
peck insects out of a crevice, or to set about a
vigorous hammering in quest of those lurking
beneath the surface. They show up to special
advantage whilst working their way along the
under surface of a bough, with the vivid crimson
of their crests and the golden yellow of their backs
obliquely lighted up by slanting sunshine, and they
are also very attractive when sitting up like little
cormorants dressed in bright red caps, white check-
stripes, and speckled grey breasts. The sound that
they make when hammering consists of a rapid roll
of sharp taps alternating with a few more isolated
and forcible ones, and during the hush of a still,
hot day, there is something very soothing in the

PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS 225

iteration of the little noises. They usually go about
in pairs, and, whilst busily working over neighbour-
ing trees, frequently chatter aloud, as though each
bird were anxious to be assured of its mate's vicinity.
When the silk-cotton-trees are in full bloom, wood-
peckers sometimes join the throng of revellers that
visit the flowers, but it is uncertain whether this
desertion of their ordinary habits arises from a love
of alcoholic stimulants, or is owing to the fact that
the fluid that fills the bases of the great stiff corollas
acts as a trap in which numbers of insects lie
drowned.

The only other woodpecker that is common in
gardens about Calcutta is the fulvous-breasted pied
species, Dendrocopus macii, specimens of which are
often to be seen in the Botanic Garden at Shibpur.
Though both this and the preceding bird are so
common, I never happened to meet with their
nests in any garden. This, however, is no evidence
that they do not frequently nest in the locality.
The discovery of a woodpecker's nest is usually
more or less a matter of accident owing to the fact
that the orifice of the cavern is very small, and is
generally situated at a considerable height, so that,
unless one happens to be close at hand at a time
when one of the owners goes in or out, its presence
may very readily escape notice. One of the very
few occasions on which I actually marked down a
nest was during an afternoon's walk through the

226 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

forest above Pangi in the upper Satlej Valley. As
I was following the narrow track, a specimen of
the Himalayan pied woodpecker, Dendrocopus
himalayensis, suddenly flew into a tree overhanging
it, and disappeared into a hole in the stem, greeted
by a noisy chorus of welcome from the young birds
within.

XIX

STORKS

"Save some lazy stork that springs,
Trailing it with legs and wings."

— BROWNING.

THE gigantic storks, commonly known under the
name of "adjutants," used formerly to be so abun-
dant in Calcutta at certain times of year, and formed
such a striking and characteristic feature in the town,
that one can hardly turn up any description or notice
of the locality without coming across some mention
of their manners and customs. This is, however,
no longer the case. Great numbers of them may,
doubtless, be found congregated in certain favoured
areas in the neighbourhood, but the progress of
sanitary improvement, limited though it may have
been, has greatly diminished the supplies of succulent
offal, which used formerly to bestrew the streets in
quantity equal to the demands of their truly magni-
ficent appetites. Hence they have almost entirely
deserted the interior of the town, and have betaken
themselves to places in the suburbs where stores

227

228 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

of desirable food may yet be met with. When
returning from their nesting haunts for the season
many of them may even yet be seen passing high
aloft over the streets, arid a few stray individuals
may even make a brief halt in one or other of the
places in the town in which they used most to
congregate; but it has become quite a rare thing
to see one perched on the roof of a house in gloomy
meditation, or stalking about one of the open spaces
of the town. Their absence may be matter of
gratulation as indicating that some improvement
has taken place in the conditions of human exist-
ence; but it can only be deplored as involving the
loss of a picturesque element that the town could
ill afford.

It is hard to realise what an endless source of
amusement and admiration these birds formerly
were. Their yearly return towards the close of
the hot weather was joyfully hailed as the herald
of the approach of the monsoon-rains with their
welcome fall in temperature; they formed decora-
tive features in the landscape as they stood in files
along the cornices and roofs of conspicuous build-
ings, or gathered in groups on the open plain of
the maidan; their flight as they sailed and soared
about high overhead was, if possible, even more
magnificent than that of vultures ; and their endless
eccentricities of attitude and movement when in
quest of food provided ceaseless entertainment,

STORKS 229

An adjutant attempting to rise from the ground,
or merely flapping heavily between two neighbour-
ing perches, would hardly suggest the possibility
of its being of the same race as the birds that
sweep about in the upper sky on widely spread
and seemingly motionless wings, looking more like
mediaeval dragons or the inhabitants of a fairy tale
than creatures of this workaday world. It is quite
piteous to see one of them attempting to rise from
the ground, more especially if he has recently
partaken of a full meal. If suddenly disturbed
during the course of meditative digestion, he will
at first stalk off with a curiously mingled air of
dignity, meanness, apprehension, and malevolence ;
and then, if followed up, will hasten his retreat, until
his stately pacing degenerates into an ignominious
run attended by laboured movements of his huge,
flapping wings, and he has acquired enough
momentum to venture on leaping from the ground.
Even then false starts are apt to take place, and
it is often only after several disgraceful and abortive
attempts that he gets fairly off and can cease
winnowing the air with his great sails. These
struggling flights are often very noisy, as is not
surprising from the great size of the wings, and the
rigidly resistant texture of the larger feathers, but
it is curious what differences there are in the flight
of individual birds, even when exposed to seemingly
like external conditions. In bygone years a large

230 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

arid ill-ordered slaughter-house lay at a short distance
from the Zoological Garden at Alipur ; and, in
consequence of its allurements, a large number of
adjutants spent the day in its neighbourhood, and
came in at night to roost on some of the trees
in the garden (Plate XIII.). In the evening they
usually assembled in considerable number on the
banks of the tidal water- course running along its
northern boundary, and in order to reach their roosts
had to surmount the lofty hedge of the garden and
then fly over a large pond between it and their
favourite trees. The distance to be traversed was
so short that their flight was heavy and laboured
throughout, and, therefore, likely to be noisy. So
indeed it commonly was, but in very varying degree,
from loud to barely audible, although there were no
other apparent differences in the character of flight.
Some birds may have gorged themselves more than
others, or have been on the wing for somewhat
shorter distances than their neighbours ; but there
was nothing to show that this was the case.

Their troubles are by no means safely over even
when they have laboriously reached their roosting
places, for there is almost always much acrid com-
petition for specially favourite perches. About a
dozen of them used to roost on the top of a pipal-
tree quite close to a house in the southern part of
the town in which I once spent a few days; and
their homing in the evening was always the occasion

STORKS

of amusing scenes. When they came in they did
not make direct for the tree, but always pitched
first on a flat roof a few yards from, and almost
on a level with its topmost boughs ; and it was
with great difficulty that they were able to summon
up courage to cross the gulf. Much dubious stalk-
ing to and fro, many careful visual estimates of
distance, and many piteous and futile attempts at
a start occurred before they ventured fairly forth.
So long as more than one bird was on the roof
matters went on fairly quickly, as they were
constantly sparring at one another, making offensive
gestures, and striking savagely out with widely
gaping beaks and flapping wings, so that every
now and then one of them would over-balance
himself or would be violently thrust over the edge,
and, making a virtue of necessity, would struggle
over to the tree. It was in the case of the last
bird of the party that the sufferings incident on in-
decision of character were most painfully illustrated.
He stalked to and fro, casting envious glances at
eligible perches ; every now and then he halted
to rise on his toes, hump up his back, bow his
head, and even begin to flap his wings, but only
to lose courage at the last moment and resume
his weary march. At last, in a sudden access of
desperate courage, he would launch out and flap
his way across, happy if he had selected a landing-
place so situated as to allow of his reaching it

232 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

without sustaining vicious digs and knocks from
the beaks and wings of his predecessors.

They are singularly ill-tempered birds, constantly
squabbling with one another even in the absence
of any cause of competition such as favourite roosts
or specially savoury stores of offal. Even whilst
several of them are standing quietly about, sunning
themselves and apparently buried in deep thought,
a quarrel will suddenly arise for no apparent reason ;
and then you may see two monstrous fowls begin
to pace around, cautiously stalking one another,
and watching for a favourable opportunity of striking
and buffeting with beak and wings. The expres-
sion of slow malignity with which such duellists
regard one another is gruesome, and the injuries
resulting from the fray are often ghastly, blinded
eyes and bloody cockscombs being matters of
everyday occurrence.

Many of their attitudes are wonderfully grotesque,
and the appearance of a large party of them taking
their ease in the blazing sunshine of an open space
is often quaint beyond description (Plate XIII.).
Whilst resting they sometimes remain standing
rigidly erect on one leg, but very often they prefer
to sit down, stretching their long tarsi out in front,
and looking as though they were kneeling wrong
side foremost. They love to expose their great
wings as fully as possible to the rays of the sun,
and, especially during the intervals between heavy,

Adjutants by Day. P. 232.

Ad jut-ants at Roost, p. 230.

To face p. 232.

STORKS 233

drenching showers, they may often be seen stand-
ing about with their wings fully expanded, their
necks retracted, and their obscene heads drooping
so that the point of the beak almost touches the
ground. Like other storks, they frequently clatter
their mandibles together, producing a loudly rattling
sound that is often to be heard in the stillness of
a windless night in the neighbourhood of any of
their roosting places. Their appearance is a strange
medley - - a bizarre combination of the greatest
splendour with the basest squalor. Were one to
see only their wings with their magnificent pro-
portions and their lovely tints of grey and lavender,
one would regard them with unmixed admiration ;
but the base bald head clothed in disgustingly
scurfy skin and straggling hairs, the malignantly
sneaking expression of the pallid eyes, and the
ponderousness of the huge beak have an almost
mesmeric effect in distracting attention from any
redeeming features in the picture. Even the
splendid gamboge, orange, and vermilion hues that
paint the distended pouch as it hangs down in
front of the chest, in place of redeeming the
hideous and almost indecent character of the
appendage, only serve to accentuate the horror
by attracting attention to its presence. The only
times when a resting adjutant is to be seen really
to advantage are either when he is viewed from
behind whilst sunning his extended wings with

234 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

sunken head, or when settled down for the night
and standing in statuesque attitude on the top of
some lofty tree or building, projected against the
glowing background of a sunset sky.

The extent and range of their appetites are
truly amazing, and their feats in disposing of bulky
masses of offal are almost beyond belief. I have
seen one of them gulp down the entire abdominal
and thoracic viscera of a large dog en masse and
without any difficulty ; indeed, he would not have
turned a hair over the performance had it not
been that by some mishap a loop of gut caught
over his upper mandible so as to anchor his
mouthful, or rather cropful, in a distressing fashion.
This irked him greatly, and the attempts that he
made to set things straight were extremely ludicrous.
Again and again he loosened the tension of the
cord passing down into his stomach by depressing
and violently shaking his head so that the loop
over his bill slackened off and slipped downwards
towards the tip. But time after time he relaxed
his efforts too soon, and made things as bad as
ever by premature attempts to swallow, and it
was only after the expenditure of much time and
toil that he was able to finish his meal. Feeding
the adjutants used to be a favourite after-dinner
amusement with the European soldiers in Fort
William and the military hospital, and many were
the ingenious devices and tricks to which the poor

STORKS 235

birds were exposed. A favourite and most effective
one was to take a long piece of stout string and,
after having fastened a tempting gobbet to either
end of it, throw it out into a group of expectant
adjutants. Two of the birds were almost sure
to secure the double bait, and thereafter spend
much time in attempts to dissolve the resultant
partnership, flying round and round and tugging
at the string in a way that must have been
somewhat disturbing even to their case-hardened
stomachs, and which gave their flight a strangely
disorderly and tumultuous character. More lasting
amusement was provided when one of the baits
was replaced by a small paper kite, so that when
the bird who had swallowed the lure took wing,
he was sorely puzzled by the way in which his
progress was disturbed by the dragging of his
novel appendage.

At the hour at which the daily dole of food
was due, large numbers of adjutants would assemble
and loaf around in expectation of it. They were
naturally attended by a throng of crows, who, while
exercising a judicious caution in their advances,
often managed to secure a fair share of the feast,
for, owing to their numbers and to the craftiness
with which they seized any favourable chance of
snatching a morsel, their efforts were usually
scatheless and crowned with encouraging success.
Only once did I see a crow come to serious grief

236 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

in these circumstances, and then the catastrophe
was not the result of any direct struggle for the
possession of a particular treasure. It arose from
the heedlessness of the victim, who was one of
a party of crows flying hither and thither in quest
of plunder, and who in his eagerness came so close
to an adjutant as to be within reach of its great
beak, which was suddenly thrust out to engulf
him in full flight.

Two distinct species of adjutants, Leptoptilus
dubius and L. javanicus, occur in the neighbour-
hood of Calcutta, but the second and smaller one
seldom ventured within urban limits even in the
days when its larger relative was most abundant
there. During the latter years of my residence
in Calcutta, it was necessary, in order to be sure
of seeing either species, to visit certain places in
the suburbs where there were slaughter-houses or
deposits of street-sweepings and offal. There, in the
company of hosts of vultures and crows, they con-
tinued to congregate in such numbers that all the
larger trees in the neighbourhood were permanently
disfigured and bowed down by the throng of lodgers
who nightly loaded the branches.

XX

VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC.

" Never stoops the soaring vulture
On his quarry in the desert,
But another vulture watching,
Sees the downward plunge and follows."

— Hiawatha.

11 As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin
Down the streams of the cloudy wind."

— SHELLEY.

IN Calcutta, gardens are often visited by vultures,
eagles and hawks of several kinds. Until I made the
acquaintance of a pair of most lovable condors, I
certainly never felt inclined to make pets of birds
like vultures, and very few people are likely to
welcome such visitors, but any annoyance arising
from their occasional presence in a garden is more
than made good by the magnificent spectacle of
their flight. Whilst sailing and soaring far aloft in
the upper sky they are truly splendid objects, as they
hang about, to all appearance motionless, or sweep
round in magnificent curves that look as though they

237

238 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

were the outcome of mere volition apart from any
muscular effort. Eagles, too, are admirable on the
wing, but, though Byron declares that a flock of
twelve of them appeared in honour of his visit to
Parnassus, they do not usually occur in flights, and
their wings have hardly the perfection of outline of
those of vultures in which the upward curvature of
the outer ends is so strongly marked. Almost every
day, especially during winter, numbers of the white-
backed vulture, Pseudogyps bengalensis, are to be
seen hanging aloft against the pale blue of the sky ;
some of them at heights at which the fingered
extremities of their great wings, and even the white
bands of their downy ruffs, are distinctly visible, and
above these a series of others at higher and higher
levels, until at the very visual limit they show as
mere specks, appearing and disappearing as they
sink or rise in the upper air. The sight is one that
can hardly fail to be attractive however familiar it
may be, but is hardly so impressive as that of a troop
of vultures seen from above, and while the great birds
sweep and sail over the depths of a great Himalayan
valley, now skirting low along the surfaces of the
bounding slopes, and anon soaring outwards over
thousands of feet of sheer air in a way that rouses
wonder how it is that the sudden transition does not
inevitably cause overpowering dizziness.

Even at close quarters white-backed vultures are
not wholly wanting in good points ; their attitudes

VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC. 239

when at rest are certainly ungainly, but, at the
same time, are sometimes highly picturesque ; and,
although the bare skin of the head and neck may
be repulsive to casual observation, it is, when clean,
and especially during the breeding season, possessed
of a beauty of its own that could hardly be imagined
from its aspect when faded and dried in museum-
specimens. In the fresh state it is a mass of subdued
but splendid colour. The crop-patch is beautiful
purplish black, and has a satiny sheen from the
presence of a thin layer of long black hairs that
clothe the surface and veil the pinkish-brown skin
beneath; the middle third of the neck is pale
madder-brown, and the upper third slaty grey tinged
with purple; the upper eyelids are bluish pink, the
blue tint predominating along the margins, which are
fringed by long black lashes ; and the upper mandible
is of a beautiful pale sea-green, shading off into
purplish black at the base and edges. It is hardly
possible to look at a freshly killed specimen in all this
splendour of rich colouring without thinking of the
dragon in George Macdonald's " Phantastes," and,
like the hero of the tale, wondering " how so many
gorgeous colours, so many curving lines, and such
beautiful things as wings and hair and scales com-
bine to form the horrible creature," for, to a certain
degree, a vulture is almost always more or less
horrible at close quarters. Horrible beyond measure
they certainly are whilst gorging over the corpse of

240 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

some large animal, struggling with one another for
favourable places, buffeting with their huge wings,
and foully besmeared with blood and grease. When
so occupied they become quite reckless in their de-
vouring greed, and it is often no easy task to drive
them away from their feast. In connection with
laboratory-work it is sometimes necessary to get rid
of large quantities of offal of various kinds, and, in
the days when they abounded in Calcutta, adjutants
were very useful aids in doing so. The fact that by
employing them in this way one was likely to attract
them to congregate in the immediate neighbourhood
was at that time no objection, as every one was too
well used to their presence in the streets to think evil
of it. This tolerance, however, was not extended to
vultures, and it was sometimes necessary to take
violent measures to disperse a throng of them, who
had made a sudden descent on a dole intended for
the adjutants, and were scuffling over the feast in
obscene multitudes, wholly regardless of the showers
of brickbats and f other missiles with which their
advent was greeted. When hit full in the back by
a large brick they might lose their hold and stagger
forwards with fluttering wings, but it was only to
return at once and resume their places in the con-
tending multitude, and it was usually only when the
last vestige of the booty had been disposed of that
the mob could be prevailed on to disperse.

They sometimes find it a matter of some difficulty

VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC. 241

to rise from the ground after a heavy gorge, but as
a rule they manage to make a better start than
adjutants do under like circumstances, in spite of the
seeming advantage which the latter birds have in the
length of their legs. As they leave the ground they
gather up their feet and legs under them at once, but
in preparing to alight they drop them vertically for
some time before reaching their halting-place, and
sweep along close to the surface as though they were
feeling for it. On reaching the ground they trot
about over it with an awkward, waddling gait, and
often with their wings slightly raised and somewhat
expanded. They are very fond of basking in strong
sunshine, and are often to be seen lying flattened out
on the sloping banks of ponds with their great wings
extended in a way that readily explains why a
vulture in such an attitude should have come to be
a common solar emblem with the old Egyptians.
In spite of the numbers of vultures that haunt the
neighbourhood of Calcutta, very few seem to nest
there. This cannot be ascribed to any dislike to the
vicinity of a large town as a nesting-place, for there
used to be a large colony of nests in the Roshinara
Garden at Delhi. The trees in which the nests were
placed in this case were of no great height, but, in
spite of this, the birds seemed to be rather offended
than alarmed when any one halted to take a look at
them. They are ordinarily very silent birds, but
whilst carrying out their matrimonial duties they

Q

242 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

make an astonishingly loud braying noise that is
quite startling until its source is ascertained.

The only other kind of vulture common about
Calcutta is the great Pondicherry vulture, Otogyps
calvus. Except when on the wing and at some
distance it is a revolting fowl. Its plumage is of a
dingy blackish brown, and the naked skin of the
neck and the hideous and debased head is of an un-
pleasing yellowish-red tint. All vultures are apt to
have an evil odour, owing to the nature of their diet,
but Pondicherry vultures are especially distinguished
in this respect, and their presence is usually revealed
at a great distance by the overpowering stench of
putrid carrion that radiates from them and poisons
the surrounding air. They do not occur in flocks,
like the white-backed vultures, and are to be met
with either in pairs or as solitary birds, who domineer
over their smaller associates in the competition for
carrion, and look at a little distance more like
obscene turkeys than raptorial birds.

Neophrons, although so common in other parts
of India, are very rarely to be seen within the limits
of the lower Gangetic delta. It is strange that
stray specimens do not oftener occur, for one can
hardly pass the line between the alluvial area and
the red-soil country to the west without presently
meeting with Neophron ginginianus. On awaking
after a night's journey from Calcutta by the Chord
line of the East Indian Railway, the change of

VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC. 243

environment is at once advertised by the sight of low
hill ranges and numerous neophrons. The absence of
the latter from a locality can hardly be a matter
of regret to any one, for they are truly " base and
degrading" objects. They may sometimes, when
at a distance, and flying aloft in brilliant sunshine,
present a certain resemblance to Brahmini kites, but
any close acquaintance with them, and specially
a near view of them as they wander about over
heaps of rubbish in quest of their loathsome food,
can only tend to arouse a sense of wonder that
any birds should have succeeded in becoming so re-
pulsive. St Beuve, in writing of Talleyrand, affirms
that it takes a great deal of trouble to become
wholly depraved, but neophrons have certainly
spared no effort to attain that end. There are, of
course, tales of men new to the country mistaking
them for some strange sort of pigeons, but such an
error would imply a lack of observation far exceeding
that leading to the confusion of crow-pheasants with
game-birds, or of " brain- fever-birds " with hawks.

Visits from eagles are always welcome events,
but are, unfortunately, not very common, and are
apt to be very brief, owing to the way in which the
crows resent them. Often enough a pair of eagles
may be seen spiring about high overhead, but only
now and then do any condescend to alight within a
garden. At intervals a specimen of Pallas' fishing-
eagle, Haliaetus leucoryphus, or of the white-bellied

244 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

sea-eagle, H. leucogaster, will descend to meditate
among the trees overhanging a pond. In large
gardens which, like the Botanic Garden at Shibpur,
enjoy an exceptional immunity from crows, they
will often remain for some time, and may even
occasionally nest, but in other cases they are not
allowed a chance of doing so, for hardly have they
settled themselves down to gaze into the water, ere
some officious crow discovers their presence, and
vociferously summons its fellows to the spot. The
unwelcome visitor is presently surrounded by a
clamorous mob, that steadily grows, and gradually
presses in around him so long as he remains motion-
less, but disperses at once with shouts of execra-
tion on his slightest movement, only, however, to
gather anew and resume the congenial task of
annoyance. For a time the eagle may maintain
his position in dignified endurance, but sooner or
later his patience wears out, and he sails off to seek
a quieter resting-place. Both of these eagles are
magnificent birds, H. leucogaster, indeed, being one
of the most splendid of large raptorial birds, owing
to the brilliant contrast of the snowy whiteness of
the head and under-surface, with the deep ashy
tints of the wings and back. There are few more
striking objects than one of them as he sits on a
bare branch overhanging a tidal channel, glancing
around with his bold black eyes, and with all his
beautiful plumage gleaming in the bright sunlight.

VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC. 245

Both species are common throughout the Sundarbans,
and astonishingly abundant in the endless swamps
on the lower part of the Surma River. In that
region, Pallas' fishing-eagles are present in well-nigh
incredible numbers at the time when the floods of
the rainy season are subsiding, and the marshes are
becoming a very paradise of migrant ducks and
waders. They may then be seen sitting in rows
along the muddy banks, and flying low overhead
in twos and threes ; the air resounds with their
strange, barking cries ; and almost all the great trees
that begin to fringe the stream where the land
becomes a little higher, are loaded with the huge
stacks of dead wood forming their nests, in which
they sit and scold at every passing boat.

Another eagle that sometimes makes its appear-
ance among the trees of large gardens is the crested
serpent-eagle, Spilornis cheela. When in good
plumage they are very handsome birds, owing to
the beautiful way in which their lower plumage is
variegated with white ocelli bordered by dark brown
rings.

Peregrine falcons regularly visit many towns in
Upper India during the winter months, but only
occasionally appear in Calcutta, and, when they do
so, seldom make any prolonged stay within urban
limits. They are not, however, very uncommon,
and are wonderfully bold and familiar. During the
course of my last winter's residence in India, a very

246 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

fine specimen visited the small garden at the south
side of my house, and decorated an iron railing
only a few yards from the verandah by spending
the afternoon upon it. In and around the large
towns of Upper India, there are usually particular
places where one may count upon finding a pair of
peregrines established for the winter. One of these
favoured spots is the Taj Garden at Agra, and
another is the long range of municipal buildings
facing the enclosure of the railway terminus in
Delhi. In both places a small expenditure of
patience will almost certainly be rewarded by the
sight of the birds wheeling around aloft with shrill
cries, or coming down to take up picturesque
attitudes on the minars or cornices of the build-
ings. Like Pallas' sea-eagle, they occur in surpris-
ing numbers in the swamps of the lower Surma,
at the time when the arrival of other autumnal
immigrants furnishes them with an abundant supply
of prey. They form one of the characteristic
features in the endless levels of the marsh, as almost
every one of the long bamboo poles, that are set up
to mark the course of the stream when the whole
area is completely submerged, is tenanted by one
of them, who uses it as a watch-tower from which
to survey the surrounding morass, and its throng-
ing multitudes of ducks and waders.

Shikras, Astur badius, are, of course, to be
found in the gardens of Calcutta at any time of

VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC. 247

year, but they rarely remain for any length of time,
owing to the persecution to which they are exposed
by the resident birds. Crows, king-crows, mynas,
and doves for the occasion make common cause,
and mob and worry the intruder until he is driven
off Kestrels rarely leave the open country for the
thickly-wooded region immediately surrounding the
town, but now and then one of them strays inwards
from the rice-fields beyond the suburbs. The only
locality in which I have often seen them within the
limits of the town, is the plain or maidan around
Fort William. Here they used to be met with
every winter, but of late years, like the grey-headed
wagtails, they have almost completely deserted the
place, which is now so much more frequented than
it formerly was.

There are very few raptorial birds more splendidly
coloured than a mature Brahmini kite, Haliastur
indus. Shelley, oddly enough, speaks of an eagle
sitting " in the light of its golden wings," but the
statement might often be fairly enough made of
a Brahmini kite, when all the brilliant tints of his
upper plumage are fully illuminated by brilliant sun-
shine. They are at any time highly decorative
objects, owing to the effective contrast of bright
chestnut and pure white in their feathering, and
appear to special advantage, when, as they very
often do, they take up a position in the crown
of a coco-nut palm, and settle on the convex

248 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

surface of one of its great, curving fronds. In
Madras they seem to be almost as abundant as
common kites, but, as a rule, few of them are to
be seen in and around Calcutta. One or two may
often be seen flying about over the river, or perched
in the rigging of vessels at anchor in the stream,
and now and then one of them will come into a
garden for a time, in order to have a look at a pond.
At certain times of year, however, large numbers
of them are induced to visit the town and suburbs
by the abundance of young fish in the ponds.
Numerous specimens, many of which are in very
immature plumage, usually make their appearance
at the close of the rainy season, but the largest
immigration takes place towards the end of winter,
and when many ponds have become so much dried
up as to render fishing in them particularly easy.
The largest assembly of Brahmini kites that I ever
saw was in the month of February, and took place
in connection with the fact that the water in a
village pond in Alipur had sunk to a very low ebb,
and was swarming with small fish. The crows were
disposed to persecute those that came in first, but,
as the immigration advanced, gave up in despair,
and left their unwelcome visitors unmolested. For
several days the numbers of arrivals steadily in-
creased, so that for a time the neighbourhood of
the pond was thronged by hundreds of birds in
various stages of plumage, and filling the air with

VULTURES, EAGLES, ETC. 249

clamorous cries as they flew in bewildering mazes
over the water, or sat about among the branches
of all the surrounding trees. Every now and then
one of the moving crowd would suddenly stoop to
sweep along over the surface of the pond, and rise
again grasping a little, glittering fish, which he
either carried off to be devoured at leisure on a
tree, or disposed of while on the wing just as
common kites do when hawking in a swarm of
white ants.

The presence of Brahmini kites is at once revealed
by their peculiar cries. These are very distinct from
those of the common kite, and have a peculiarly
querulous quality, causing them to sound like a
combination of the mewing of a cat with the squall
of an ill-tempered child. They are very plucky
birds, and I have seen one of them fiercely attack-
ing a sea-eagle. In Calcutta the common kites
evidently regard them as intruders, and frequent
battles occur in which the combatants strike viciously
at one another, amid a tempest of whistling and
mewing. The Brahminis, in spite of their smaller
size, are sometimes the aggressors in these feuds,
and often come out of them victorious. The local
crows also regard them as intruders, and are inclined
to mob them as they do eagles, and in a way that they
never dream of doing in the case of common kites.
Brahmini kites never build within the limits of
Calcutta, and I have never seen any of their nests

250 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

in the immediately surrounding country, although
the frequency with which birds in very immature
plumage make their appearance seems to show
that nesting must take place at no great distance.

Owing to the constant opportunities that it
affords for obtaining specimens of many different
species, India is a very paradise for lovers of
raptorial birds. One of the most lovable of all
the birds that I kept whilst in Calcutta was a
beautiful female peregrine, who almost at once
became most alluringly tame, and whose gentle
loving ways made one readily forgive the agony
that attended the reflex grip of her talons on one's
wrist when she was suddenly excited or alarmed.
Shikras are rather uninteresting in captivity, and
have an unpleasantly remorseless, cruel expression,
owing to the light colour of their eyes. The taramti,
^salon chicquera, is a charming little falcon. The
bright chestnut of the head is very decorative in
its contrast with the soft grey, black, and brown of
the rest of the plumage, and its daintily small
size and gentleness would render it a most satis-
factory pet were it not that it does not seem to
stand captivity as well as most other hawks.

XXI

SWIFTS, GOAT-SUCKERS, MUNIAS, ETC.

" Will a swallow — or a swift, or some bird —
Fly to her and say, I love her still ? "

— Fly Leaves.

Two birds are always to be met with in gardens
and about houses in Calcutta. These are the
common Indian swift, Cypselus affinis, and the
curious palm-swift, Tachornis batassiensis. Almost
every resident of the town must be well aware of
the great abundance in which the former species
occurs, owing to the habit that it has of establishing
itself in great colonies in verandahs, where there
are numerous convenient nesting-places above the
beams in which masses of feathers and rubbish may
be stowed away, and from which they are constantly
showering down to litter the floor below. Almost
every one, too, must have observed the great flocks
of swifts that go drifting about towards sundown in
autumn, wheeling and hurrying to and fro and filling
the air with piercingly shrill cries (Plate XIV.). The
palm-swifts, although much more interesting birds,

551

252 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

are less likely to attract casual notice, owing to their
small size and dull brown colouring, and because they
avoid the immediate neighbourhood of houses; but
almost every garden containing a few common tadi-
palms, Borassus flabelliformis, is pretty sure to be
tenanted by a colony of them. Their nests are
curious little cups, neatly glued into the grooved
surfaces of the lower sides of the great fan-shaped
leaves of the palms. In the neighbourhood of
Calcutta they seem to be fully tenanted in the
beginning of the hot season, and for a second time
shortly after the onset of the rains. After the eggs
have been hatched the sites of such colonies become
very lively, owing to the frequent visits of the parent
birds, who are constantly darting in and out among
the leaves busy in providing food for the nestlings,
who greet their parents with shrill cries, and seem
never to be satisfied in spite of the rapidity with
which successive supplies of food are brought in.
At other times of year the old birds are especially
active in the evening, and rush about in great
numbers uttering small, shrill, bee-eater-like cries,
that become very audible as the dusk deepens and
the notes of other birds gradually die away.

The common Indian goat-sucker, Caprimulgus
asiaticus — the "ice-bird" of Anglo-Indians — is a
constant and familiar object in suburban gardens,
where every evening they come out, like gigantic
grey and white moths, to flutter and whirl about

SWIFTS, GOAT-SUCKERS, MUNI AS, ETC. 253

over the lawns, every now and then uttering the
peculiar call from which their common name is
derived because of its likeness to the sound made
by any small hard object skimming over the sur-
face of a frozen pond. Their flight is admirable
in the ease and grace of its sudden evolutions,
especially when the birds were projected against
a silvery grey evening sky, or wheel and flutter on
a background glorified by the flaming tints of a
tropical after-glow. They often interrupt their
aerial excursions in order to descend to the ground,
especially where the surface is traversed by a dry
and dusty highroad abounding in the droppings of
horses and cattle that harbour stores of insect-food.
They will often remain sitting in such places for
some time, resting quietly and presenting a very
strange appearance, owing to the way in which they
squat closely flattened down on the surface. Their
flight as " they float and run " through the
air is more butterfly-like than that of almost any
other bird. It consists of an alternation of short
quick flappings, two or three in succession, with
periods during which they sweep onwards on widely
extended wings that show conspicuous patches of
brilliant whiteness on their under surfaces. All
through the cold weather their characteristic cries
are to be heard sounding out into the night, but
they are rarely audible in summer or autumn.
Besides their ordinary subdued call they can utter

254 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

a whole series of extraordinary sounds, something
like those occasionally emitted by " crow-pheasants."
These are apt to be evoked when the birds are
suddenly disturbed in their diurnal lurking-places,
and are apparently protective in function, as they
certainly give rise to astonishment and alarm in
dogs, and may well serve to scare away predaceous
animals from the neighbourhood of their eggs or
young ones. The common call has a pleasantly
soothing character, and one greets the sound of
it, as it breaks in upon the darkness of a wakeful
night with feelings very different from those excited
by the din with which the great Caprimulgus
macrurus often renders the nocturnal hours hideous
in places in the hills.

At any time in winter specimens of the orange-
headed ground-thrush, Geocichla citrina, may
occasionally be met with, busily hunting for snails
and insects among the dead leaves beneath groups
of trees and thick shrubberies. The contrasting tints
of orange and soft slate-colour in their plumage are
very decorative, and would in themselves suffice to
attract attention. They are, however, rendered addi-
tionally alluring when occurring on birds who are so
vividly reminiscent of the familiar song-thrush in the
energy with which they extract worms from the
soil and hammer snails on stones in order to break
their shells. A Geocichla is a charming addition
to an aviary, being very easy to keep in good

SWIFTS, GOAT-SUCKERS, MUNIAS, ETC, 255

condition, and so gentle that there is no risk of
his molesting other birds.

The only other thrush that I have seen in gardens
about Calcutta is the small-billed mountain-thrush,
Oreocincla dauma, specimens of which now and
then appear during the cold weather in enclosures
providing conditions suiting them. They seem, as
a rule, to keep to the deep shade of dense groves
of trees, spending their time in the investigation
of fallen leaves, and only taking to the branches
as a temporary place of refuge in case of alarm.
The rich brown and yellow colouring of the upper
plumage and the white of the under surfaces are
very ornamental, and are so disposed as to be very
protective on a surface that is deeply overshadowed
and covered with dead leaves. In both these
thrushes protective colouring has been highly evolved
in relation to the nature of the environments which
they usually haunt. Both birds are habitual
residents of shaded coverts, but Geocichla citrina
prefers opener and drier places than those in which
the Oreocincla is usually found. The plumage of
the latter bird harmonises closely with the tints of
damp, dead leaves, and that of the former one is
very inconspicuous where the direct sunlight is not
wholly excluded and where the dead leaves abound
in tawny and yellow hues.

The Indian pitta, Pitta brachyura (Plate XV.)
occurs in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, but certainly

256 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

does not often visit gardens close to the town; for,
during the course of thirty years' observation in
many of them, I never met with a single specimen.
They are, however, often brought into the bazaars
for sale, and make most charming pets. One of
the most amusing birds that I ever came across was
a pitta, who for some time inhabited one of my
aviaries. He made himself quite at home at once,
and almost immediately began to bully an inoffensive
Geocichla, who inhabited the same enclosure. He
was a very lively bird, constantly racing about from
one place to another in a series of high leaps, and
then pausing for a minute or two, very erect on
his long legs, to take a keenly considerative look
around. He was very silent, and never left the
ground except when the keeper entered to clean
the aviary. His only fault lay in his highly car-
nivorous tastes which sometimes led him to slay
and eat some of his smaller fellow-prisoners. His
pluck was wonderful. When a riding- whip or stick
was thrust through the wiring towards him, in place
of showing any signs of alarm, he would at once
go for it, seizing the end of it with his beak, wrench-
ing violently at it, and spreading his painted wings
widely abroad.

Although none of the other Indian munias are
so daintily beautiful as the green and the red species
that are so familiar as cage-birds, they are all most
attractive little birds, and form welcome features

Indian Pitta (p. 255).

[To face p. 256.

SWIFTS, GOAT-SUCKERS, MUNIAS, ETC. 257

in the Fauna of a garden. Only one species,
Uroloncha punctulata, is a common resident of the
neighbourhood of Calcutta, but every one who has
paid any attention to the ornithology of the locality
must be familiar with it and its strangely dis-
proportionate nest. It is a very pretty little bird
in its dress of sober brown, yellowish and white, with
all the under parts variegated with alternate light
and dark bands. During a great part of the year
few individuals are about, or, at all events, are
conspicuous, but, when the nesting season in the
latter part of the rains arrives, pairs of them make
their appearance in large numbers, and soon set
about building vigorously. This is especially the
case in the Botanic Garden, a locality in which, in
spite of the great acreage and abundant cover that
it provides, curiously few other sorts of birds seem
to care to nest. The nests are very conspicuous
objects owing to their large size, and within a short
time large numbers of them may be seen all over
the garden. They are usually placed at an elevation
of six to ten feet from the ground among the
branches of shrubs or small trees growing in exposed
places. In the Botanic Garden, Araucarias of
various species seem to be regarded with special
favour as building sites, probably because of the
exceptional support afforded by their regularly tiled
and rigid branches. The nests are untidy and
somewhat incoherent masses, more or less spherical

R

258 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

in outline, and containing a central space that opens
on the upper third of one of the sides. During the
earlier part of the building season the walls of the
cavity are almost wholly built of a layer of dry
grass faced internally with a coating of pappus of
grass-seeds, but later, when the great grasses come
abundantly into flower, the whole structure is often
almost entirely composed of pappus. At the time
at which the grass-blades are most in demand there
are always large numbers of dry ones scattered over
the ground in the Botanic Garden, left by the
mowers who are employed in keeping down the
luxuriant growth attending the rainy season, but
the birds hardly ever make use of them, and prefer
laboriously collecting their materials from the
growing plants, showing a strange failure to adapt
their actions to the conditions of an artificial
environment.

All munias are most alluring pets, and are very
easy to keep in good health in any tropical region, as,
so long as they are not exposed to low temperatures,
they require no special attention. The beautiful
colouring and miniature size of the green Stictospiza
formosa, and the red Sporceginthus amandava, render
them special favourites with bird-fanciers. They
are so very small that in dealing with them one feels
as though one had to do with birds out of a Noah's
Ark. I have not had much experience in keeping
green munias, but have very often kept large numbers

SWIFTS, GOAT-SUCKERS, MUNIAS, ETC. 259

of red ones. One set of them who inhabited a good-
sized aviary used often to build great, spherical nests
in the shrubs of Panax growing within the enclosure,
and would doubtless have successfully hatched out
young families, had it not been that the eggs
were no sooner laid than they were devoured by
some loriquets who were in the same aviary.
There are few more quaintly diverting exhibitions
than that afforded by a set of munias whilst settling
down for the night. The birds all crowd together
in rows upon the perches for the sake of warmth,
and as every one of them wishes to have a more or
less central position, it is long before a final settle-
ment is arrived at. Those birds that are towards
the ends of each row go on squeezing and pressing
inwards until the pressure on the centre becomes
so great that one or more of those located there
lose their footing, and are violently ejected upwards.
The individuals to whom the mishap has occurred
at once accept the situation, and, making no attempt
to regain their former places, fly off at once to one
or other end of the row, and take their turn at
crowding inwards until they are once more cast
out. Such processes of alternate squeezing and
eviction often go on for a long time with clock-work
regularity before a permanent arrangement has been
established.

Among the most striking of the small birds
that are often to be seen in the gardens of

260 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

Calcutta during the winter months are the rose-
finch and the ruby-throat. Specimens of the former
bird, Carpodacus erythrinus, are not at all un-
common, and, shortly before the spring migration,
are often in such brilliant plumage as to tempt one
to cage them, in spite of their notoriously quarrel-
some nature. Ruby-throats, Calliope camtschat-
kensis, are not so abundant, but a few specimens
are usually to be met with every season in any
good-sized garden, where they linger on until the
middle of April, and form most decorative elements
in the shrubberies which they haunt, questing about
among the leaves for insects, and showing the
beautiful scarlet of their throat-patches in startling
contrast with the sober tints of the rest of the
plumage.

Several kinds of warblers, among which
Phylloscopus affinis is specially abundant, occur in
most gardens in winter, and then, too, the Indian
redstart, Ruticilla rufiventris, makes its appearance.
It has a great liking for bamboos, and almost every
group of these is tenanted by several birds. They
are especially active in the mornings and evenings,
when they are constantly hopping about among
the densely tangled twigs, uttering a continuous flow
of harsh, chattering notes, and wriggling their tails
about in a strangely quivering way.

In any region, like the lower Gangetic delta,
where great tidal rivers and endless smaller channels

SWIFTS, GOAT-SUCKERS, MUNIAS, ETC. 261

and swamps abound, terns of various kinds are
constantly present in considerable numbers, and
may often be seen flying overhead in small parties
or in flocks of some size. It is, however, seldom
that any of them condescend to visit gardens,
unless, like the Brahmini kites, they are lured in
by an unwonted abundance of small fish in the
local ponds. Many other water-fowl, such as
wild geese, cranes of several species, etc., may
also occasionally be seen traversing the upper sky
at the times of the great autumnal and vernal
migrations, but they very rarely come to ground
in gardens, however extensive and secluded they
may be.

All the birds mentioned in the preceding pages
are so abundant, or so conspicuous in colouring or
habits, that they can hardly fail to attract the notice
of every one taking the least interest in natural
history, but many other species, whose presence is not
so readily detected, visit the gardens, and especially
the suburban gardens, of Calcutta, and would neces-
sarily be included in any attempt at a complete
record of the Fauna of the locality. Even an in-
complete list may, however, serve in some degree
to show what ample sources of interest and occupa-
tion lie open to every resident of India in the study
of the birds of his immediate environment, even
where this is of an urban nature.

XXII

MONKEYS

" There he quaff d the undefiled

Spring, or hung with apelike glee,
By his teeth or tail or eyelid,
To the slippery mango-tree."

— Fly Leaves.

"A troupe of Fawnes and Satyres far away
Within the wood were dauncing in a round."

— The Faerie Queene.

BIRDS form the most conspicuous feature in the
vertebrate Fauna of Indian gardens, but almost every
garden of any considerable size is inhabited or visited
by mammals of various kinds. Monkeys are rare in
the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta. Were
they as abundant as they are in many other parts of
India, gardening would have been rendered well-nigh
impossible, for to contend with them as well as with
the local crows would have been a hopeless task
indeed. During all my time in Calcutta I never
saw wild monkeys of any kind on that side of the
river Hugli on which the town proper is situated,
but in the suburbs of the farther bank, although the

262

MONKEYS 263

common bandar, Macacus rhesus, does not seem to
occur, troops of langurs, Semnopithecus entellus, every
now and then wander in from the neighbouring
country. They pay regular visits to the Botanic
Garden at the times at which certain kinds of trees
mature their fruit, but, owing to their relatively quiet
habits and the thickly- wooded character of the place,
their presence often escapes notice. They are
strangely still as compared with common bandars,
who go on perpetually yelping and talking to one
another, and it is quite astonishing to observe the
quietness with which a troop of such large animals
can travel about over the tree-tops, so long as they
are not alarmed, or on a journey from one of their
haunts to another. A band of langurs was in the
Botanic Garden when a tiger escaped from the
menagerie of the late King of Oudh in Garden
Reach, and swam across the river. Until he invaded
the garden the monkeys had moved about so quietly
that no one was aware of their presence, but no
sooner had he landed than they revealed themselves
by following him about and scolding loudly from
the trees overhanging the places at which he halted
and the tracks that he followed in moving from one
covert to another.

Where they occur in small numbers and only
occasionally make their appearance, any damage that
langurs may do is made good by the pleasure
afforded by their exhibitions of agility in climbing

264 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

and leaping among the branches, and, even where
they abound, the society of such handsome animals
is preferable to that of such debasedly hideous ones
as common bandars. But, in places in which they
are present in large numbers, the amount of mischief
that they are guilty of when invading gardens and
houses becomes very objectionable. In some Indian
towns they seem almost entirely to replace common
monkeys. This is very marked in the case of
Ahmedabad, where they are constantly to be seen
on the tops of the houses, and where the trees in
the gardens are full of troops of them, leaping and
swinging about among the branches. It is almost
impossible to see a party of them among trees and
rocks, some sitting in serious meditation, and others
indulging in the wildest gambols, without remember-
ing the striking passage in the Bible in which the
picture of anticipated desolation is accentuated by
the statement that "satyrs shall dance there."
Himalayan langurs, S. schistaceus, are very common
and troublesome in some hill-stations. They abound
on the Simla Hill, where troops of them are often
to be seen storming along through the tops of the
trees overhanging the roads, or precipitating them-
selves headlong downwards through the forest,
clothing the precipitous slopes of the great khads.

It is hard for any one who has had much
acquaintance with localities infested by common
Bengal monkeys to find a good word to say of

MONKEYS 265

them. Their appearance and habits, and the
amount of mischief that they do are enough to
arouse hatred even in the most animal-loving mind.
They are specially obtrusive in the towns of Banaras
and Mathura, and in the latter one may always
derive some amusement from the study of their
behaviour at the ghat on the Jamna at which the
sacred river-tortoises are fed with doles of gram
and other vegetables provided by the piety of
pilgrims. When a store of food is thrown into the
water, the tortoises come to the surface in such
crowds that their backs form a more or less con-
tinuous raft extending for yards out into the stream
in front of the steps, and intercepting a good deal
of the materials intended for them. A tempting
bait is thus provided for the monkeys, who are
always swarming on the neighbouring buildings,
and who troop down to venture boldly out on the
moving mass, keeping a sharp look-out for the
vicious snaps of the reptilian beaks, and quite un-
deterred by the fact that the loss of a limb every
now and then attends these risky exploits.

In the suburbs of Calcutta one is occasionally
favoured by visits from monkeys who are not
natives of the place, but who have either escaped
from captivity or are allowed by their owners to
roam at large. So long as the visitor is a Hoolock,
Hylobates hoolock, it would take a hard heart not
to welcome him. Fortunately, they are usually

266 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

the only monkeys that are allowed to go loose, a
privilege which they owe to their gentle, inoffensive
habits, and to the fact that they very seldom remain
in good condition when closely confined. When at
liberty they become wonderftilly tame, and often
make regular rounds of calls on their friends, especi-
ally at times when desirable articles of food are
likely to be met with. One that inhabited the
suburb of Alipur during the time that I lived there
was very often about in the lanes, and more than
once, whilst I was riding leisurely along beneath an
overhanging mass of bamboos or other dense cover,
I was startled by finding a long slender arm suddenly
passed round my neck and a little cold hand clasping
my throat as the animal descended to take his place
on my shoulder until he reached a point that he
desired to visit, and departed with as little ceremony
as he had come.

XXIII

JACKALS, ETC.

" The jackals' troop, in gathered cry,
Bay'd from afar complainingly,
With a mix'd and mournful sound,
Like crying babe, and beaten hound."

— Tfie Siege of Corinth.

"Also in that country there be beasts taught of men to go into
waters, into rivers, and into deep stanks for to take fish ; the
which beast is but little, and men clepe them loirs."

— SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.

JACKALS, Canis aureus, are often spoken of as
though they were unmitigated nuisances, but there
is much to be said in their favour quite apart from
the fact of their being most efficient scavengers.
There may be places in which they abound to
an extent rendering their nocturnal concerts really
annoying, but, if there be, I have had no experience
of them, and must confess to having always regarded
them as a pleasing variety in the nightly din of
frogs and insects, and even to a certain regret
over their absence in the British Islands. The
intermittent character of their music prevents it

•207

268 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

from getting on one's nerves in the way that
the ceaseless baying of pariah dogs so often
does ; the sounds of its solos and choruses are
frequently positively melodious when they come
from a distance, and, although this hardly holds
good when they are uttered close at hand, the
blood-curdling and fiendish character that they
then have is in itself not without a peculiar fascina-
tion of its own. As one lies wakeful in a steamy,
hot night, wearied out by the incessant shrilling and
whirring of insects and the explosively crackling cries
of the frogs, it is quite refreshing to become suddenly
aware that a jackal has begun to wail close at hand,
and to hear him repeat his doleful call until his
comrades begin to answer him, first in twos and
threes, and then in full chorus, coming nearer and
nearer, until at length their arrival is announced by
the soft tread of many feet and a subdued conversa-
tion of yapping barks (Plate XVI.). It is pleasant,
too, to look out on a brilliantly moonlight night
and see a large japkal bathing in the dewy grass,
lying about and rolling on the cool, drenched turf
with such manifest pleasure that one is almost
tempted to follow his example.

Thirty years ago the streets of Calcutta were
nightly haunted by troops of jackals, yelling and
racing about from place to place in quest of prey,
but the closure of open drains and improved scav-
enging have gradually diminished their numbers. So

A Jackal calling his Friends to a Feast (p. 268).

Large Civet (p. 274). \_Tofacep. 268.

JACKALS, ETC. 269

long as heaps of offal and garbage lay about in all
the streets, and the cavernous recesses of drainage-
culverts provided convenient lurking-places, the
town was a perfect paradise for such animals, and a
great number of jackals were permanent inhabitants
of it, but now during a great part of the year few
are to be seen or heard save in the outskirts of the
town proper or in the suburbs. Even at present,
however, when the monsoon-rains have been
sufficient to flood the surrounding country to any
considerable extent, troops of them come in during
the latter part of summer and the beginning of
autumn. At this time they often take up their
quarters beneath houses in which all the iron-
gratings over the openings of the sub -structure of
the basement are not in good repair. In such cir-
cumstances their presence can be readily explained,
and excites no special notice, but at other times of
year, and particularly when the uninvited guests
are solitary individuals, this is not the case, as there
is a widely diffused belief that when a solitary jackal
becomes unwontedly tame he is usually suffering
from an attack of rabies. It is by no means easy
to dislodge them after they have once established
themselves beneath a house, as it is necessary to
be quite certain that none of them are in residence
at the time at which measures are taken to close
the openings leading to their retreats. It would
be easy enough to imprison and starve them to

270 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

death, but no one who has ever experienced the
horrors attending the death of a rat beneath the
flooring of a room would dream of running any
risk of setting up a cemetery of jackals in the
basement of his house, where the complicated
system of ventilating channels consists of tunnels
along which no dogs of any considerable size can
make their way. If small dogs be allowed to enter,
as they are only too anxious to do, there is not
only a risk of their coming to grief in encounters
with the intruders, but also no small chance of their
losing their way in the labyrinth. The latter mishap
once overtook a favourite terrier of mine when she
pursued a cat who had taken refuge below the
house, and she was only in the end recovered by
dint of the destruction of an intact grating that
closed an opening to which she had made her way
in the course of her wanderings.

Where they are allowed to feed unmolested at
particular places, jackals often become very bold,
and may be seen at the sides of suburban roads
feeding, in the company of pariah dogs and cats, on
the contents of heaps of rubbish that lie awaiting
the visits of the scavengers' carts. These assemblies
are usually quite peaceful, but now and then the
dogs and jackals will wrangle and scuffle over the
possession of some specially attractive treasure. As
a rule the jackals take no notice of any one who may
pass along the road, but, should he halt to watch

JACKALS, ETC. 271

them, they slink off to a short distance and await
his departure in order to resume their meal. They
vary greatly in appearance at different times of year.
During winter, when their coats are in best condition,
they are really handsome animals, and very young
cubs are always most fascinating in their innocent
playfulness. During the height of summer they
feel the heat greatly, and are always ready to avail
themselves of any opportunities of mitigating it
that may be provided by their environment.

As a train rushes at mid-day along parts of
the line flanked by hollows, that are filled with
water during the rainy season and in which the
soil retains a certain amount of moisture and
coolness even in the hot weather, startled jackals
may be seen running up the slopes to sit panting
in the full blaze of the sunshine until it seems
safe to return to their shaded retreats ; and in
the evening, as the dusk sets in, whole troops
come streaming out and loiter on the banks until
sufficiently revived to set out on their nightly
rounds.

A love for jackals may be a matter of idiosyn-
crasy, but no one can feel any animosity to the
common Indian foxes, Vulpes bengalensis, whose
small size and delicate colouring are so attractive,
and who so seldom give any good ground for
annoyance, owing to the fact that their ordinary
diet consists of rats, mice, small reptiles, and insects.

272 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

They are very common in the open country round
Calcutta, and formerly frequented the maidan around
Fort William. Here there were various places in
which their earths were always to be found,
one of the most popular sites being on the banks
of a large pond immediately beneath the outer
wall of the Fort, and another lying to the north
of the enclosure of the Presidency Gaol. Such
constant residents were they, that the peculiar,
laughing bark that they so frequently utter during
their breeding season used, as it sounded out of the
stillness of an autumn night and travelled into the
streets bordering on the plain, to be one of the
regular and welcome intimations of the advent of
the cold weather. Now, however, like other in-
teresting animals, they have been improved out of
the locality, and it is only at rare intervals that
they are to be seen or heard within it.

Carnivorous animals of other sorts are always
only too abundant in suburban gardens — a fact
that has been painfully impressed on all those
who have had anything to do with the management
of the Zoological Garden in Alipur. At wide
intervals even a leopard may stray in from the
outlying country, and haunt enclosures quite close
to the town, lurking about among the dense
shrubberies, clumps of bamboos and other thick
covers during the day, and issuing forth at night
in search of prey. As they have a very decided

JACKALS, ETC. 273

liking for the flesh of dogs, they doubtless think
that they have lighted on very good quarters, but
it is very soon demonstrated to them that their
visits are by no means welcome. Fishing-cats,
Felis viverrina, are not uncommon in large gardens,
and may even become permanent residents in them.
This was the case with a pair who established
themselves in the Botanic Garden, and brought up
a litter of cubs in a fastness amid the crowded
mass of stems and epiphytes in the centre of
the great banyan-tree. They often are of really
formidable size, and at any time are uncanny-
looking creatures, owing to an intense malignity
of expression that is a true index to the savage
nature which renders them quite untamable even
when they have been caged in extreme youth.
The jungle-cat, F. chaus, is not very often met
with in the immediate neighbourhood of houses.
One for a time made its head-quarters beneath my
house in Alipur, and was a source of much interest
and excitement to the dogs, who were always on
the alert to hunt it when it ventured out from its
retreat. It was a handsome animal, of a pale
brownish-grey colour, with faintly marked bars
of deeper tint on the thighs and legs, and was
mainly distinguishable from a large domestic cat
by the comparative shortness of its tail. Its cry
was very like that of a common cat, but was often
prolonged into a growling note.

274 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

Both the large and the small civet are to be
met with in gardens, and the latter species even
in very small enclosures in thickly peopled parts of
the town. The large civet, Viverra zibetha, ought
to be a more attractive animal than it is (Plate
XVI.). The brilliant contrasts of black, white, and
grey in its coat, and the singular grace of its form
and movements are admirable, but the general effect
of the colouring is harsh and bizarre, and the long,
low, pointed head has a very mean look. Large
civets do not, as a rule, frequent the immediate
neighbourhood of houses, and it is therefore only
in the great and " careless-order'd " gardens of
the suburbs that they are likely to be seen. I
only twice met with them even there. On the
first occasion I was passing a neglected corner in
my garden in Alipur, where a mixed growth of
pine-apples and long grass formed a dense jungle,
when my terrier suddenly became highly excited
and plunged into the cover. There she hunted
about eagerly, and presently, with a great crashing
sound, a large civet leaped out on the farther side
of the thicket, and, after pausing for a few seconds
to look around, went off up the path "at a great
padding pace," and disappeared into the shrubbery.
A little later, when we were returning towards
the house, the dog entered a tangle of Petrsea
and Cereus near the point at which the civet had
vanished, and presently began to utter short, sharp

JACKALS, ETC. 275

barks indicative of a find. On joining in the
hunt I discovered that she had managed to climb
to a considerable height from the ground through
the network of interlacing branches, and had
reached a point where, in a state of frantic excite-
ment and some embarrassment owing to the
unstable nature of her footing, she was slipping
about and barking furiously, dangerously near to
her hissing and growling quarry. A small dog is
no match for a great civet even on the ground,
and far less so among the branches, and so I was
fain to remove her forcibly and leave the enemy
to make off without further molestation. When
I next came into close quarters with a civet I
had no help from a dog, and owed the privilege
solely to the fact that the animal was too deeply
absorbed in an attractive occupation to notice my
approach. It was on one of those breathless
evenings towards the close of the rainy season,
when sudden, drenching showers alternate with
shining intervals, during which swarms of white
ants emerge to spend their brief winged existence.
My attention was attracted to the presence of a
swarm by the sight of multitudes of kites sailing
to and fro over a particular point in the garden,
a phenomenon which, at or shortly after sundown,
can only be interpreted as indicative of an unusual
abundance of winged prey, more especially when,
on careful scrutiny, the birds can be seen every

276 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

now and then moving as though they were grasping
something in their claws and transferring it to
their beaks as they wheel and sail about in a
bewildering entanglement of flight. On nearer
approach it was possible to see the individual
insects, in the form of minute, dark points, ascending
against the background of pale blue sky, and, on
halting, to hear the rustling and pattering sounds
that always attend the emergence of so many
stiffly-winged creatures from the soil. They were
thronging out of the sloping surface on the bank
of a pond, swarming over the ground, and striking
against the leaves of the neighbouring trees and
shrubs as they streamed up continuously into the
air in wavering, laborious flight. As usual, they
were furnishing an attractive feast to animals of
various sorts ; kites took them on the wing ; an
enormous black and yellow spider disposed of
those who became entangled in the meshes of his
monstrous web extended between the branches
over the place where they were coming out ; an
army of great, fat toads hunted them greedily
over the ground ; and a large civet stepped lightly
about over the grass at the side of a great clump
of canes and picked up those who were still
struggling among the blades. It was fascinating
to watch the great, lithe creature, so close at hand
and so wholly unconscious of any human presence,
its long, softly-banded body and great plumy

JACKALS, ETC. 277

tail swaying gently about as it trod lightly from
place to place entirely absorbed in its occupation.
Presently, however, the distant sound of a carriage
startled it, and it went off stealthily into the cane-
brake. Small civet-cats, Viverricula malaccensis,
abound everywhere, and are often to be met with
even in the densest parts of the town. At one
time they were constant inhabitants of the Presi-
dency Gaol, and used often to rear young families
in retreats beneath the basements of some of the
buildings.

Palm-civets, Paradoxurus niger, are seldom long
absent from the suburban gardens of Calcutta, and
occasionally make their appearance well within the
limits of the town. They are wonderfully fearless
animals, and a pair of them once disturbed a seance
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal by rushing through
the meeting-room in amatory conflict. Their eyes
are strangely luminous in dim light, much more
so than those of almost any other animals save
death's-head moths. The arrival of a palm-civet in
a small urban garden is at once advertised by the
development of a huge hubbub among the resident
crows, who never fail to mob the visitor, spending
hours of delightful excitement in alternately crowd-
ing in around him and then flying suddenly out amid
torrents of bad language from the place in which
he may have chosen to spend the day — a place which
is usually situated in the crown of some tall palm.

278 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

Common mungooses, Herpestes mungo, are sure
to be often present in any garden containing patches
of long grass, broken ground, or thickets of shrubs
affording convenient cover and store of prey in the
shape of small birds, reptiles, and insects. The
feelings with which mungooses are regarded are apt
to be of a somewhat mixed nature ; for, on the one
hand, they are welcome and respectable on account
of the havoc that they play among snakes, mice,
and rats, and, on the other, they are notoriously
equally ready to make away with birds and eggs,
so that their presence in a garden is not wholly
desirable. Were it not on account of the birds,
it would be a source of unadulterated joy, as, quite
independent of their utility, the study of their
habits must be a constant entertainment to any one
who has not a constitutional aversion to ferret-like
animals. Their ceaseless activity, their astonishing
alertness, and their easy, graceful movements are
most fascinating, and the sight of one of them in
conflict with a Deadly snake is a most memor-
able experience in its exhibition of matchless
pluck and skilful fence. There was formerly
much debate in regard to the question of their
apparent immunity from the toxic effects of snake-
bite, some observers maintaining that it was the
result of wary avoidance of efficient bites, while
others regarded it as mainly due to the presence
of a constitutional insusceptibility. Now we know

JACKALS, ETC. 279

that both of these factors come into play to produce
the result, or, in other words, that in normal circum-
stances mature mungooses do possess an exceptional
immunity from the results of encounters with
venomous colubrine and viperine snakes, partly
owing to the presence of constitutional peculiarity,
and partly because they are seldom exposed to the
action of large doses of venom, due to their wonder-
ful activity and skill in dealing with the snakes. It
remains, however, to be determined how far the
constitutional immunity is of an hereditary or an
acquired nature. Experimental research has clearly
proved that a very high degree of immunity is
evolved in animals who have been treated with
progressively increased doses of venom, ranging
upwards from normally sublethal amounts through
a series of larger and larger ones. But any animals
like mungooses, who are frequently engaged in
conflicts with deadly snakes, must almost certainly
be practically exposed to such treatment, and under
these circumstances, it is only natural that adult
mungooses who have grown up at liberty should
possess a certain degree of immunity. What is
wanting to complete our information on the subject
is a series of experiments on animals which have been
born and reared in captivity under conditions pre-
cluding the possibility of encounter with venomous
snakes. Should they show any immunity, the latter
must be of an hereditary origin, and would apparently

280 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

furnish an example of hereditary transmission of
acquired peculiarity. There is nothing to show that
mungooses were originally endowed with inherent
immunity from the action of the snake-venom, but
it is certain that each successive generation of them
must, under normal conditions, have acquired a
greater or less degree of exemption, and, therefore,
if it turn out that nowadays inherent immunity is
present in any degree, the evidence will favour a
belief that it has arisen under the influence of the
exposure of many successive generations to conditions
leading to acquired peculiarity.

By a curious coincidence mungooses not only
are relatively exempt from the toxic action of
snake-venom, but sometimes are strangely like
snakes. Whilst walking down my garden one
morning my attention was suddenly and un-
pleasantly attracted by what seemed to be the head
and neck of a large snake projecting over the long
grass of a dry ditch at a little distance from where
I was. I watched it carefully, as the attitude and
brownish-yellow colouring were very suggestive of
a cobra. The object presently disappeared from
view, but soon again emerged, and then, by the
aid of a field-glass, was resolved into the head
and forequarters of a mungoose, who was sitting
up on end and searching his environment in quest
of prey. In the garden where this took place there
was quite a colony of mungooses inhabiting burrows

JACKALS, ETC. 281

in the banks of a deep hollow, which was almost
dry in summer, but became converted into a small
pond in the rainy season, and, consequently, oppor-
tunities for the study of their manners and customs
abounded. When busy hunting they usually go
about in pairs, but now and then a party of three
or four may be met with, working their way
systematically over the ground in a way that
excites pity for any other animal inhabitants of the
place. During the course of their investigations
they every now and then sit up very erect, and
have a good look round with their warily glancing
little eyes, and when several are in company, their
labours are often varied by playful fights in which
the combatants wrestle and roll over and over on
the ground amid clouds of dust. They do not, as
a rule, come into the interior of Calcutta, but in
many other towns they are constant residents. In
Delhi, for example, the Queen's Gardens are almost
always haunted by numbers of them. Every one
knows what charming pets they are when there
is no risk of endangering the life of other captive
animals, and how useful they are in keeping a house
clear of snakes, rats, and mice. The exhibitions of
alertness and activity that they afford must be seen
to be imagined. A mungoose may be apparently
quite absorbed in business at one end of a large
room, but, should a gecko fall from the roof at
the other end, it is rarely that he escapes being

282 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

secured before he has had time to pull himself
together and take refuge on the nearest wall.

Otters are naturally very common in the lower
delta of the Ganges, where the land is traversed
by innumerable water-courses, and interrupted by
ponds and marshes swarming with fish. They do
not, however, often make their appearance in
gardens, and very rarely invade the interior of the
town of Calcutta. A pair of them many years
ago had their head-quarters in a small pond, choked
with a rank growth of Papyrus, in the Botanic
Garden, and now and then one or two of them
will, for a time, haunt one or other of the ponds on
the maidan, but, as a rule, they avoid the immediate
neighbourhood of the town. Common otters, Lutra
vulgaris, are not so much used by the fishermen
of the Hugli as by those who work in the channels
of the Sundarbans and the large rivers further east
in the delta. Every now and then, however, the
presence of a boat provided with a pack of them
is advertised by the shrill, querulous cries which
they so frequently utter at any time, and which
fill the air every time they are sent into the water
by their owners. Their duties lie, not in directly
catching fish, but in alarming them and driving
them about so as to facilitate the netting operations
of the fishermen. The ease and vigour with which
they move, alternately swimming at the surface of
the water, yelping incessantly, and then suddenly

JACKALS, ETC. 283

turning over to dive into the depths below, are
delightful; and the way in which they can make
head against the violent currents of a flooded stream
and ebbing tide is quite wonderful. When not at
work they lie about tethered up in the boats,
spending most of their time in sleep, but occasionally
rousing up to wrangle and play with one another
and wail aloud for food. Otters seem always to
be in a state of ravenous hunger. Those which
were kept in the Zoological Garden at Alipur were
regularly and abundantly supplied with stores of
fish, but in spite of this, they always seemed to be
in a perfect frenzy of starvation, and ravenously
devoured all the very miscellaneous food that was
offered by compassionate visitors in the vain attempt
to still their clamour. They are ordinarily reputed
to make very charming and affectionate pets, but
one would certainly desire to be very certain of the
temper of any pets who are in a ceaseless state of
nervous excitement and are provided with jaws like
steel traps.

XXIV

SHREWS AND BATS

"The shrew-mouse eyes me slmdderingly, then flees; and,

worse than that,

The house-dog he flees after me — why was I born a cat ? "

— Fly Leaves.

"The lether- winged batt, dayes enemy."

— The Fa'e'rie Queene.

SHREWS, as a rule, are apt to escape notice, owing
to their nocturnal habits and the small size of
most of the species, but every one in India is
familiar with the great musk-shrews, or " musk-rats,"
as they are commonly called, who are constantly in-
vading houses and leaving unpleasant evidence of
their visits in an overpowering and all-pervading
musky odour. They are strange-looking creatures
at any time, and particularly so whilst running
about a garden in late dusk, when their pallidly
bluish-grey coats look as though they had been
smeared with luminous paint and stand out con-
spicuous amid the surrounding gloom. Soon after
sundown they begin to come out and run busily

2S4

SHREWS AND BATS 285

about beneath the shrubs and among the long grass,
constantly uttering shrill, twittering cries, that sound
more like those of a bird than a mammal, and
eagerly hunting for insects and worms. Insects of
all sorts always abound in Indian houses, and the
lighting of the lamps at dusk is the signal for a
general influx of moths, beetles, and other noctur-
nally active species in such numbers as to convert a
room into a perfect entomological menagerie. The
abundance of desirable food that is thus provided
is very alluring to the shrews, and they fearlessly
enter rooms in pursuit of it. When they come
in, they usually skirt along in the angles where
the walls and floor meet, coursing along, scuffling
and squeaking as they go, until they have made
a complete tour round the room or have reached
an opening into an adjoining one. If they be left
unmolested, they are quite inoffensive and are very
useful in clearing off any great cockroaches or
other objectionable insects that come in their way,
but, if they be in any way alarmed or disturbed
during their progress, the air is forthwith filled by
an intolerable smell of musk that adheres persistently
to anything that they may come in contact with.
It seems to be as offensive to most dogs as to
human beings, and is doubtless a most effectively
protective agent. Many dogs, although eager to
pursue musk-shrews, absolutely refuse to touch
them, and those who cannot resist doing so in the

286 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

excitement of the chase, show unequivocal signs
of disgust and shame over the consequences. It
is almost always safe to predict that a musk-
shrew is in question whenever dogs, who are questing
about among long grass, begin to work their way
along in a series of pouncing leaps that represent
the resultant of eagerness to reach their prey and
aversion to the results attending actual contact
with it.

The brown musk-shrew, Crocidura murina, is
said to occur in the neighbourhood of Calcutta,
but the only other shrew, besides the common
" musk-rat," that I ever met with in a garden there
was the pigmy-shrew, Crocidura perrotteti, a speci-
men of which I once caught in the Botanic Garden.
It may very possibly be common enough in the
locality without the fact being generally recognised,
as it is so wonderfully small and so essentially
nocturnal in its habits that it is only by chance
that specimens attract notice. The specimen in
the Botanic Garden was a belated individual, who
had been overtaken by dawn whilst at some distance
from home. When first observed it was making
its way across a dusty path, and was an object
of equal curiosity to me and my dogs, looking,
as it did, more like some strange insect than a
mammal.

One of the things that is most striking to any one
on first arriving in a tropical country, and especially

SHREWS AN7D BATS 287

in one like lower Bengal, where perennial heat and
moisture secure the presence of innumerable insects,
is the extraordinary number and variety of the bats
who make their appearance every evening at sun-
down. Just then, and all through the time in
which the colours of the sunset fade out and
those of the after-glow burn up to replace them,
bats are emerging from their diurnal hiding-places
and hurrying out into the air. On every housetop
a softly scuffling sound issues from any disused
chimneys that project from the flat surface of the
terraced roof, and when one approaches one of
these and looks into any of the lateral openings,
bats will be seen coming scuttling backwards up
the shafts in a continuous stream. Each of them
as he reaches the top suddenly turns round so as
to bring his head upmost, has a quick look round,
scrambles to one of the openings, and then launches
forth into the air. Similar processes of emergence
are occurring simultaneously from innumerable other
places — from empty buildings ; from the crevices
about the beams in verandahs; from hollows in
trees, and from any sites presenting shaded and
obscure lurking-places — so that it is little wonder
that, for a time, the sky seems to be alive with
myriads of bats, who flicker around in complicated
and changeful mazes. The first species to emerge
are mostly of very small size, many of them hardly
larger than big moths. These come out while the

288 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

light is so strong that king- crows are still hawking,
and parties of swifts screaming and circling around,
but, as the dusk deepens, larger and stronger-flying
ones make their appearance, and presently huge
flying-foxes begin to flap their way laboriously
high overhead. The smallest bats have a very
wavering, moth-like flight, but some of the larger
ones dash and wheel around almost like snipe.
One species of considerable size usually makes a
continuously creaking sound while flying, as though
all its joints wanted oiling, but whether this be
due to some peculiarity of flight or to the repeti-
tion of a cry I never could determine. Bats are
sometimes described as swooping, but, if the term
be applicable to the flight of any species, it is
only to that of the great fruit-bats, who, on
nearing a tree in which they purpose to feed,
exchange the laboured flapping of their common
flight for a series of plunging and sweeping
descents.

Every one who has visited the great and often
partly ruined mosques and tombs of Upper India
must be only too familiar with the villainous odour
that pervades many parts of them, owing to the
extent to which they are peopled by bats. The
spaces between the inner and outer vaultings of
the great domes of the Taj and Humayun's tomb
are almost always haunted by multitudes of them ;
and it is a memorable experience to look upwards

SHREWS AND BATS 289

through the shaft that pierces the depth of the
great tope at Sarnath and see the sunlight sifting
down through the gauzy wings of a throng of
startled bats, fluttering in alarm over the invasion
of their fastness.

Shortly after they have come out for the night,
bats often for a time flutter about over ponds,
and at intervals dip down to take something from
the surface, and as the habit is not peculiar to the
small insectivorous species, but is shared by the
great fruit-bats, it must in some cases be connected
with drinking, and not the outcome of attempts
to secure floating or swimming prey. I only once
saw a bat swim, and then the performance was
in no way connected with the above-mentioned
habit, but was the result of the fact that the
swimmer had come out whilst the light was still
so strong as to bewilder him. Whilst I was on
the bank of the pond where he came to grief,
my attention was attracted by a strange object
far out over the surface of the water, and steadily
advancing towards me at considerable speed and
with a strangely jerking motion. As it neared the
bank it resolved itself into the head and fore-
quarters of a small bat, who was oaring his way
along by vigorous strokes of his half expanded
wings. As he neared the shore, a crow, who had
also been watching his progress with much interest,
made an attempt to secure him, so that I had to

T

290 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

go to the rescue and transfer the poor little tired
mariner to the safe shelter of a thick shrub.

To the ordinary observer the great fruit-bats
are the most interesting members of the family
that are to be met with in India. Two species,
Pteropus medius and Cynopterus marginatus, are
very common in the neighbourhood of Calcutta.
The first of them, the common large fly ing- fox,
is a familiar object throughout the greater part of
India. In "The Fauna of British India" the
species is said to be unknown in the Punjab, but
in the year 1880, the trees in the enclosure of the
Baba Tal, in the town of Amritsar, were certainly
tenanted by a large colony of them, and, as the
Queen's Gardens in Delhi always contain large
numbers, it is hardly likely that they are entirely
absent from the country lying between the two
cities. A colony of flying-foxes is always a note-
worthy sight, and occasions ceaseless wonder that
such singularly ill-tempered animals should ever
have come to adopt a social mode of life. Should
a colony be visited at an hour early enough to
allow of the study of the behaviour of the animals
as they come in from their nocturnal wanderings,
it will be found that each successive arrival is
greeted by a chorus of viciously ill-natured cries,
and that the task of effecting a landing among
the boughs is one of considerable peril, owing to
the malignant attacks that the animals, who have

SHREWS AND BATS 291

already established themselves, are always on the
outlook to make on the newcomers. All through
the course of the day, too, and when it might
have been supposed that sleep would have led to a
cessation of hostilities, sounds of wrangling go on
ceaselessly, owing to the restlessness which leads
them to be constantly changing their positions and
disturbing and irritating their neighbours. When
in captivity they are just as prone to quarrel as
they are whilst at large. The injuries that they
inflict on one another in these scuffles are often
very formidable, as the great, soft, leathery surfaces
of the wings afford a fine field for the play of their
great hooked claws. It is consequently a difficult
matter to keep more than one or two of them
in the same enclosure in good condition for any
length of time, as, even when their encounters do
not terminate fatally, their wings are almost sure
speedily to present a sadly tattered and unsightly
aspect.

Flying -foxes take to various kinds of trees
as the sites for their rookeries, but those that
seem to be especial favourites in Upper India are
pipals, Ficus religiosa, tamarinds, and high-growing
bamboos. The fact that tamarinds are often chosen
is probably one reason why they should be regarded
as special haunts of bhuts, and why the demon in
the Baital Pachisi is described as always hanging
itself up in one at the end of each of its conver-

292 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

sations with Vikram. Although large casuarinas
abound in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, they
seem never to be chosen as sites for colonies,
whereas in Southern India, and especially about
the town of Madras, they are very frequently
occupied; and certainly nowhere do the clustering
bats present a more curious and striking appearance
than when hanging among the long slender branches
of these trees, swaying about on the feathery shoots
that bend under their loads and are stirred by
every passing breeze. Two very large colonies
inhabit the neighbourhood of Calcutta, one lying
to the west of the town on the farther bank of
the Hugli, and the other to the south-west in the
tract of country between the Diamond Harbour
and Budge-Budge roads. At certain times of year
it is curious to observe how these two communities
have perfectly distinct feeding - grounds, and how
completely apart they keep from one another on
the way to them. Evening after evening at sun-
down two distinct streams of bats may be seen
crossing the sky above the town, one travelling
almost due eastwards from a point across the
river, and the other north-eastwards ; intersecting
one another at a certain point in their course, but
never showing any tendency to intermingle. The
degree to which flying - foxes are conspicuous in
particular parts of the town and suburbs at different
times of year is determined by the local distribution

SHREWS AND BATS 293

and seasons of flowering and fruiting of certain kinds
of trees. They have a special liking for the fruits
of devdars, Polyaltliia ; country-almonds, Terminalia
catappa; and kadams, Nauclea Kadumba ; and where-
ever such trees abound they form centres of attrac-
tion at the times at which their fruits have reached
a certain stage of development. Devdars and
kadams normally produce only one crop of fruit
annually. This is developed from flowers that in
the case of the devdar are produced in spring,
and in that of the kadam on the first onset of
the monsoon rains, but in both alike it becomes
alluring to the bats in July and August. The
country-almonds, on the other hand, have no less
than three successive crops corresponding with
inflorescences that appear coincidently with the
onset of the hot weather and the beginning and
end of the rainy reason. Hence, whilst the
devdars and kadams are only visited once a year,
country-almonds remain attractive during a great
part of each annual period, although they are
specially so at the same time as the other trees
are, because the spring inflorescence and the crop
of fruit connected with it are much more abundant
than those developed later.

During the hot-weather months flying-foxes
almost entirely desert the immediate neighbour-
hood of Calcutta, and their reappearance in the
town in the end of June or the beginning of July

294 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

is one of the signals announcing the fact that the
rainy season has really set in. When they first
appear they do so in relatively small numbers, but,
as their favourite fruits mature, larger and larger
flocks assemble, and for a time all the trees are
nightly thronged from shortly after sundown until
the approach of dawn. After the fruit on the
devdars has been cleared off their numbers per-
ceptibly decrease, but the successive crops of plums
on the country-almonds, and the maturing in-
florescence of various other trees, such as Parkia
biglobosa, serve to attract a certain number of
visitors all through the autumn and the greater
part of winter. On approaching trees at which
they intend to feed, flying-foxes exchange their
usually slowly flapping, laborious progress for a
boldly sweeping flight in which they wheel around
in gradual descent, and finally plunge with a great
scuffling dash into the foliage. Their caution in
committing themselves to the branches is well
founded, for each .new arrival is greeted by torrents
of jealous chattering and resentful attacks from
those who are already at work and are disturbed
by the agitation of their locations. Owing to the
fact that whilst feeding they generally hang head
downward and suspended by the great hooked claws
on their hinder limbs, they are constantly dropping
half-devoured fruits, and bestrewing the ground
beneath with gnawed plums and berries. The

SHREWS AND BATS 295

regularity with which they come in night after
night to feed at particular trees enables those
natives who regard them as desirable articles of
diet to reap a rich harvest during their seasonal
visits. Two methods of capturing them are in
common use in the neighbourhood of Calcutta.
The first is carried out by means of very tenacious
and widely - meshed nets, which are suspended
vertically between two fruiting trees, over an
open space or roadway through which the bats
are likely to sweep in descending to land among
the branches. The nets are so slight in texture,
and are often hung so far aloft, as to present a
certain likeness to the monstrous spiders' webs
which often occupy similar positions. A very
distinguished botanist once took me out to see
one as a very remarkable specimen of a web, and
was deeply grieved at my jeers over his discovery.
The second method of trapping is of a more com-
plicated character, and can only be conducted by
the co-operation of two men. One of them is
provided with a call and a dark-lantern, and the
other with a so-called Mnta, an apparatus con-
sisting of a bundle of twigs fastened to the end of
a pole, and somewhat resembling a long-handled
birch-broom. When they have arrived at a place
where the bats are feeding, the man with the call
puts it into his mouth and shows the light of his
lantern. The light attracts the attention of the

296 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

bats, and, as the notes of the call are very like
their wrangling cries, the quarrelsome creatures are
very apt to approach it and to afford the man
with the Mnta a chance of beating them down.
There can be little question that it is only prejudice,
arising from the unpleasing way in which their coats
swarm with vermin, that prevents flying-foxes from
coming into the European market, for their flesh
ought to be particularly delicate, owing to the diet
of fresh fruits and buds on which it is nourished,
and their fur is extremely beautiful in colour, and
wonderfully fine and soft in texture. As it is,
no Anglo- Indian has the courage to try them,
although many are constantly slaughtered by idle
sportsmen, who find them tempting targets as
they flap slowly across the dusk of the evening
sky, or in the brilliant moonlight of the later hours
of the night. They are brought down by very
slight injuries, the passage of a single pellet through
the membrane of one wing being often enough to
cause their fall.

Short-nosed fruit-bats, Cynopterus marginatus,
are very abundant around Calcutta, but do not
attract so much notice as the large flying-foxes
do, both on account of their smaller size, and
because they never occur in colonies, but spend
the hours of daylight either alone or at utmost in
pairs. Moreover, when resting they always lie con-
cealed, never taking up conspicuous places among

XVII.

Small Flying-Foxes on a Plantain Leaf. p. 297.

SHREWS AND BATS 297

branches, but almost invariably hanging themselves
up on the under surfaces of large leaves, such as
those of plantains and aroids, so that it is only acci-
dentally that their presence is discovered (Plate
XVII.). Whilst passing through a group of plantains
one's attention may be arrested by dark objects
adhering to the lower surfaces of the great over-
arching leaves, but their form and colouring is so
like that of one of the detached spathes or torn and
brown strips of leaf-tissue that are so often to be seen
in like positions, that there is a great chance that
their true nature may be mistaken. This re-
semblance is, doubtless, highly protective, and has
been beautifully elaborated in relation to the nature
of the environments in which the animals ordinarily
spend their times of rest. Owing to their larger
size and social habits, the common fly-foxes have
less need of protection of this nature, but, in spite
of this, they do show distinct traces of resemblance
to certain features often met with in their immediate
surroundings ; for, when hanging from the branches,
they do present a curious likeness to the bunches
of drying pods that abound on some of the trees
in which colonies are to be found. Where such
colonies are established in pipals or bamboos they
certainly show no evidence of this, but when they are
located in tamarinds, and very specially when in trees
of Parkia biglobosa, the resemblance between the
hanging bats and the pendent clusters of brown pods

298 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

is very evident (Plate XVIII.). It may be that
the social habit has arisen comparatively recently, and
that the resemblance dates from an earlier period, at
which special protection was advantageous to solitary
or merely paired animals. The evolution of the
social habit may well have done away with the need
of protective resemblance, and have allowed of the
tenancy of trees in which the elements making
for it are absent, but there can be no question
that the resemblance does exist in those instances
in which certain trees are made use of.

The fruits of various kinds of figs are very great
favourites with these bats, and, when crops of
receptacles are maturing, the trees are constantly
haunted by swarms of them. They do not, how-
ever, seem to be nearly so quarrelsome as the great
flying-foxes, or, at all events, they carry on their
competition over the fruit so quietly that no sounds
of wrangling ever attend it. Their flight is much
stronger and more rapid than that of the flying-
foxes, and in going in and out of trees they never
cause the disturbance that the latter do. They are
curiously methodical in regard to the times at which
they come out in the evening; their exits always
take place at a particular period after sundown, and
thus, although their exact hour varies with the time
of year, they are as good as clocks at any given
time. It is very pretty to see a pair of them
hanging beneath the broad curving blade of a

SHREWS AND BATS 299

great plantain-leaf, and, with their wings folded
around them, looking like little bundles of soft
brown fur, picked out by paler lines, and ending
beneath in small, sharply-pointed heads with bright
greyish-brown eyes that are constantly glancing
round in wary observation.

XXV

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC.

"....; the striped palm-squirrel raced
From stem to stem to see ; "

— Hie Light of Asia.

" Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats."

— The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

" And bristling with intolerable hair."

— Atalanta in Calydon.

PALM-SQUIRRELS, Sciurus palmarum (Plate XIX.),
are to be found in every suburban garden, and are
occasionally met with well within the limits of the
town of Calcutta. They are so pretty and attractive
that one is usually disposed to pardon any mischief
that they may do, so long, at any rate, as they do not
insist on invading the interior of houses. In Calcutta
they seldom do this, but in Madras they are often
very troublesome, constantly making excursions into
rooms, gnawing up curtains and other fabrics in
quest of materials for their nests, and being the
indirect cause of the ruin of small ornaments which

300

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 301

are very apt to come to grief in the excitement that
arises among the resident dogs and cats on the occasion
of their visits. Any material of a soft, fibrous texture,
or capable of being reduced to fibres, is an irresistible
attraction, and they were consequently a constant
source of trouble and cost in the Zoological Garden
at Alipur, owing to their persistent attacks on the
curtains of coarse jute-fabric affixed to the front of
many cages to protect their inmates from blazing
sunshine, furiously driving rain, and the cold of
winter nights. In addition to such evidently
purposive mischief, they are often guilty of seem-
ingly wanton injury by gnawing through the
branches of shrubs and creepers so as to cause
unsightly blanks in the foliage. As the tissues in
such cases are usually quite cleanly divided, the
injury cannot be excused as occasioned by any
dietetic need, and, if the habit be of any practical
use at all, it can only be so as a means of cleaning
the teeth of the culprits and preventing overgrowth
by the friction that it provides.

The number of palm-squirrels inhabiting any
given locality undergoes striking fluctuations during
the course of years. In 1880-81, they were mis-
chievously abundant in the Botanic Garden at
Shibpur; in 1886-87, hardly any were to be met
with ; but from that time onwards they went on
steadily multiplying, until in 1896 they had become
as common as they ever had been. As has already

302 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

been pointed out, fluctuations of like nature occur in
the numbers of other mammals and of some birds
in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and may fairly
be accounted for as the results of periodically re-
curring destructive epidemics.

The movements of palm-squirrels in trees are
exquisitely accurate and rapidly executed. In
travelling up vertical surfaces they advance in a
succession of rapid darting rushes, alternating with
pauses, during which they lie flattened out on the
bark and almost invisible among the grey and black
lichens coating it, and closely matching the colours
of their fur. When traversing horizontal or sloping
boughs they run and leap lightly about, constantly
flirting their feathery tails as they go. When the
stem on which a squirrel is, is approached, the animal
immediately dodges round to the far side of it, and
there is no use of attempting to get a sight of him
by following him round, as this only leads him to
repeat the process. Under such circumstances the
only chance of getting a good view is to remain
quite still until curiosity has done its work, and
then a small head will be seen peeping round one
side of the stem to scrutinise the intruder with a
pair of brightly glancing eyes. All the time they
are travelling they constantly chatter and scold,
and every pause in their progress is attended by
a volley of sharply twittering notes, and such
violent elevation of their tails that the tips are

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 303

jerked against the shoulders. In order to see them
in a state of the highest excitement it is only
necessary to set a dog at them whilst on the ground.
Immediate flight to the nearest tree is the primary
result, but after they have reached a safe height
and have pulled themselves together from the
nervous shock caused by the assault, they usually
become aggressive, descending as far as prudence
allows, and scolding at their enemy with torrents
of querulous abuse. Dogs are always ready for a
squirrel-hunt, but very seldom gain anything from
it save excitement, as their quarry is usually much
too sharp for them, and rarely ventures far enough
from trees to give them a fair chance. Now and
then, however, dogs are to be met with who have
an exceptional talent for stalking them craftily until
they are within reach of a sudden rush. As a rule,
squirrels are very cautious about leaving the im-
mediate neighbourhood of trees, but now and then
they are tempted by alluring food to wander far
out into the open and run the risk of persecution
by crows, who, whilst very careful to avoid being
bitten, worry them greatly by hopping about close
behind them during their rushing advances from one
place to another. Where the ground is bare, or
only covered by short turf, they can get along very
quickly, but, owing to the shortness of their legs,
they are greatly hampered by grass of any consider-
able length. The fallen fruits and flowers of many

304 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

kinds of trees lure them down to squabble with the
mynas and other birds who find the feast equally
attractive.

Palm-squirrels are very easily tamed, especially
when taken young, and are very attractive pets in
spite of the mischief that they are apt to do owing
to their ungovernable desire to be constantly gnaw-
ing at something. Their habits in captivity clearly
show that much of their nest-building is pure house-
building, quite independent of any prospective
family end. One, that for a long time inhabited
an aviary in my verandah, built a most elaborate
sleeping-room in a wooden box, and, as one side
of the latter in contact with the wiring had been
previously completely gnawed away, it was easy
to study all the steps in the progress of the work.
The nest was entirely built up of coarse cotton
threads taken from a cover that was thrown over
the wiring at night. The threads were made up
into clues and flocks, and the latter were then piled
together in the form of a hollow ball, with a small
round opening at 'one side leading into a central
cavity, in which the architect spent his nights and
many hours of the day.

The only squirrels that are uninteresting in
captivity are the flying species, whose nocturnal
activity renders them so dull and drowsy during the
day, that, to any one who had only seen them in
confinement, it would be hard to imagine them

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 305

equal to the wonderful feats of agility that they
habitually practise whilst at large. Two species,
Pteromys inornatus, and Sciuropterus jimbriatus, are
very common on the Simla Hill, often spending their
days in the roofs of houses ; and there are few
more attractive entertainments than that of watch-
ing them when setting out on their nightly ex-
cursions. There are excellent points for observing
them on many roads, and especially at certain
points on the long, winding one that leads from
the Mall down to Annandale. In order to see
them it is only necessary to take up a position
at dusk at one of the points at which they have
to cross the road in descending the hill, and to
keep quite still. Very soon scuffling sounds will
be heard in one of the overhanging trees, and then
a dark object crosses overhead to one that leans
out over the depths of the khad. Once it has
reached such a point, the squirrel ascends until it
has nearly reached the top of the tree, and then runs
outward to the end of a branch, where it again
comes into view as a dark mass among the foliage.
Suddenly the mass seems to enlarge and unfold,
and in a moment shoots out into the air, and sails
downwards through clear space to land on the
lower part of a tree far below, and there begin to
ascend anew in preparation for another flight. The
journey down the hill looks enviably easy, but the
toil of the return must be very great, as in it no

u

306 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

great spaces can be covered, and the ascent must
either be made on the ground, or by means of a
great number of very short flights from the top of
one tree to the base of another only a very little
farther up the slope.

The large red Indian squirrel, Sciurus indicus, is
often on sale in the bazaars of Calcutta, but does
not make a very interesting pet. It is not nearly
so lively in captivity as many other squirrels are,
and is much disfigured by the blunt roundness of
its muzzle, and the repulsive orange tint of its
teeth.

Rats and mice are only too abundant in most
houses and gardens in India. The sound of their
riotous nocturnal excursions over the canvas ceilings
so common in houses in Upper India, is familiar to
every one as one of the trials of restless nights in
the hot weather ; and very few residents of Calcutta
can have failed to suffer from the effects of their
annual invasion of houses when the onset of the
monsoon rains drives them in in throngs from their
out-of-door haunts. In Calcutta, brown rats, Mus
decumanus, are permanent inhabitants of houses,
stables, and other buildings, but the so-called black
rats, M. rattus, usually have their head-quarters
in gardens, and only come indoors in considerable
numbers when they are drowned out by excessive
rainfall. They are not so unpleasing to look at
as brown rats are, and, indeed, are rather pretty

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 307

animals, but they generally are much more mis-
chievous as inmates of houses. During the time
of their annual invasions it is hard to say what may
not suffer from their attacks, as, unlike the brown
rats, who generally direct their attention to articles
of food, they seem to be possessed of a devil of
gnawing that drives them to exercise their teeth
impartially on anything they come across, and to
play havoc among books, boots, bedding, and furni-
ture generally. They are strangely, and, in a sense,
attractively familiar in their ways, and seem to take
it quite as a matter of course that they must be
welcome guests. They show none of the furtive
habits that ordinarily characterise brown rats, and
will often come out and play about in rooms
in full daylight quite regardless of the presence of
human beings. One afternoon, whilst I was sitting
idly watching one frisking about the room, it
gradually came nearer and nearer, and eventually
mounted on one of my feet to sit up there and
have a good look around, whilst it leisurely scratched
its head, and combed out its whiskers. This was
all very well, but it is not so pleasant to awake
morning after morning to find a large hole in the
mosquito- curtains and much of the stuffing of the
bed-pillows pulled out and strewn around as evi-
dence of the fact that a rat has been paying a visit
during the night. Whilst residing out of doors
they spend much of their time among the boughs

308 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

of trees and shrubs, where they build great nests
of dead leaves and dry grass. One of them once
took up its quarters in the crown of a young tadi-
palm in the Botanic Garden, and built a nest
between two leaves just at shoulder-height from the
ground over the side of a path, so that one could
exchange greetings with it in passing as it lay in
its bed (Plate XIX.). It belonged to the variety
named Mus rufescens, which is distinguished by the
length of the tail and the beautiful yellowish tint of
the fur over the sides, back, and head, and which
seems to be the commonest, and certainly is the
prettiest form occurring in the gardens of Calcutta.
The extreme prejudice ordinarily entertained
against brown-rats is, in so far as my personal
experience goes, rather unfair. They doubtless have
a very debased look, they are not at all nice in
their choice of food, and latterly they have acquired
ill-repute as possible importers of plague, but, in
ordinary circumstances, and when not present in
great number, they really are very inoffensive neigh-
bours, so long at least as they do not use one's house
as a cemetery, and they certainly are most efficient
scavengers. During a long term of years I lived in a
house in Calcutta where the stables were close to
the main-door and greatly infested by rats, but,
although the latter were in the habit of visiting
me frequently, they never did any serious mischief
or attempted to establish themselves permanently in

Rat in its Nest (p. 308).

Palm-squirrels (p. 300).

[To face p. 308.

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 309

any of the rooms. Their incursions usually took
place immediately after meals, and when there was
a likelihood of finding fragments of food scattered
about. During the last year of my stay in Calcutta
there were no dogs in the house, and the visits of
the rats became more frequent and methodical than
before, but, even then, they were mere passing events
unattended by any damage. Night after night,
whilst I sat reading at the side of the dinner-table
after the servants had gone, there would be a sudden
sound of hurrying feet, and two great rats would
come racing into the room from the hall, to hunt
about carefully over the floor, climb up and quarter
about over the table, and, after having cleared off
everything that they could find to eat, take their
departure as noisily and unceremoniously as they had
arrived. As they never did any harm and always
left the house at once on finishing their meal, I
came quite to tolerate their visits, and even to miss
them when anything prevented their occurrence.
This being the case, it was not unnatural that the
rats came to regard themselves in the light of family
friends, and were at last so confident that they had
occasionally to be forcibly repressed when their
familiarity led them to extend their journeys over the
table by excursions on to my head and shoulders.
However far a tolerance of rats may go, it can hardly
be expected to lead to any desire for immediate
contact with them, or pleasure in the sense of being

310 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

shut up in confined quarters in their company. It
is not easy to forget the feeling of disgust attending
the sudden fall of a rat from the ceiling into one's
face as one lies in bed, or the horror of realising that
one or more rats are in one's berth in a small cabin.

Both of the common rats, but especially the
brown ones, are a constant source of trouble and loss
in the Zoological Garden at Alipur. They seem to
find it a perfect paradise, and are for ever undermining
the basements of the buildings, purloining grain and
other articles of food, not to speak of occasionally
playing havoc among eggs, and young or even
mature birds.

Common house-mice, Mm musculus, abound in
Bengal, and it is only necessary to set up an aviary
in a verandah, or to keep a few caged birds in the
rooms of a house, in order to be aware of the fact.
They really are much more troublesome than rats
from their great desire to live indoors and from the
ravages that they commit among books and papers
whilst engaged in building their nests. It is quite a
common experience, on opening a drawer in a writing-
table, to find that bundles of valuable papers have
been torn up into strips and then woven into hollow
rounded masses containing litters of unpleasant, pink,
gelatinous young mice, or to discover that some
treasured volume has been ruthlessly disfigured by
having its edges and corners mangled. For some
years I kept large numbers of birds in my house, and

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 311

the mice became so extremely numerous, and were
so constantly running about in my study, that 1
became quite an adept in killing them. After trying
many different methods for doing so I eventually hit
upon two very efficient ones. The first of these was
carried out by the aid of a Cachari blow-tube, which
lay handy on the writing-table, and discharged its
sharp, metal-tipped darts so accurately as to allow
of making very good practice. The other I can
specially recommend for its extreme simplicity and
great efficiency in rooms where there are not many
heavy pieces of furniture against the walls. All
the apparatus called for in it is a strong box set at a
very acute angle with the foot of a wall, so as to
leave a narrow, tapering chink, between the surfaces
of the wood and the plaster; or, even better, two
boxes set end to end against the wall and diverging
from it in opposite directions, so as to leave two
chinks opening respectively right and left. When
mice in a room are alarmed, they usually at once
make for the sides of it and run along in the angle
where these meet the floor. Any mouse running
round the edges of the floor is almost sure to meet
with one of the tapering cul de sacs provided by the
boxes, and naturally taking refuge there, may be at
once disposed of by kicking the box violently against
the wall.

The Indian field-mouse, Mus buduga, doubtless
occurs in the gardens of Calcutta, but it is so small

312 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

and does so very little harm as readily to escape
notice. Very different is it in the case of the
common mole-rats, Nesocia bengalensis, who render
their presence only too apparent by the unsightly
heaps of loose earth, like mole-hills, that they are
constantly casting up on the surfaces of lawns, or on
sloping banks of ponds where they are particularly
noxious, from their love of these sites for their
tunnels. In the case of excavated ponds these do
comparatively little harm beyond disfiguring the
surface of the slopes, but in that of embanked ones
they are a source of serious danger by weakening the
stability of the banks and facilitating the occurrence
of percolation through them. Fortunately, mole-rats
are very easily captured, as they can be readily dug
out of their burrows, which follow a very superficial
course ; and their numbers are also frequently very
greatly reduced, probably by the intervention of
epidemic disease. During periods in which they
abound stringently repressive measures are often
called for in order to abate their mischief. About
the year 1880 they were so numerous in the Botanic
Garden at Shibpur that it was necessary to keep two
coolies told off to dig them out of their caves in the
slopes of the ponds. This was a most congenial task
to the diggers, as they belonged to a class of natives
who regard rats as desirable food. Their labours
were rendered additionally pleasant by the sense that
they were not only a means of procuring stores of

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 313

food, but led to the acquisition of much bakshish;
for, at the close of each day's work, its product, in
the form of earthen pots full of rats, was regularly
brought to me in order to let my dogs have the
pleasing excitement of a hunt on the flat terraced
roof of the superintendent's house, or in a bath-room
in event of excessive rain. The men certainly had a
very good time of it ; they earned regular pay for
light labour that provided them with desirable food,
frequent bakshish, and all the entertainment of wit-
nessing a rat hunt every evening.

Bengal porcupines, Hystrix bengalensis, certainly
occur in the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta,
as they are occasionally brought into the town for
sale by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages.
I have, however, neither seen them in any of
the suburban gardens, nor heard any complaints of
their doing any serious damage there, like that
which is so often caused by the great porcupine,
H. leucura, in the gardens of other parts of India.
I once tried one as a pet, but found it a hopelessly
stupid and unfriendly animal, although, owing to
voracious greed, it very soon became quite tame.
In dealing with it, it was always necessary to be
prepared for the chance of its making one of those
precipitate and blindfold assaults that porcupines are
apt to commit when suddenly startled, in the course
of which they abruptly erect their spines, make a
noise like that of an engine blowing off steam, and

314 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

rush backward in the direction of the supposed
enemy.

Common Indian hares, Lepus rujicaudatus, are
often very troublesome in suburban gardens. They
abound in the Botanic Garden to an extent that
renders it necessary that the beds in the flower-
garden should be carefully protected by surround-
ing fences of wire-netting. One morning whilst the
superintendent of the Garden was overhauling the
nursery, and enforcing the need of a general
clearance of the miscellaneous stores of rubbish that
are so sure to accumulate in native hands, he came
across a heap of dilapidated wire-netting. " Have
this thrown away at once, babu," said he to the
official in charge. " But, sir, it is to protect the
plants in the flower-garden from the insects," was
the immediate reply. This statement was at first
sight somewhat startling, but was accounted for
by the fact that the man, like Punch's railway-
porter, used the word "insect" as a generic term
applicable to any animal of unknown name and
nature.

There are now, alas! very few gardens in
Calcutta, abutting on the river, like those of Garden
Reach in the days of its glory, before mills and
shipping -yards had devastated the grounds of the
great old houses that used to fringe the bank ; but
so long as the Botanic Garden remains where it is,
one may continue to regard the Gangetic dolphin,

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 315

Platanista gangetica, as a member of the garden
Fauna of the locality. One can hardly think of even-
ings during the cold weather, spent on the river-
face of the garden — with the stream slipping by in
oily sheets all glorious in reflections of the crimson,
ruddy brown, and gold of the after-glow, and painted
with blue and silver from the upper and eastern
sky ; or covered by the images of innumerable rosy
cloudlets, amid which a silver moon was slowly
rising — without mental vision of the smooth, grey
heads and shining backs of dolphins, appearing and
disappearing in the tide, as the animals wandered
hither and thither, sighing aloud each time they
came to the surface. When one of them rises fully
in still water, the glassy surface of the latter is
suddenly pierced by a long, slender snout, followed
by a pale, shining head, that at first rises almost
vertically into the air, and then curves over and sinks,
whilst a great, polished, grey back heaves moment-
arily up into view. Often, however, they roll at a
somewhat greater depth, and then only a transitory
glimpse of a grey islet, or a mere passing heave and
swirl in the water, is all the evidence there is of
the event.

The sound that they make in blowing is of a
gently sighing nature, much softer than that emitted
by the common porpoises of the British coasts —
puffies, as the fishermen of the east coast of Scot-
land call them — and is of a character that readily

316 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

explains the origin of their common Hindi name,
susu. They do not usually appear in herds, as so
many of their relatives do, but sometimes the river
seems full of individual specimens, all following
independent tracks. Now and then, however, and
particularly in parts of the stream where the con-
fluence of several currents has led to the formation
of deep, eddying pools, a troop will gradually con-
gregate and remain diving and circling around for a
considerable time. The re-appearance of the dolphins
in the river about Calcutta is one of the regular
harbingers of the end of the rainy season and the
approach of winter ; for, so long as the stream
is in full flood from the melting of Himalayan snow
and the monsoon drainage, they are never to be
seen in the Hugli. This is probably in great part
owing to the fact that during the time of their
absence the water-way at their disposal farther inland
is, for the time being, very greatly increased. Some
local factor, however, would also seem to come
into play, as they certainly sometimes abound in
the main stream of the Ganges between Damukdia
and Sara-ghat in the middle of August, at times
when the river is in full flood, and at a part of its
course comparatively very low down and near the
sea. They give the fishermen in the Hugli a good
deal of trouble by following fish into their nets, and
becoming entangled in them, where they are soon
drowned, but, in their dying struggles, manage to

SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 317

do much mischief. Owing to this, specimens may
generally be readily obtained on the offer of a reward,
but it is almost impossible to acquire them alive, as
they are almost always drowned before they can be
secured.

XXVI

LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES.

" Alone by one old populous green wall
Tenanted by the ever-busy flies,
Grey crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders."

— Paracelsus.

" How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws."

— Alice in Wonderland.

"In that land is full much waste, for it is full of serpents, of
dragons and of cocodrills that no man dare dwell there."

— SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.

ANY account of the ordinary inhabitants of the
gardens of Calcutta would be very incomplete
without some notice of the commoner reptiles,
batrachians, and fishes to be met with in them ; for
small lizards and snakes are present in all of
them, and in the larger, and particularly in the
larger suburban enclosures, containing abundant
cover and numerous ponds, great Varani and even
crocodiles, tortoises, innumerable frogs and toads,

318

LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES 319

and fish of many distinct kinds, are often very con-
spicuous.

The two commonest lizards are the little wall-
geckos, or, as the natives call them, tik-tiks,
Hemidactylus gleadovii, and the so-called blood-
suckers, Calotes versicolor. Every one is familiar
with the former, as so many of them are constant
inmates of houses, where they run around over the
walls and roofs of the rooms, lurking by day behind
picture-frames or other hanging ornaments, and issu-
ing forth in the evening to feast upon the insects that
swarm in, allured by the light of the lamps. When
they adhere motionless to the walls on the outlook
for their prey, they look so much as though they
were gummed to the surfaces on which they rest,
that it is sometimes hard to persuade people who
are new to the country that they are actually living
creatures and not Japanese curios. All through the
still heat of a summer's day the silence of the care-
fully shaded rooms is occasionally broken by the
queer little cries of " tik, tik, tik tik tik," to which
they owe their native name, and which are all the
more remarkable then because the animals are
usually hidden away in their diurnal residences.
When they are visible, they are queer little objects
with blunt muzzles, pot-bellies, and tails, that at best
are stumpy, and often are either wholly absent or in
various stages of eccentric repair in consequence of
accidents. When they lie at rest against a wall, the

320 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

rounded discs on their toes that enable them to
adhere to vertical surfaces, or even to the under
sides of horizontal ones, stand out very conspicuously
and give the feet a quaint resemblance to the
analogous structures by which certain climbing
plants, such as Ampelopsis Veitchii, support them-
selves in like situations. They have considerable
chameleonic power of adapting their colouring to
that of surrounding surfaces. This comes out very
clearly whenever one of them leaves a shadowy nook
behind a picture-frame for a place on a brilliantly
lighted white wall. On emergence he stands out in
high relief as a dark object, but presently begins to
fade, and in a short time acquires such a pallid
yellowish tint as to be hardly noticeable. During
my last year in Calcutta I was on very intimate
terms with a gecko, who constantly lived on the top
of my writing-table, and who, owing to the dark
colouring of his surroundings was of a deep brown
hue, even after he had emerged into the lamp-light.
There is endless amusement to be derived from
watching them whilst stalking and securing insects.
They usually approach their prey in a series of short,
breathless rushes, alternating with pauses of careful
watchfulness, until they are so close to it that special
caution is called for, and then they crawl slowly and
stealthily onwards to safe-striking distance. Small
insects generally give them no farther trouble after
having been seized, and are at once gulped down.

LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES

When the prey is of larger size, however, and
especially when it consists of a thickly-plumed moth,
it is violently shaken, as a rat is by a terrier, and the
wings and loose down are plucked off and rejected
with seeming disgust. They certainly merit much
gratitude for the havoc that they play among in-
sects, and at no time more so than when a house is
suddenly invaded by a swarm of flying white ants,
who throng around the lamps and go struggling
about over the tables in their frantic efforts to get rid
of their unwieldy wings. Then indeed it is a joy to
see the geckos come hurrying out of their fastnesses
to gorge over their loathsomely greasy prey until
they begin to swell visibly.

At first sight wall-geckos are not so attractive as
many other lizards, but there are none of the latter
who respond so readily to attempts to tame them.
In a house where I lived for many years the
verandah was used as a dining-room, and the dinner-
table was, consequently, every evening even more
beset by insects than it would have been within a
room. The presence of such an attractive hunting-
ground led two geckos to make their head-quarters
in it. During the day they remained hidden on the
under surface of the board, but whenever it was
spread and the lamps lit they came out to hunt. As
they were never in any way molested, they soon
became quite ludicrously tame, and developed a
depraved taste for cake, leaving their proper food in

x

COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

contempt when it was to be had, and running eagerly
to take it out of one's fingers. When pictures,
which have hung on the wall for some time, are
displaced, it is not at all uncommon to find that a
gecko has selected some nook about a frame as the
site in which to lay its little delicate oval eggs, which
look as though they ought to have been in the nest
of a humming-bird.

" Blood-suckers" are very unlike wall-geckos both
in appearance and habits. They are long slender
creatures, are very timid, and hardly ever stray into
houses, where indeed they must find themselves very
ill at ease, owing to the structure of their feet. Their
long, slender toes and clasping claws are adapted to
a purely arboreal existence, and it is among boughs
and twigs and on the rough surfaces of the bark of
stems that they find a congenial home. When one
of them screws up courage to come to the ground in
order to reach a new perch lying at too great a
distance to be got at by leaping, it is always with
evident trepidation, and the journey along the level
is invariably performed in a headlong rush. When
at their ease among the branches they move about
quietly and lightly from place to place, or rest
motionless on exposed twigs, basking and drowsy in
the blaze of the sunshine ; but, on the faintest alarm,
they are ofF at once, running and leaping from point
to point with wonderful speed and agility. As a rule,
they are very vigilant and hard to take unaware, unless

LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES 323

when one of them happens to fall very sound asleep
during the course of a sun-bath, and then it is
advisable to exercise some caution in laying hold of
them as they can give very unpleasant bites with
their sharply pointed teeth. Their expression has
none of the imbecile mildness of that of the wall-
geckos, and an old male in full war-paint presents
a very forbidding aspect as he stands proudly on the
top of a shrub, displaying his spikey back and ruddy
head, and gazing round with malevolently sparkling
eyes (Plate XX.). Their armoured coats, protec-
tive tints, extreme activity, and really formidable
jaws are sufficient to deter most of their enemies,
save snakes, so long as they remain in their wonted
surroundings, but when on the ground they are often
attacked by crows and other carnivorous birds. Even
when secured under such conditions the great tough-
ness of their hides renders them inconvenient to their
captors, and brown shrikes, in dealing with them,
are accordingly obliged to depart from their ordinary
habits, and to fix their prey on stout thorns before
breaking it up.

Another small lizard that is common in gardens
in Calcutta is Mabuia carinata, but owing to the
fact that it almost always lies hidden under heaps
of dead leaves, it is much less likely to attract
casual notice than the two species just described.
They are beautiful creatures, clad in shining
armour of bronze and green above, and with under

324 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

surfaces of brilliant white. It is very easy to
capture specimens of them, but not at all so to
secure one in perfect condition, as they almost
always jerk off their tails in their efforts to escape.
Geckos are certainly brittle enough, judging from
the large numbers of them who are constantly to be
seen in various stages of repair, but they are tough
as compared to Mabuias, who seem to break up as
readily as sticks of sealing-wax do in cold weather.
Every large suburban garden containing a pond
and dense masses of shrubbery is almost sure to
be occasionally visited by specimens of the great
water-lizard, Varanus salvator. Owing to their
large size and aquatic habits, they are often
mistaken for young crocodiles, and, as they have
most voracious appetites and jaws to match them,
they are by no means welcome guests where fowls
are kept, or fish are preserved in ponds. Their
normal diet consists of frogs, toads, and fish, but
they are always ready to avail themselves of any
opportunity of varying it with birds, and have an
evil repute for a liking for young chickens. Whilst
on land they are repulsive and debased-looking
creatures, with dirt-coloured coats, and an awkwardly
waddling gait, which can, however, in emergencies
carry them over the ground with astonishing
rapidity. To appear to advantage they must be in
the water where they are quite at ease, swimming
at a great pace with their heads held well out of

Blood-sucker and Water-tortoise (p. 323).

[To face p. 324.

LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES 325

the water and their great tails lashing from side
to side, or diving and remaining below the surface
to come up at a great distance from the points
at which they disappeared. In ordinary circum-
stances they come to the surface of the water
after brief intervals, but when alarmed they can
remain submerged for a long time with complete
impunity. Their power in this respect is not,
however, equal to that of crocodiles, and continuous
submersion during periods of from three to four
hours' duration is enough to drown them. As a
rule, they do not venture very far from water,
and, on any alarm they always make for it as
quickly as possible. Their tails not only serve
as very efficient propellers and steering-gear, but are
also formidable weapons, owing to their great reach
and the violence with which they can be lashed
about. At one time, and much against the wishes
of my servants, I kept a very large Varanus in a
cage in the verandah of the first floor of my
house. He was the object of much horror to the
household, as the uneducated natives firmly believe
that the long, forked, flickering black tongue, that
so often comes out from between the formidable
jaws, is endowed with such potently venomous
properties, that its slightest touch is fatal. The
cage was a very strong one, and was large enough
to contain an earthenware bath, in which the
prisoner spent most of his time. Every now and

326 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

then, however, he managed to break loose and
escape over the top of a long terrace-roof that
was reached by a short flight of steps descending
from the verandah. The process of recapture was
attended by the wildest excitement and appre-
hension. The fugitive was pursued by a mob of
men, armed with thick sticks and horse-blankets
from the stables, and all in a state of the greatest
dread of the deadly tongue and formidable tail.
Matters reached a climax when he was cornered
and eventually secured under the blankets, hissing
aloud, snapping his jaws, and " swindging the scaly
Horrour of his folded tail." His appetite was truly
astonishing, and he seemed to be always ready to
do away with fifteen large toads at a single meal.
Dogs are usually eager to hunt them, but exercise a
wise caution in coming to close quarters with them.
They usually keep to the ground, but, when in
quest of eggs or birds, they sometimes climb to a
considerable height among tangled masses of shrubs
and creepers.

Crocodiles now and then make their appearance
in gardens lying near the river or other permanent
water-courses and swamps. The species usually met
with about Calcutta is Crocodilus porosus, which
is so common in the tidal channels of the Sun-
darbans, and of which it may certainly be said that
it is not quite so repulsively hideous as C. palustris.
When crocodiles have once taken possession of a

LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES 327

pond it is often no easy matter to dislodge them
from it. For many years after the formation of the
Zoological Garden in Alipur it was useless to try
to stock the ponds with water-fowl, as the only
result of doing so was to provide a feast for a
horde of crocodiles who inhabited them. At that
time, too, the enclosure was liable to be flooded
every autumn by the high tides that came up a
neighbouring water- course and left a deposit of river-
tortoises and young crocodiles, so that there appeared
to be little use in trying to get rid of those pre-
viously present in the locality until the possibility
of recurrent importation had been done away with
by special drainage and embankments. But even
then, it was only after many attempts that a
thorough clearance was effected. A certain number
of the resident reptiles were gradually shot down,
and then heroic measures were undertaken to pump
out the entire system of ponds so as to allow of
careful search for those that survived. This resulted
in the capture of a few crocodiles, who were found
buried in the mud and in holes in the banks, and
it was fondly hoped that any others that were
originally present when the process of pumping
began had migrated when they found the water
becoming inconveniently low. It did not take
long to discover how futile this hope was ; for
hardly had the ponds been refilled and experi-
mentally stocked with a few pelicans, before the fate

328 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

of the latter afforded decisive evidence that the
clearance had not been complete.

Crocodiles are more intelligent than would be
supposed by those whose acquaintance with them
has been limited to the sight of specimens as they
lie about on a sand-bank with their eyes glaring in
a fixed, stony stare, or float about like logs on the
surface of the water. Those who were kept in the
reptile-house at Alipur showed that they fully
realised when they ought to be fed, and recognised
the keeper who was about to supply the food. At
all other times they were passively sluggish, but on
feeding-nights they greeted the arrival of the
keeper by scrambling out of their ponds and
roaring loudly until they were attended to. I once
tried one as a pet, but soon tired of its hopeless
untamableness and savage temper, and when, some
years later, some fishermen presented me with a
specimen about five feet in length, I took it at once
to the Zoological Garden. Whilst living with the
superintendent of the Botanic Garden, I had to
cross the river by boat in going to and returning from
work in Calcutta, and in doing so naturally became
very friendly with many of the boatmen who fre-
quented the landing-ghdt on the far side of the
stream. Knowing that I had a liking for miscellane-
ous curios, they usually reserved any strange animal
that they got hold of until I had had the offer of
it. One morning I found that a set of them had

LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES 329

managed to secure a young crocodile, which they
had tethered up by a stout rope round its armpits,
and which they now presented to me with great
triumph. Acting on the good working theory that
it is unwise to refuse even undesirable offerings lest
the zeal for collecting should be checked, I accepted
the struggling, snapping captive with seeming rapture,
although neither wanting nor knowing well what to
do with him. The only resource seemed to be to
have him as soon as possible conveyed to the
Zoological Garden, but it did not appear very clear
how this was to be done. The men proposed to
fasten him down on the top of my brougham, but
as it was a blazing day in May, this would have
been cruel, if not actually murderous, and so,
although with some apprehension, I took him as a
fellow-passenger in the inside of it. However, by
dint of sitting with my feet up on the front seat,
and hitting him on the head with a stout stick
whenever he showed symptons of becoming lively,
I managed to make out the journey scatheless.

Water- tortoises, Triongx, abound in the Hugli
and the countless channels and swamps communi-
cating with it, and specimens are also to be found
in many seemingly isolated garden-ponds. Their
appearance is far from inviting, owing to their dingy
colouring, extremely flattened form, and to the
presence of a layer of slime that usually coats their
surfaces, and which is often rendered additionally

330 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

repulsive by being thickly beset with hosts of flukes,
that form flickering fringes projecting from it and
waving to and fro in the surrounding water. Quite
irrespective of their ugliness, they are very uncanny
inmates of bathing-ponds, as they are highly car-
nivorous, and can give very unpleasant bites with
their strong, chisel-edged mandibles. It is a curious
sight when the still surface of a pond is gently
parted as a tortoise rises to protrude his grey snake-
like head and neck, and gaze around with dull
little eyes, ready on the slightest alarm to slip
down again into the depths, oaring his way by
vigorous strokes of his stout short legs. Their
curious rounded eggs are often to be found lying in
heaps among the grass at the edge of the water.
Their shells are so thick and hard that it seems
strange that the young ones should ever manage to
force their way out, but they can do so with great
rapidity under the influence of a sufficient stimulus.
I once put a clutch of eggs into a bottle of strong
spirit, and within the course of a few minutes, all
the shells had been broken by the struggles of the
young animals within them.

XXVII

SNAKES

" .... to watch some chattering snake-tamer
Wind round his wrist the living jewellery
Of asp and na"g, or charm the hooded death
To angry dance with drone of beaded gourd."

— The Light of Asia.

"The slumbering venom of the folded snake."

— The Corsair.

EVERY garden worthy the name is sure to contain a
resident population of snakes, but it is only in sub-
urban gardens that venomous ones are common. On
going out into a garden early in the morning during
the hot weather, and while the dusty walks have not
yet been disturbed by the day's traffic, curious
sinuous trails are often to be seen marking the lines
followed by snakes during their nocturnal travels.
Each track consists of an aggregate of rounded or
oval, somewhat depressed patches. These are some-
times quite discrete and separated from one another
by little ridges, but in other cases they are more or
less indistinct and fused with one another, differ-

332 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

ences that seem to depend partly on the nature of
the soil, and partly on the rate at which the reptile
was moving over it. Towards the end of the cold
weather the presence of snakes is further advertised
by the appearance of pallid fluttering streamers,
projecting from amid heaps of stones on the surfaces
of mouldering walls, and marking the sites where
their former owners have made their annual change
of skin on awakening to renewed activity with the
rising temperature. These casts are sometimes mere
tattered fragments, but often are beautifully perfect,
showing the impression of every scale, and even the
delicate transparent membranes corresponding with
the surfaces of the eyes. As has been pointed out
already, such casts seem to appeal very strongly
to the aesthetic sense of the common mynas, who
greedily appropriate them as constituents for their
nests. Later in the year collections of snakes'
eggs are often to be found, stowed away in the
recesses of old walls or among heaps of rubbish, and
containing young reptiles in various stages of de-
velopment. On opening the eggs it is curious to
note how early the young animals begin to show the
distinctive actions of the species to which they belong.
This is particularly striking in the case of young
cobras, who begin to try to sit up and to expand
their imperfectly developed hoods long before the
time for their natural emergence has come.

Lycodon aulicus and Tropidonotus stolatus are

SNAKES 333

the two commonest snakes in the town of Calcutta,
and are to be met with wherever there is a little
open space among houses, but Zamenis mucosus
occurs in almost every garden, and Tropidonotus
piscator in most enclosures containing or abutting
upon a pond. In the suburbs all these species
occur in greater numbers and are accompanied by
other harmless snakes and by varying numbers
of venomous ones. Specimens of blind-snakes,
Typhlops, really abound everywhere, but attract
but little notice owing to their small size, worm-
like look, and subterranean habits. Great con-
sternation was once, however, occasioned in Calcutta
by their appearance in large numbers in the water
supply of the town. For some weeks it was quite
a common experience to draw a specimen off in
the drinking - water supplied by the street- and
house - taps. This took place during a period of
unusually prolonged dry weather, and could be
readily explained. The unwonted dryness of the
soil had led the snakes to congregate in any moist
areas such as those surrounding points of leakage
from the mains, and, as the water-supply is an
intermittent one, these must almost inevitably have
sometimes been sites of indraught favouring the
entrance of the reptiles to the interior of the
pipes.

Lycodon aulicus is nearly certain to be one
of the first snakes whose acquaintance is made

334 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

by any one who has newly arrived in Calcutta from
Europe, both on account of its habit of often
entering houses, and because the servants almost
invariably vociferously herald the appearance of
one that does come in, under the idea that it is
a krait, Bungarus cceruleus. The mistake is not
at all surprising, for not only is there a very
considerable superficial likeness between the two
species in regard to size and colouring, but there
is a curious similarity in their habits, both being
specially fond of invading houses, and of establish-
ing themselves on the tops of pieces of furniture
or on the laths of Venetian shutters, even in rooms
that they can only reach by dint of ascending
staircases. They seem to have quite exceptional
powers of climbing, as it is not at all uncommon
to find a specimen on the top of a lofty bookcase
or wardrobe.

Tropidonotus stolatus is a very graceful and
most innocent little serpent. It abounds in open
grassy spaces where its favourite diet of toads,
Bufo melanostictus, is to be met with readily.
Almost all snakes are apt to look somewhat un-
comfortable whilst gulping down a relatively large
mouthful, but I have never seen any of them look
more incommoded than specimens of this species
do whilst swallowing frogs or toads. They seem to
have no sense for relative dimensions, and will gaily
seize upon victims whom it seems hardly possible

SNAKES 335

that they should ever manage to get down. The
spectacle that presents itself in such cases is a very
curious one (Plate XXI.). Of the two animals
the snake would certainly seem to be the object
for greatest pity. His victim, after the momentary
struggle and outcry attending seizure, seems to be
quite resigned to fate, and sits quietly down, to gaze
passively around whilst his hind-quarters are engulfed
in the jaws and throat of his captor. Meanwhile the
latter is suffering astonishing deformation. The jaws
are forced widely apart, and the distension of the
neighbouring soft parts is so excessive that the
individual scales clothing them are separated by
bands of skin and other tissues spread out into
bluish, translucent membranes. The general effect
presented by the two animals is that of some
strange monster with a long slender tail, and a
huge head with staring eyes supported on a pair
of short, crooked legs. Should the victim be
forcibly extracted even at a very early period, it
will be found that the compressed portion of the
body and the hind limbs is completely paralysed.
It might seem as though the pressure to which
they had been exposed ought not to have given
rise to more injury than the corresponding distension
which must have occurred in the tissues of the
snake, but, whilst the latter causes mere temporary
inconvenience, the former serves, as a rule, to induce
death, even when it has not been of long duration.

336 COMMON REFTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

It is of considerable importance to the snake to
secure his prey in a place affording ready shelter,
for when the capture has been effected in an
exposed site, the ensuing meal is apt to be un-
pleasantly interrupted by the attentions of crows
and other birds, who gladly avail themselves of
the opportunity for persecution afforded by the
helplessness attending its progress.

Tropidonotus piscator is the common pond-
snake, and is readily recognised by the beautifully
tessellated pattern formed by its deep brown and
tawny yellow scales. They are very bold and
aggressive creatures, and are usually as ready to
resent and punish any molestation as a bad-tempered
dog is. Their wonderful powers of swimming and
diving render them very expert fishers, and the
havoc that they play in a pond is often very great.
When they have secured a fish of any considerable
size, they usually make straight for the bank in
order to obtain sufficient support during the toils
of swallowing. I once found them of great use
when I was teaching a friend to swim. The lessons
were conducted in a pond abounding in Tropidonoti,
and, when driven into close quarters with my
pupil, they acted as a most efficient stimulus to
energetic attempts at progress through the water.

Dhamins, or rat- snakes, as they are ordinarily
termed by Anglo -Indians, Zamenis mucosus, may
often be found in ponds, but are by no means

SNAKES 337

so essentially aquatic as the snakes that have
just been noticed, and are drowned on exposure
to half-an-hour's continuous submersion. They are
very common, and are of much use in doing
away with large numbers of rats and mice, which,
along with frogs and toads, form the normal staple
of their diet. Many specimens attain a length of
over six feet, and are formidable to handle, owing
to their great strength and activity. They certainly
are very bold creatures, but, although I have had
a very large experience of them in captivity, I
never met with any specimens showing signs of
the ferocity with which they have been credited
by some observers. At one time a large number
of dhamins were kept in a pit in the Zoological
Garden at Alipur. They were periodically supplied
with stores of large toads, and ample opportunities
were thus afforded for the study of the processes
of capture and deglutition. In those cases in
which the prey was dexterously seized from behind,
swallowing went on rapidly and smoothly, as, no
matter how rapidly and excessively the toad blew
itself up, its gaseous contents were gradually but
surely forced out. This, however, was by no
means so in instances in which the head had been
seized, for in such circumstances, the distension, in
place of being reduced by the pressure to which
the body was exposed, was maintained more and
more securely as deglutition advanced, and the

338 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

mouth of the victim became more and more firmly
closed.

The beautiful tree-snake, Dryophis mycterizans,
is doubtless relatively common in well-wooded
gardens, but specimens of it are rarely noticed, owing
to their arboreal habits and beautifully protective
colouring. Two very distinct varieties occur; one,
in which a vivid green colour has been worked out
so as to harmonise with the tints of foliage and
green shoots; and another, where the body is pale
brown, and in form and hue closely matches small
branches and twigs covered by brownish bark.
Owing to these peculiarities in colouring, to their
wonderfully slender form, and to an amazing capacity
for remaining absolutely still, they may well escape
notice whilst among their normal surroundings.
When they do happen to attract attention it is
usually by the disturbance that they cause among
neighbouring leaves and twigs in moving from one
place to another. The green specimens are often
quite wonderfully beautiful in the vivid colours of
their emerald and yellow coats, and both varieties
are very alluring from their slender form, their
refinedly gliding movements, and the extreme
elegance of many of the positions which they take
up whilst at rest. They are decidedly ill-tempered
animals, and are very ready to bite, but, in spite
of their somewhat suspicious teeth and the rooted
belief that the natives of India have in their

SNAKES 339

venomous nature, I have never known any instance
in which mischief attended injuries from them.

Common cobras, Naia tripudians, are by far
the commonest of the venomous snakes occurring
in the neighbourhood of Calcutta. They rarely
venture within the limits of the town, but they
abound in the suburbs which provide them with
innumerable congenial lurking-places, in the moulder-
ing brick-work, heaps of rubbish, and tangled masses
of jungle that always surround any group of native
huts. For many years after the Zoological Garden
had replaced a great village in Alipur, cobras gave
much trouble, and were the cause of the loss of
many valuable animals. The greatest and most
lasting mortality took place in the paddocks at one
end of the garden where the enclosure abutted on
a piece of waste ground abounding in convenient
cover for snakes. The presence of this jungle, with
numerous drain-pipes supplying paths from it to
the paddocks, was in itself a special risk, and the
danger was reinforced by the fact that that end of
the garden was tenanted by ruminants, who in so
many cases have a great animosity to snakes, and
are prone to attack any that they may come
across. The only serious case of a bite from an
unequivocally venomous snake that I ever met
with, occurred in the person of one of the best
keepers in the garden whilst he was attempting to
prevent a cobra from entering one of these paddocks.

340 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

One forenoon, when I was in the garden trying to
secure a good photograph of an infant rhinoceros
that had been born a day or two earlier, this keeper
came to the place where the superintendent and
I were at work, carrying a large dead cobra in one
hand, and displaying a most efficiently bitten fore-
finger on the other. He was not at all alarmed,
and assured us that he had at once applied a ligature
above the point of the injury, and, farther, that he
did not believe that any venom had got into the
wound, as it appeared to him that it had all run
down over the surface of the skin. He accounted
for his accident by saying that, having just finished
his morning's work, he had set out on his way home
for his mid-day meal, when, as he was passing along
the southern boundary of the garden, he saw a
cobra disappearing into one of the drain-pipes
leading through the wall. In order to prevent its
carrying out its purpose, he seized the snake by the
tail with one hand and proceeded to draw it out,
at the same time slipping the other hand upwards
along its body under the idea that it would resist
extraction until he was able to grasp it so near the
head as to render it impossible for it to strike.
Unfortunately, however, his calculation was upset
by its giving way before he expected it to do so,
and whilst it was still able to reach him. The
accident took place some time before any supplies
of antivenene had reached India, and when there

SNAKES 341

was little reason to believe in the efficacy of any
method of treatment in cases of snake-bite in which
a lethal amount of venom had entered the system,
but we felt that we ought at least to seem to do
something, and the patient was accordingly hurried
to the entrance-lodge of the garden by the super-
intendent, whilst I packed up the photographic kit
and hastened after them. The choice of remedial
measures was very limited, and so, after the
punctures had been freely enlarged by the aid of an
old knife, an energetic coolie was set to suck the
wounds, an operation which he carried out with
such vigour as to extract not only much blood, but
also fragments of the subcutaneous tissues. The
patient was then dosed with half a tumbler of coarse
brandy, and directed to keep the injured finger
immersed in crude brown carbolic acid, and I then
left him to pursue my photography, saying that I
should come back in half an hour and see whether
he were likely to die. I returned in due course
and found him not dead, but dead-drunk, and com-
plaining bitterly of pain in his finger. He never
showed a trace of any symptom of cobrine intoxica-
tion, and, though he was laid up for some days by
a severe attack of fever, we had an uneasy sense that
he was quite right in ascribing his illness rather to
our treatment than to the original injury. This
case affords an excellent illustration of the manifold
sources of fallacy that must be discounted in

342 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

estimating the real value of the evidence adduced
in favour of the efficacy of reputed remedies for
the effects following snake-bite. In it there was no
question in regard to the snake, none in regard to
the presence of punctures inflicted by its poison
fangs, and no reason to doubt the patient's statement
that a large quantity of venom was ejected ; but
yet no symptoms of cobrine intoxication followed.
It can hardly be imagined that the treatment which
was adopted accounts for their absence, and there
can be little doubt that the patient's explanation
of his escape was the true one, and that little or
no venom entered the wounds. He affirmed that
the venom all ran down over the surface of his hand,
and it is easy to believe that this may really have
occurred. When the site of the bite and the
structural peculiarities of a cobras fangs are taken
into account it is difficult to imagine how any
appreciable quantity of venom could have been
injected into the tissues. The punctures inflicted
by the poison-fangs were on the back of the second
joint of the forefinger, and, consequently, in a site
where the thickness of soft and penetrable tissues is
very small. Only the tips of the fangs could, there-
fore, have penetrated, and consequently the channel
for the conveyance of the venom must have remained
so imperfectly closed as to favour superficial escape
rather than effective injection of the poison. The
poison-channels in the fangs of colubrine venomous

SNAKES 348

snakes are mere open grooves, until they are converted
into tubes by the tissues of the reptile's gums and
those of the soft parts of the victims of effectively
deep bites, and, in a case like the present one, any
such conversion must have been only very partially
carried out ; there must have been an area in its
course in which the channel remained open and
readily allowed its contents to escape. In the case of
viperine fangs very slight penetration may suffice to
insure efficient injection, because the poison-channels
are permanently tubular, but where the latter are
intrinsically mere grooves, they must be liable to
allow of leakage unless fully completed by the
neighbouring tissues of the snake and its victim.1
My only other essay at curing snake-bite in the
human subject was hardly more encouraging. The
old man in charge of the snakes in the garden
whilst he was holding a banded krait for me in the
laboratory, managed to let it bite one of his thumbs.
He made light of the accident, but, although quite
aware that the venom of this species is both small
in quantity and poor in quality, I officiously insisted
on injecting a strong solution of chloride of gold
into the injured part, with the result that the
patient had a very bad hand for many days, and
constantly greeted me with reproachful looks as the
cause of his discomfort.

Under most conditions cobras are really com-

1 Vide Appendix.

344 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

paratively innocuous creatures, because they are so
lively and vigilant, very ready to try to get out of the
way on any alarm, and also because before striking they
normally sit up, spread their hoods, and gesticulate
in a threatening fashion. There is, therefore, little
cause to fear them whilst one is walking along
narrow paths, even after dark, so long, at least, as
one gives them warning of approach by tapping
on the ground with a stick. The greater number
of cases of bites by cobras seems to take place at
night, and in confined spaces, such as the interior of
huts, in which the snakes have not complete freedom
for movement, and where human beings are apt to
come into sudden and direct contact with them.
At the same time, however, there is much variation
in the temper of different varieties of cobras, and,
as is so often noticeable among other sorts of
animals, there would seem to be a distinct correlation
between darkness of colour and badness of temper.
It is probably in part owing to a recognition of this
that the cobras ordinarily seen in the hands of the
so-called snake-charmers are of a very light colour,
although the choice may also be to some extent of
aesthetic origin, seeing that the paler varieties are
specially ornamental, due to the brilliancy of their
markings and the great development of their hoods.

No native of India, who is at all used to deal
with snakes, ever shows the least hesitation in hand-
ling cobras. He will fearlessly enter small enclosed

SNAKES 345

spaces in which several cobras are confined, tranquilly
neglecting the fact that he is surrounded by the
swaying and nodding heads of the startled reptiles,
and merely pushing them aside when they come too
close or get into his way. In Lower Bengal the
great time for acquiring a stock of cobras is towards
the end of the rainy season, when the general in-
undation of the low country has driven them to
congregate in all the patches of higher and dryer
ground; and, when there was much demand for
stores of dried venom for European laboratories,
the old snake-man in the Zoological Garden at
Alipur was sent out every autumn to collect as
many snakes as possible for use during the ensuing
winter. His excursions generally lasted for a week
or two, and then he would return laden with sacks
full of snakes. Once he came back in great triumph
bringing a hundred and fifty cobras, and it was a
gruesome sight to watch him loose the mouth of
one of his sacks and plunge his arm down into it in
order to haul out one after another of his prisoners.
The operation looked much more risky than it
really was to any one thoroughly used to the
feel of snakes, and so able to realise exactly where
to lay hold of them. The cobras were so crowded
and hampered in their confined quarters as to be
quite unable to raise their heads and necks for the
downward stroke with which they normally lay hold,
and the man knew so well where and how to seize

346 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

them, that the chance of his being bitten was really
very small.

Poor old snake-wala ! he has been dead for some
years now, but as long as he survived he was an
invaluable servant in the garden. He was a great
character, and had for many years superintended the
collection of snakes in the menagerie of the last
King of Oudh, at Garden Reach. He was full of
varied snake-lore, and very free in communicating
items of it to a select circle of friends, in which, I
am proud to say, I was included. He was great on
the subject of the numbers of natives who die from
pure nervous depression after bites from harmless
snakes, or even from purely imaginary bites. Accord-
ing to him, the proper treatment in such cases is
to put a drop of croton oil into the patient's eye ;
a heroic measure certainly, but one well adapted to
divert attention from an imaginary to a real evil.
In evidence of the efficacy of this cure, he used to
cite a case in which a coolie, whilst walking across
a courtyard at the ^small-arms factory at Dum Dum
after dark, trod on one end of a piece of an iron-
hoop, with the result of bringing the other and
jagged extremity sharply up and into contact with
the back of his leg. Not unnaturally, the man took
for granted that he had been bitten by a snake, and
probably by a venomous one. He accordingly made
up his mind to die, and, according to the tale, would
rapidly have succeeded in doing so, had not our old

SNAKES 347

friend been handy with his croton oil. It is certainly
astonishing how easily natives of India can manage
to die if they make up their minds to do so, and
how rapidly physical depression from purely psychical
causes may affect them. Many years ago, and
whilst living in a snake-haunted garden in Alipur,
I was suddenly interrupted in the midst of micro-
scopic work by a troop of servants who invaded the
laboratory in order to bring in one of the saises who
had been bitten by a snake whilst he was at work
in the stables. The reptile had escaped, but, from
the nature of the injury, there could be little doubt
that the case was really one of snake-bite. At any
rate, the patient certainly believed so, and was in
an alarming state of depression. I had not then
heard of the virtues of croton oil, and, moreover,
there was none of it at hand. In the circumstances
it seemed necessary to do something, and, as I had
a bottle of absolute ether on the table, I tried what
a dose of it would do. A teaspoonful was accord-
ingly administered, and the temporarily intoxicant
and permanently curative results which followed
were equally striking and satisfactory.

Sporting dogs are apt to come to grief where
cobras abound, as there is something very alluring
to them in the sight of a large snake when it sits
up nodding and snarling ; and it is often difficult to
come up in time to prevent the occurrence of
irreparable mischief. My garden in Alipur con-

348 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

tained a large colony of mungooses, who were
constantly prowling around in search of prey. They
certainly destroyed many birds and eggs, but their
presence had the good effect of keeping the place
very free of snakes in spite of the thickets and over-
grown shrubberies in which it abounded, and,
although it was only separated from a large and
neglected village by a hedge and dry ditch. So
much so was this the case that none of the four
or five dogs, who were constantly running loose and
hunting in the coverts, ever met with an accident.
Indeed, only once did they encounter a cobra, and
then they drove it into the midst of a lawn-tennis
party, so that they were prevented from coming into
close quarters with it before any mishap had taken
place.

There are many very distinct varieties of cobras,
most of them provided with different vernacular
names. The commonest features distinguishing
them are merely differences in colouring, but in
some cases these ,are accompanied by characteristic
variations in the form and size of the hood. The
marking in the latter often departs very greatly from
that ordinarily represented in pictures, which seem
almost invariably to represent the characteristics of
the pale- coloured snakes usually met with in the
hands of the professional charmers. A large ochre-
ous or cream-coloured cobra is a most beautiful
creature when sitting up with its spectacled hood

SNAKES 349

fully expanded and swaying to and fro in graceful
curves. The only unsightly feature that is apt to
disfigure the picture is owing to the fact that cobras
often are greatly infested by ticks, who fasten on the
skin between the scales, and, when fully distended,
give the surface an unpleasantly tuberculate look.
The gradations of colour on the individual scales
are often very beautiful, and resemble those in the
petals of some flowers in which a paler margin
surrounds a more deeply coloured central area.
The assumption of the erect position normally
precedes striking, but it may occur merely from
attention, and without any immediate malevolence.
The process of striking is usually preceded by a
series of short, rapid, jerking movements in which
the head sways backward and forward to the
accompaniment of loud hissing of a malignantly
snarling character.

The habit that cobras have of sitting up when
excited is of great use to the snake-charmers, as it
affords great facilities for securing them with safety.
It is quite astonishing to see how easily they can
be dealt with by an expert. When venom was
being collected in the Zoological Garden at Alipur,
there were often three or four cobras loose on the
floor of the laboratory waiting their turn for treat-
ment. The common old Indian method of
collecting was always used. All the apparatus
necessary in it is a mussel-shell, and a strip of the

350 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

blade of a plantain leaf. The latter is tightly
stretched over the concavity of the shell, and the
snake, whilst securely held by the neck, is irritated
and encouraged to strike it. The result is that the
ends of the fangs penetrate the leaf and project
freely into the cavity beneath, so as to allow the
venom to drip into it. The quantity of venom that
a snake yields under such treatment varies greatly
in individual cases, according to the size and vigour
of the animal and the length of time that has
elapsed since a previous discharge took place. The
average weight of dry material yielded by a single
discharge of venom by cobras at Alipur was 0*254
gramme, and its average lethal value was on the
scale of 0*75 of a milligramme per 1 kilogramme of
body-weight in warm-blooded animals. In many
cases the amount was, however, much in excess of
the average, so that it is clear that a single efficient
bite may readily suffice to cause death even in the
case of very large animals, especially where the
lethal power of the venom is exceptionally high.

The hamadryad, Naia bungarus, is practically
unknown as an inhabitant of the immediate neigh-
bourhood of Calcutta. The only well authenticated
instance of its occurrence within the area took place
many years ago in the Botanic Garden, and the
snake in this case may very probably have been
an imported one, conveyed by one of the native
boats that are constantly coming up the river from

SNAKES 351

the Sundarbans and lying to at many points of
the banks during the course of their voyages.
Numerous splendid specimens, usually obtained
from Assam, used to be constantly exhibited in
the Zoological Garden at Alipur. They are truly
magnificent creatures in their wonderful and
sinister beauty and grace of form and movement.
They have a repute for great savageness and a
tendency to be actively aggressive, but this has
probably arisen rather as the result of the alarm
attending the sight of such colossal cobras than of
their endowment with special ferocity. None of
those at Alipur ever showed any signs of ex-
ceptionally bad temper, and one very fine specimen
was certainly the tamest and most intelligent snake
that I ever met with. It is, of course, well known
that they normally feed on other kinds of snakes,
but it was only as the result of experience that we
found out that they are cannibals. The specimens
at Alipur were usually kept in solitary confinement,
but once, in default of full accommodation for a
freshly acquired stock, two of them were placed in
the same enclosure. When I first saw that this
had been done it did seem to me that they must
be exposed to some temptation, but the superin-
tendent of the garden scouted the idea of there
being any risk of a catastrophe ; and quite apart from
their specific identity, the two animals seemed to be
so much alike in size that there appeared to be

352 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

little cause for apprehension in allowing them to
remain in company. For a time all went well,
and we had quite ceased to regard the experiment
as a hazardous one, when one morning the keeper,
on going to clean the cage, found it tenanted by
only one snake in a very crowded and torpid
condition. The most remarkable point in this
case was not the approximately like bulk of the
two snakes, but the fact that they were both
venomous ones of the same species. Even when
the victim is a harmless snake, and therefore sus-
ceptible to the toxic action of venom, a hamadryad
often has much difficulty in getting it down in
spite of the considerable reduction in muscular
resistance that must attend the repeated and ener-
getic injections of poison that follow capture. But
venomous snakes are practically exempt from the
action of the venom of their own species, so that
the struggle in this case must have been carried
on by unaided muscular effort, and must therefore
have been correspondingly severe and prolonged.
Even where the victim is a harmless snake weakened
by intoxication, a long time often elapses ere the
process of swallowing is fully carried out, and to the
very last, the protruding end of the prey continues
to writhe energetically as it is slowly and surely
drawn further and further inwards.

The common krait, Bungarus cceruleus, is not
at all likely to be met with in gardens in Calcutta,

SNAKES 353

or, in so far as my own experience goes, in any part
of the recent Gangetic delta. It is unequivocally
a very rare snake there. Whilst there was never
any difficulty in obtaining local specimens of cobras,
banded kraits, and Russell's vipers for exhibition at
Alipur, specimens of the common krait were very
rarely acquired, and then invariably as importations
from places at some distance, and either outside
or on the very confines of the newest alluvium.
They seem to belong to that group of animals that
finds the conditions present in the great swamp
uncongenial, and which cannot be fairly regarded as
indigenous merely because stray immigrants from
it may occasionally wander in from neighbouring
but higher and dryer regions. My friend, Mr
Daley, Assistant Civil Surgeon of the twenty-four
Parganas, has recently recorded the occurrence of
two kraits from Budge-Budge, but their occurrence
so far out into the recent alluvium may very likely
have been due to accidental importation by boats.
It has been already noted that such importation
may account for the occasional appearance of hama-
dryads near Calcutta and there can be no question
that it must have come into play in the case of a
specimen of Python reticulatus which once reached
the Zoological Garden at Alipur from Midnapur.

In so far as their venomous properties are con-
cerned, kraits may be regarded as feeble cobras, as
they are usually of comparatively small size, and

354 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

the intoxication following their bites is essentially
of the same nature as that induced by cobra- venom.
What serves to render them especially formidable
in regions in which they abound is the fact that
they are so ready to enter houses and lie about on
pieces of furniture in a way that greatly increases
the chance of their coming into immediate contact
with human beings.

The banded krait, Bungarus fasciatus, is common
enough anywhere in the lower Gangetic delta, and
is often to be met with in gardens containing ponds,
It is a very striking snake, owing to the brilliancy
of its bold black and yellow colouring, and also to
the extremely acute angle in which the sides of
the body meet over the dorsal surface. Specimens
of it were always easily procured for exhibition in
the Zoological Garden, but it was only after it had
been discovered that they are as essentially ophio-
phagous as hamadryads, that it was possible to
keep them permanently in good condition. They
are very sluggish creatures when in captivity, and
spend much of their time in water. In spite of the
dread with which they are ordinarily regarded by
the native population, they are really among the
least formidable of Indian venomous snakes, as
their venom is secreted in small quantity, and is
of very inferior quality, and because it is injected
by means of poorly-developed jaws and fangs.

The snakes that are most worthy of dread as

SNAKES 355

inmates of Indian gardens are the terrible daboias,
Vipera russellii. They are truly superb reptiles,
for, while the colouring of their armour is relatively
quiet, it would be hard to find any finer harmony
than that presented by its tints of ochreous-brown
on which a series of shining black rings with lighter
margins are disposed in triple rows from the neck
to within a short distance from the end of the tail.
There is something strangely fascinating in the
association of such wonderful beauty with deadly
malignity. The terrible and complex potency of
their venom, the appalling strength of the huge,
perforated, sickle-shaped fangs that serve to inject
it, and the way in which the tinting of their coats
harmonise with that of the dead leaves and dry
earth of their usual surroundings, render them
almost matchless examples of accurate evolution
to a special end. It is not merely the abundance
and potency of their venom and the great develop-
ment of their jaws and fangs that render them
specially formidable, for these are reinforced by
certain peculiarities of habit and in the mode of
striking. Daboias are sluggish and inert, and often
lie coiled up and motionless on footpaths, until they
are actually touched or trodden on by passers-by,
when they suddenly unfold like a released spring
armed with terrible teeth. There is none of the
warning and preparation here that there is where
a cobra is about to strike ; no sitting up and threat-

356 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

ening, but an instantaneous and deadly assault.
When they have laid hold, too, they hang on and
worry in a sickening fashion whilst they strive to
inject as much as possible of their tenacious yellow
venom. The exhibition of such a concentration
of deadly ferocity is quite terrifying.

The venom acts in an entirely different fashion
from that of cobras, and seems to produce two
distinct toxic effects. When introduced in more
or less concentrated form it gives rise to symptoms
of nervous irritation, ranging in accordance with
the strength of the dose, from local muscular
twitchings to a condition of general excitation that
culminates in violent general convulsions, followed
by death ; or, where the dose has not been so
great, by general exhaustive paralysis. Where large
doses are introduced in a dilute form, or when a
number of very minute doses of comparatively
concentrated venom enter the system in rapid
succession, the indications of nervous irritation
are purely local, no general convulsions or paralysis
occur, but a condition of blood-poisoning is estab-
lished, which either runs on to a fatal termination,
or is slowly recovered from, according to the strength
of the patient, and the quantity of the poison that
has entered the system.

Daboias, except for their beauty, are rather
uninteresting animals in captivity. They spend
almost the whole of their time lying coiled up and

SNAKES 357

motionless on the floor of their enclosures. When
disturbed, they utter a loud, red-hot, hissing remon-
strance, with a peculiar, slow vicious intensity ; and
when the annoyance continues, suddenly straighten
themselves out to dart in the direction from 'which
it proceeds. One very fine specimen in the collec-
tion at Alipur suddenly increased the population by
contributing a brood of about forty young vipers
to it. They were quite surprisingly beautiful in
the lustrous brilliancy and vivid colouring of their
iridescent coats, but all died off within a very short
time after their birth. It is curious to note the
caution and respect with which even the most
expert snake-charmers treat daboias. Here there is
none of the reckless thrusting of hands into bags,
or careless liberation of several prisoners at one
time that take place where cobras are in question.
Even when a bag contains only a single snake
the captive is carefully shaken out, and securely
pinned down by means of a crutched stick ere any
attempt is made to lay hold of him. The venom
is usually collected in the same way as that of
cobras is, but the process is far more interesting to
witness, owing to the ferocity with which the
apparatus is seized and worried whilst the glutinous,
golden-yellow venom drips from the extremities of
the great, curved fangs.

Special precautions are called for in any attempts
at establishing artificial immunity against the venom

358 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

of viperine snakes, because the suddenly explosive
action of the nervously irritant element in the poison
affords no time for the application of any remedial
measures in cases in which any slight excess of it
has been administered. The local muscular action
attending the introduction of the venom continues
to show itself in any uninured site long after a very
considerable degree of exemption from dangerous
centric irritation has been established. It does not,
however, seem to be accompanied by pain, as a very
intelligent fowl, who was for some time artificially
immunised by frequent injections of venom, soon
became quite eager for its daily dose, because this
was regularly followed by a plentiful dole of grain.
The essential differences between the natures of
colubrine and viperine venoms can be unequivocally
demonstrated by artificially immunising two animals
of like nature, one to the action of the one, and the
other to that of the other poison, and then treating
them with minimal lethal doses of the materials
to which they have not been inured. In such cases
it will be found that the immunity that has been
established is of a purely specific nature, so that
protection against the action of viperine venom
has provided none against colubrine venom, and
immunity from the latter no power of resisting
intoxication from the former poison.

xxviii

COMMON FROGS AND TOADS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

" Ne let the unpleasant queyre of frogs still croking,
Make us to wish theyr choking."

— SPENSER.

COMMON bull-frogs, Rana tigrina, are imposing
creatures, both in respect to size and colour.
Large specimens are often more than half a foot
in length, and, in many cases, are very brilliantly
coloured, more especially when they have just been
summoned out from their subterranean haunts by
the onset of the first heavy showers of the rainy
season. At this time, and seemingly as the result
of etiolation, they often show no dark markings,
but are uniformly painted in a bright canary
yellow that makes them stand out very con-
spicuously among the green tints of the surround-
ing grass and weeds. Very soon, however, they
begin to darken, and presently their coats acquire
a greenish-yellow or bright olive ground, thickly
variegated with bold dark blotches, the general
effect being such as to render them very likely

859

360 COMMON FROGS AND TOADS

to escape notice whilst in their wonted environ-
ments. In many cases, indeed, the harmony is
so great, that the only thing about them that
may lead to detection is the persistently brilliant
yellow of their great, shining, goggle eyes. Even
as it is, their marvellous capacity for absolute
immobility often serves so effectually to conceal
them that their presence is only revealed when
they are almost underfoot, and go off with sudden
and huge leaps that are very startling to the nerves
of both men and dogs. The capacity for protective
change in colour in this instance, although not
acting so rapidly as it does in the case of wall-
geckos and many kinds of fish, is yet very
striking.

Bull-frogs are excessively voracious, and many
well-authenticated instances are on record of their
successful capture of small birds, and even of palm-
squirrels, who have had the mishap to fall into
ponds haunted by them. Their fiercely carnivorous
tendencies manifest themselves very early. This
may be readily ascertained by putting some of
the small black tadpoles of the common toad,
Bufo melanostictus, into an aquarium containing
a few of their colossal grey relatives. At a time
when I was not fully informed in regard to their
habits, I tried keeping a mixed collection of both
kinds of tadpoles in a jar of distilled water, and
was astonished to find that the small ones rapidly

BULL-FROGS 361

disappeared. The process went on until it became
necessary to introduce a fresh stock, and then the
problem was solved ; for the frog-tadpoles were so
ravenous, owing to prolonged fasting, that they fell
upon the new arrivals at once, seizing, shaking, and
worrying at them as soon as they entered the
water. Their carnivorous habits render bull-frogs
very unwelcome neighbours where it is desired to
stock a small body of water with fish, as the havoc
that they play among small and even half-grown
fry is very great. They are quite omnivorous in
their appetite for animal food, and sometimes come
to grief in their greedy attempts to secure it. I
once found a curiously illustrative specimen of the
risks to which they are exposed by their voracity.
It consisted of a dead bull-frog with the hind legs
of a toad projecting from its mouth and firmly
hooked down over the angles of the jaws. The
frog had evidently seized its prey by the muzzle,
but in the effort to gulp it down, had only succeeded
in wedging it into its gullet, where it remained
anchored.

During their periods of activity they are seldom
to be found at any considerable distance from water,
and even at times when the greater number of them
are lying dormant, solitary specimens are sometimes
to be met with, sitting silent and motionless on the
bank of a pond, but ready on the least alarm to go
off in a gigantic leap that lands them souse into

362 COMMON FROGS AND TOADS

the water with a resounding splash. It is quite
astonishing to see how quickly they will people
pieces of open ground that are converted into
swamps by the onset of the monsoon. For weeks
and months before, the ground may have remained
seemingly quite dry, with all its grass and weeds
baked by the continuous blaze of sunshine, and giving
no hint of the presence of any frogs ; but, after a
few hours of drenching rain, it will be dotted all
over by huge yellow monsters filling the air with
a deafening uproar. In some years many heavy
thunderstorms take place long before the regular
onset of the monsoon, and lure out a certain number
of frogs to a premature emergence from which they
are fain to retire on the recurrence of continuous
dry weather. Almost every year, too, after one
of the brief deluges attending a "nor'-wester," the
gruntings of a few particularly anticipative in-
dividuals are temporarily audible. Like many other
animals in tropical regions, they seem often to suffer
from epidemic disease, for now and then they will
be very scarce for several successive years in which
the climatic conditions are highly favourable to their
activity, whilst in other seasons, in which defective
rainfall must have greatly narrowed the areas con-
genial to them, the sounds of their concerts are
everywhere audible.

When it is possible to watch the performers
closely it will be found that the concerts are built

BULL-FROGS 363

up of numerous dialogues, in which one of each
pair says "ough," and the other forthwith replies
"ver, rugh." Such utterances recur several times
in succession; a short pause follows, and then the
conversation begins again. The curious thing is
that all the performers seated in one patch of
swamp should have such a tendency to synchronous
action that periods of total silence alternate with
those of general uproar. The phenomenon is parallel
to that of the synchronous luminosity that sometimes
occurs so markedly in groups of fireflies. When
bull-frogs first come out for the season, the din that
they can make is often enough to be very annoying
to light sleepers. A friend of mine, whilst living
in a house close to which were two small frog-
haunted ponds, used to go to bed every night with a
hog-spear lying handy for use when the nocturnal
uproar became more than usually offensive, and
another inmate of the same place was often driven
to make excursions with a saloon pistol in the vain
hope of being able to kill his tormentors. In addi-
tion to their sexual grunting cries, bull-frogs have
another and very distinct call which sounds exactly
like a number of small bladders bursting in rapid
succession.

Considering how essentially aquatic they are,
it is somewhat surprising to find them depositing
their ova in the sites which they generally choose
for that purpose. The common toads, who are by

364 COMMON FROGS AND TOADS

no means inclined in their adult state to confine
themselves to the immediate neighbourhood of water,
and who are often to be met with in hosts in places
in which the soil is very dry for many weeks at a
time, always lay their eggs in water ; but bull-frogs
certainly do not usually do so. On the contrary,
they choose places which, although near and often
overhanging bodies of water, are above, and often
considerably above them. In the rainy season,
large masses of white, frothy matter, looking like
colossal " cuckoo spits," are often to be seen placed
among the twigs of shrubs growing on the banks
of ponds, or on any islet in the water. Their
appearance is so peculiar and so little suggestive
of their true nature that a very distinguished
zoologist, on observing them in the Garden at Alipur,
had some specimens collected and sent to me as
fungal growths. A very casual inspection of their
contents was enough to show that he was mistaken.
They are composed of a frothy matrix, soft and
semi-fluid in the ^interior of the mass, but setting
into a membranous layer on the surface, and in-
cluding innumerable ova. The latter hatch out into
their soft bed, and the young tadpoles continue to
inhabit it for a considerable time, passing through
the earlier stages of evolution in it, and, only after
having become considerably developed, working their
way out to fall into or struggle down to the water.
The spectacle that appears when one of the masses

THE COMMON INDIAN TOAD 365

is laid open and discloses its frothy contents, alive
with pallid, wriggling creatures, is truly gruesome.
Every evening during the rainy season all the
lawns are thickly dotted over by multitudes of
common toads, Bufo melanostictus, with brightly
lustrous eyes and curiously mottled and tuberculate
skins (Plate XXI.). When the weather becomes
drier they cease to come out in such numbers, and,
during the prolonged drought of winter and spring,
very few venture to leave their retreats among the
dead leaves in shaded coverts, or in the cavernous
recesses beneath culverts and the basements of
buildings. Individual specimens vary in colour very
greatly, and both temporarily and permanently. At
the time of their greatest activity some of them
are deeply coloured with velvety black tubercles
standing out on a background of rich brown,
whilst a whole series of lighter varieties range
through different shades of brown and ochre to
culminate in specimens of such pale cream-colour
as to seem almost white in the dusk. When they
come out suddenly from their shaded diurnal
retreats into strong light they show changes in
tint parallel to those taking place in wall-geckos in
like circumstances; and, when they have remained
for a long time hidden away during continuous
periods of dry weather, they acquire a specially
dingy, dusky hue of a more persistent character,
which is accompanied by a shrivelled and dusty

366 COMMON FROGS AND TOADS

condition of skin that makes them look very unlike
what they are when humidity and food abound.

When in full activity, and especially during
the breeding season, the tubercles on their skins
are full of a thick whitish secretion, which exudes
on any external pressure or when the animal is
excited or alarmed. It possesses highly acrid and
irritant properties, as is very evident from the effect
that it produces on dogs. Sporting terriers, in
default of any nobler game, are very ready to put
up with a toad-hunt, and when new to the country,
will often lay hold on their quarry. A single
experience of the results of doing so is, however,
usually enough to teach them an effectual lesson
of avoidance. Even very slight contact causes
them to foam at the mouth and to go about
shaking their heads from side to side with signs of
extreme disgust, and a good grip is usually followed
by such symptoms, together with violent sickness
and evidences of great general depression. Most
dogs, therefore, ^soon become very cautious of
touching toads, and it is often very diverting to
observe the conflict between desire to seize the
game and dread of coming into contact with it.
In some cases, however, no experience is effectual,
and, in the excitement of the chase, prudence goes
to the wall, with disastrous results. The toads seem
to be quite aware of the protective nature of their
venom, and in many cases obstinately refuse to stir

^
EH

Hf
I

O

THE COMMON INDIAN TOAD 367

even when patted by the paws of the dog, preferring
to remain fixed on the spots at which they have
been surprised, and to exude the poison while they
blow themselves out until it appears as though
they must inevitably burst.

Their call is a relatively feeble one, but, owing to
the enormous numbers in which they occur, they are
most important performers in the nocturnal concerts
that fill the air in the neighbourhood of ponds, and
are often so powerful as almost to drown those
of the crickets and cicadas in the surrounding trees.
Their eggs, unlike those of the bull-frogs, are always
laid in water, and, during the earlier half of the
rainy season, almost every pond is full of swarms
of their small, black tadpoles. A little later the
young toads begin to come ashore, and then it
is often very difficult to avoid treading on the hosts
of little black creatures, who hop about over the
roads and grass in such numbers that one might
well imagine that " the land has brought forth
frogs." The emergence of a flight of white ants is
always an occasion of joyful excitement among the
toads of the neighbourhood. They come hurrying
in from every quarter to congregate around the
place where the awkwardly struggling insects are
crowding and rustling up from the soil, and settle
themselves down to a prolonged and copious feast.

Several other kinds of frogs and toads are con-
stantly to be found in gardens in numbers that

368 COMMON FROGS AND TOADS

vary according to the climatic conditions prevail-
ing at different times of year. The most beautiful
of all the frogs occurring about Calcutta is one
in which the upper surface is painted in the most
vivid emerald green, contrasting wonderfully with
the snowy white of the under parts and with two
patches of bright rose-colour near the angles of the
mouth. Specimens of it are rarely noticed, but this
may in great part be due to their essentially aquatic
habits, and also to the wonderful way in which
their colouring harmonises with that of the floating
leaves on which they sit when they do emerge from
the water. They very seldom venture to land upon
the banks of a pond, and are usually to be seen
sitting motionless on the leaves of Nymphaeas or
Nelumbiums, and ready on the least alarm to slip
off into the surrounding water.

Towards the end of the rainy season, when
everything is at its wettest, and specially in years
when the rainfall has been so abundant as to
cause the formation of numerous temporary pools
in the hollows of grass-land, a curious little song
may often be heard issuing from garden lawns.
So sweet and clear is it, that, unless the nature
of the songster is already known, it may readily be
mistaken for that of a bird. If, however, the places
from which it proceeds be stealthily approached and
absolute immobility be maintained, it will be found
that the songsters really are very small and wonder-

TREE-FROGS 369

fully agile frogs, who every now and then lift up
their heads and pour forth a torrent of small, sweet
notes. The process of discovery is by no means
an easy one, as the animals are very small, and
provided with highly protective colouring, and also
because their notes seem to alter in direction at
frequent intervals in a curiously ventriloquial way.
The little tree-frogs, Rhacophorus maculatus
(Plate XXI.), are not very common in Calcutta,
but occasionally a garden will be found in which
the local conditions are so much to their taste as to
lead to the presence of a large colony within its
limits. Now and then, too, a frog will come explor-
ing into a house and go hopping around over the
floors and furniture ; but such an event is rare, and
they never show any inclination to establish them-
selves as permanent inmates. In many parts of
Southern India, however, they are almost as common
in houses as the wall-geckos, and indeed, owe their
common Anglo-Indian name of " Chunam-frogs " to
the way in which, on any alarm, they make off in
a series of rapid leaps across the floor to spring up
and remain adherent to the whitewash of the walls
at a considerable height above the ground.

2 A

XXIX

COMMON FISH OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

" Slow efts about the edges sleep ;

Swift darting water-flies
Shoot on the surface ; down the deep
Fast following bubbles rise.

Look down. What groves that scarcely sway !

What 'wood obscure/ profound !
What jungle ! where some beast of prey

Might choose his vantage ground."

— AUSTIN DOBSON.

" The pleasant' st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream."

— Much Ado about Nothing.

IN such a swamp as that of the greater part of
Lower Bengal, very few enclosures of any consider-
able size are devoid of ponds, or at least of water-
holes of a more or less permanent nature, and hence
fish of various kinds form a conspicuous feature in
the garden Fauna of the region. A very attractive
feature they are, as any one will allow who has
ever watched the shoals of little fish that are always

gliding about in the weedy shallows. Among the

370

RAINBOW-FISH 371

most alluring of them are the so-called "rainbow
fish." They abound in the submerged forests of
grass that fringe the water after heavy falls of
rain. There they hang, hovering about, curiously
investigating all the recesses of the jungle, and every
now and then charging at one another in furiously
hostile encounters. They are so exceedingly thin
as to be almost invisible when looked at from
above, but they shine out conspicuously wherever
the sun's rays strike in obliquely and light up the
brilliant tints of their side scales and the lateral
surfaces of their fins. Then they show up, painted
in a ground colour of soft greyish yellow, adorned
with brown bands, and contrasting with the ruddy
hue of the fins, the dorsal and ventral ones bordered
behind by a line of shining blue, and the former
shaded above, and capped by a sharp black spine,
which is at once erected on any excitement or
alarm. Swarms of other little fish accompany them,
some spotted and barred with brown and red, and
others shining so brightly that they look like little
sudden flashes of light as they dart hither and
thither through the sunlit water. Curious little
creatures, too, go gliding about in troops close to
the surface, so translucent and quietly coloured
that they would readily escape notice were it not
for the presence of a luminously white speck on
the back of their heads.

Fish seem to have very little sense of propor-

372 COMMON FISH OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

tion, as quite ludicrously little ones, hardly as
large, and certainly not nearly as strong as their
intended prey, may often be seen leaping out of
the water and trying to lay hold of the great
brown hornets, who are for ever quartering about
over the surface and gleaning dragon-flies' eggs and
other adherent dainties from the projecting blades
of grass or leaves of floating weeds. Farther out
from the banks larger fish swim slowly about, and
now and then a great splash and swirl announces
that a monster has come up from the depths to
roll about at the surface.

As the monsoon continues many ponds are
temporarily connected with the river by devious
water-ways that form roads by means of which
grey mullets, Mugil corsula, travel up in pairs and
little troops to visit even very small pieces of
water. Their presence in a pond is always wel-
come, for not only are they very good to eat, but
they are very lively and amusing creatures. Whilst
travelling, they swim so close to the surface that
their great, goggle eyes stand out prominently above
the water, and present a very curious appearance
from a little distance, looking like animated bubbles
coursing about in pairs or groups. Where their
progress is opposed by a strong current they often
prefer to travel in a series of jumps along the
surface of the water, seeming to find it easier to
make way in this fashion than by diving below the

MULLETS 373

upper layers of the stream. It is very interesting
to watch a troop of them struggling up the river
at a point where a landing-stage or flight of steps
projects into the stream so as to deflect the course
of the current and give rise to the formation of
back-waters. Their perseverance in contending with
the difficulty is very striking. Everything, of course,
favours their advance in the back-water beneath
the projecting point, but when the latter is reached
their trials set in in full force and without warning.
Some fortunate individuals, and especially some of
those who elect to force the passage by jumping
along the surface, get through at once, but others
only succeed after they have again and again been
overpowered in the swirl and swept outwards to
be carried down by the stream for some distance
ere they manage to fight their way into the back-
water and begin a fresh attempt. Their experiences
are curiously reminiscent of those of country boats
under like conditions. Their habit of swimming
so close to the surface is a source of danger to
them. They are taken in casting nets, and a fisher-
man may often be seen following a troop of them
along the edge of the stream, guided by their
projecting eyes in his endeavours to drive them
into a convenient place by throwing stones into
the water around them.

A particularly interesting and pretty spectacle
may often be seen in clear ponds towards the end

374 COMMON FISH OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

of the rainy season. On looking down through
the limpid water one sees a great shoal of very
small fish, each of them about an inch or some-
what less in length, of a semi-transparent brown,
and decorated with three longitudinal bands of vivid
yellow on the back and sides. They glide gently
about close to the bank, busily feeding on invisible
objects adhering to the aquatic grasses and pond-
weeds. The sight of such a multitude of lovely
little creatures oaring themselves about in the clear
water would in itself be very attractive, but what
renders it specially fascinating is that the moving
shoal is persistently attended by a pair, or more
rarely by a single specimen, of much larger, mottled
grey fish who follow it anxiously about from place
to place. At first sight they might be suspected
of evil intent, but a little study of their habits is
enough to show that they are innocent of any
desire to prey upon their little companions. The
latter do not seem to be in the least alarmed by
their presence, and often seem quite ready to be
herded by them' in their travels. Owing to their
relatively large size, the chaperones are often unable
to follow their charges into the recesses of the
marginal fringe of weeds, and are forced to remain
hovering anxiously about outside it in the open
water opposite the point at which the shoal is
feeding. When the fry keep together all goes
well, but, if they break up into several parties,

XXII.

i-

Mud-skippers, p. 375.

MUD-SKIPPERS 375

their guardians become very uneasy. So long as
there are a pair of them there is not so much
trouble, but, when one only is in charge, it often
has very hard work before it can get its flock
gathered together again. The little fish, owing to
their small size, can turn round much more quickly
and in much smaller spaces than their agitated
attendant, whose anxiety becomes so evident as to
be quite touching. The ungainly haste with which
it hurries from place to place, here trying to check
the progress of one part of the shoal, and there
endeavouring to hurry up the loiterers, makes one
quite unhappy until it has safely attained its end.
The behaviour of the large fish is certainly very
suggestive of parental anxiety and supervision, but
it may be that its motive is of a purely selfish and
commensal origin, and that the apparent affection
is merely owing to a desire to keep the fry together
because they are useful in disturbing and driving
out prey from inconvenient shallows and tangled
growths of weeds.

In gardens actually abutting on the river, the
banks and ghats of the latter, and the margins
of closely adjoining* ponds are often haunted by
throngs of common mud-skippers, Periopthalmi (Plate
XXII. ). They are most entertaining creatures, and
much time may be happily spent in the study of their
quaint ways. Their re-appearance on the banks of the
river in autumn is one of the regular signs that the

376 COMMON FISH OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

floods are abating and that cooler weather is approach-
ing ; for, during the height of the monsoon, they seem
to abandon the larger streams, probably on account
of the violence of the currents then prevailing in
them. When they are present, the best time for
studying their manners and customs is whilst the
tide is ebbing. As the level of the water falls
and leaves fringes of damp muddy surfaces along
its margins, small grey objects may be seen coming
up out of the stream to hop about over the ground
or sit in strangely wide-awake fashion on any brick-
bats, stumps of wood, edges of steps, or other
points of vantage projecting from the mud. No
one would at first sight dream of regarding them
as fish, for, even when closely examined, they look
much more like small, slimy lizards, or gigantic
tadpoles in an advanced stage of evolution. What
makes them particularly unfishlike is the way in
which they use their pectoral fins ; for, whilst sitting
still, they bring them well forward and curve the
dilated ends down like little webbed feet, on which
they rest with their heads and shoulders well raised,
and from which they are ready to take off in a
great leap on the slightest alarm. As the tide goes
on falling, more and more of them emerge, until
all the banks are dotted over with quaint little
monsters, holding up their bull-dog muzzles and
great goggle eyes with an air of grotesque defiance,
while every now and then one of them will suddenly

MUD-SKIPPERS 377

go off in a great leap in the hope of capturing an
insect, or in order to assault and dislodge one of
its neighbours who has secured a desirable watch-
tower.

The multitudes of them, who swarm over the
muddy slopes of the larger tidal channels and
devious water-lanes of the outer Sundarbans, must
be seen to be imagined. Their habits differ
markedly in different areas within the Sundarbans.
A steamer in passing along a narrow channel
causes a very considerable displacement of the
surface of the water ; an initial depression and
indraught exposes great surfaces of the rnuddy
banks, and is followed by a series of huge rushing
waves that follow the vessel and wash up over
the slopes with enough force to knock all the
mud-skippers, who are taking an airing on them,
head over heels. The fish do not at all enjoy
such forced exercise, but in their endeavour to
avoid it, do not act alike everywhere. In completely
unreclaimed and uninhabited parts of the Sundar-
bans the approach of the waves is preceded by a
general and precipitate flight of mud-skippers,
hurrying up the slopes in order to get beyond the
reach of the threatening inundation ; but in channels
traversing cleared and partially cultivated areas,
the line of flight follows an opposite direction, and
the fish hasten down in order to reach the water
before it is disturbed. These differences of habit

378 COMMON FISH OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

are certainly correlated with the absence or presence
of a special danger. In all the inhabited parts of
the Sundarbans the people live to a great extent
on fish, and are consequently always on the out-
look for chances of catching them. The varieties
of ways of fishing that may be seen during the
course of a single day's voyage are quite wonderful.
One of the commonest is carried out by means of
an apparatus consisting of a truncated cone of
wicker-work open at either end and looking like
a deep, tapering basket without a bottom. When
in use, the fisherman carries it about as he wades
along the muddy slopes or shallows, and, when
he comes to a point at which he thinks that fish
are lying, he suddenly plants the broad end of the
cone down into the mud, and then passes his hand
through the narrow end and gropes about for
anything that may have been imprisoned within
the wicker enclosure. Fishing of this kind is, of
course, rendered easier by anything increasing the
area of shallow water or leaving fish exposed in
the mud of the banks. The passage of a steamer
tends to act in this way, both by the initial
indraught and by the subsequent violent inundation
that it gives rise to. The fishermen fully realise
this, and eagerly avail themselves of the opportunity
thus afforded. This implies that, in channels where
fishing is habitually carried on, the passage of a
steamer exposes the mud-skippers to a twofold

MUD-SKIPPERS 379

danger, and that they clearly adopt the best course
for escaping it by immediate flight to the deeper
parts of the stream. But, in places where no
fishermen are present, no special danger attends
farther progress up the sloping banks of mud, a
course which must be most effectual as a means
of avoiding all inconvenience from the temporary
disturbance of the water, and here we find the
fish almost all running upwards. The differences
in the behaviour of the fish in connection with the
differences of environment are very striking, and
at first sight might be taken to imply the exercise
of highly evolved intelligence. They are, however,
probably merely the outcome of processes of natural
selection.

It is probable that, from the outset, there was
a dislike to the disturbance attending any con-
siderable agitation of the surface of the water, and
a corresponding tendency to try to avoid it, but
that originally the line of flight was unspecialised
and directed indifferently either upwards or down-
wards over the surface of the banks. But, in places
where no special danger attends an upward course,
those fish who naturally tended to follow it
would certainly be more likely to escape injury
than those who descended and thus ran a risk of
being knocked about by the waves. In consequence
of this, the former class of fish would almost
inevitably come to predominate, and in course

380 COMMON FISH OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

of time would almost entirely replace that which
persistently descended. In places where fishing is
habitually carried on, however, the habit of descent,
although not free from certain risks, must neces-
sarily be more protective than that of ascent, and,
consequently, those fish who are endowed with it
must be placed at an advantage over those who
are not, and will ultimately come to be the
predominant local variety.

Almost every pond of any considerable size
contains specimens of Catla, Catla buchanani and
Rohu, Labeo rohita, as they are in such high repute
among the native population as articles of food as
to ensure their introduction into any bodies of water
providing conditions suitable to them. It was quite
surprising to find what a great size individual speci-
mens of both species may attain even in very small
ponds. When one such pond, in a garden in
Alipur, was dragged the number of fish that were
secured was very small, but it included a fine large
rohu, and a catla weighing more than 30 Ibs. Catla
are coarse, heavy-looking creatures, and their aspect
would certainly not lead one to credit them with a
capacity for anything but stolid resistance to capture.
In reality, however, they often show wonderful agility
in their efforts to escape from a net. The finest
display of this that I ever saw took place on the
occasion, already alluded to (p. 327), in which the
system of ponds in the Zoological Garden at Alipur

CATLA AND ROHU 381

was drained in order to dislodge the crocodiles who
inhabited it. At this time the water was known to
abound in large fish, a fact that had been satis-
factorily demonstrated by the income that the
garden had for some years derived from the sale of
tickets for rod-fishing. Accordingly, when the level
had been so far reduced as to bring the remaining
portion within manageable limits, a set of fishermen
were called in to net it. This they did on several
successive mornings with results which were so satis-
factory financially that the sale of the fish supplied
more than enough money to pay the fishermen and
also the hire of the steam-pump and its attendants.
But in addition to this pecuniary benefit, the under-
taking also provided a magnificent display of activity.
After the nets had been sunk nothing noteworthy
took place until they had been gradually drawn
onwards to a line within such a short distance from
the bank of one end of the water that it seemed
hardly likely that many fish had been enclosed. But
then the scene suddenly changed ; the surface became
violently agitated, and was ruffled and broken by the
protruding backs of great fish, who rushed hither and
thither in quest of a point of escape. Next, as they
realised more and more clearly that they were really
shut in, they began to muster courage for a supreme
effort, and at first in twos and threes, and then in
ever growing numbers, they charged directly back-
wards and threw themselves high into the air in hope

382 COMMON FISH OF AN INDIAN GARDEN

of clearing the net and gaining the open water
beyond it ; so that, for a time, crowds of great silvery
bodies were flashing in the sunshine and falling into
the pond with resounding splashes. Many fell short
and were safely landed, but so many escaped that it
was necessary to repeat the netting three or four
times ere it could be regarded as having been at all
effectual. In this case by far the greater number of
the fish were catla, but here and there among their
awkward, heavy companions fine rohu could be seen
looking strangely refined and graceful in comparison
with them.

Rod-fishing for catla can hardly be supposed to
be a very fascinating sport, as, when hooked, they
seem to do little save sulk and drag. The natives of
India are, however, very fond of it, and there is at
least this to be said in its favour, that, although the
interest that it provides is a diluted one, it is often
very prolonged. I have seen a fisherman struggling
with a large catla when I went out for a walk at sun-
rise ; he was still hard at it as I passed the pond on
my return homewards ; he persevered throughout the
whole course of the day, and at sundown was still
wading and swimming about in hopes of ultimate
success. Rohu are far more lively fish, and when
hooked often contribute their share towards really
exciting exhibitions of competitive activity and skill.

Indian gardens possess so many fascinations that
any attempt to describe them must almost inevitably

CONCLUSION

be wholly inadequate. The vertebrate life present in
them is so multiform that, even were the information
regarding it much fuller than that in the preceding
pages, and recorded by really skilful hands, it would
surely fail to give any just conception of the wealth
of beauty and interest that attends the wonderful
panorama that is ceaselessly unrolling itself before
careless eyes. Rough notes may serve to stir up
vivid memories of the charm and colour of golden
hours of quiet observation, but the bloom of these is
sadly rubbed off in the course of any attempts to
transfer the impression to the minds of others ; " il
ne faut pas toucher aux idoles : la dorure en reste aux
mains," and it is with acute consciousness of this that
I offer the present pages to the indulgence of the
public.

APPENDIX

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INDEX

ACRIDOTHERES FUSCUS, or

fuscus, the Jungle-Myna, 34
Acridotheres ginginianus, the Bank-

Myna, 35
, , tristis, the common Myu a.

23

Adjutants — the, Leptoptilusdubius, 227 ;
formerly very abundant
in Calcutta, 227 ; now
very rare within the
town proper, 228 ; return
of, an intimation of the
approach of the rainy
season, 228 ; magnificent
flight of, 228 ; difficulty
experienced by, in rising
from the ground, 229 ;
flight of, often strangely
noisy, 229 ; often find
difficulty in settling
down to roost, 230 ; very
ill- tempered, 232; atti-
tudes of, often very
grotesque, 232 ; attitudes
when drying their plum-
age, 233 ; splendid
colouring of the plumage
of, 233 ; astonishing ap-
petite of, 234

,, the smaller, Leptoptilus
javanicus, 236 ; never
enters towns, 236

j&githina tiphia, the common lora, 125
^Esalon chicquera, the red - headed

Merlin or Taramti, 250
^Ethiopsar fuscus, or Acridotheres fuscus,

the Jungle-Myna, 34
Alcedo ispida, the common Kingfisher,
157

Alsocomus puniceus, the purple Wood-
pigeon, 103

Amaurornis phcenicurus, the white-
breasted Water-hen, 173
Anthus maculatus, the Indian Tree-
pipit, 198
,, rufulus, the Indian Tit-lark,

199

Arachnechthra asiatica, the purple
Honeysucker or
Sun-bird, 136

,, zeylonica, the purple-

rumped Honey -

sucker or Sun-bird,

128

Ardeola grayi, the Pond -heron or

Paddy-bird, 165
Ardetta cinnamomea, the chestnut

Bittern, 170

Astur badius, the Shikra, 246
Athene brama, the spotted Owlet, 203

BABBLERS — the Jungle, Crateropus
canorus, 82 ; debased appearance of,
83 ; Hindi name for, derived from
their habit of going about in family
parties, 83 ; ways of, 84 ; flight of,
85 ; curiosity of, 86 ; nesting habits
of, 87

Bandar — the, Macacus rhesus, 264
Barbets — the blue-throated, Cyanops
asiatica, 109 ; cry of, 110 ;
behaviour whilst calling,
110; partially silent during
the nesting season, 110 ;
shyer birds than Copper-
smiths, 111 ; nests usually
well concealed, 111 ; vigour
of, when excavating their

409

410

INDEX

Barbets (continued) —

nests, 112 ; work in regular
shifts in digging their
burrows, 113 ; measure-
ments of a nest, 113 ; one
caught in a spider's web,
115 ; easily kept in cap-
tivity, 115

,, the Coppersmith, Xantho-
Icema hcematocephala, 105 ;
calling of, determined by
atmospheric temperature,
105 ; behaviour whilst
calling gives rise to ventri-
loquial effects, 106 ; re-
latively silent during the
nesting season, 106 ; nest-
ing of, 106 ; bad temper
of, 109 ; not easy to keep
in a mixed aviary, 109 ;
specially fond of the fruits
of certain kinds of figs,
109

Bats, very abundant in damp, tropical
regions, 287 ; emergence of,
at sunset, 287 ; degree to
which they abound in large
buildings in Upper India,
288 ; swimming, 289
,, the Flying - foxes, Pteropus
medius, 290 ; abound in
Calcutta, 290 ; large colonies
of, in Amritsar and Delhi, 290 ;
quarrelsome disposition of,

290 ; trees favoured as roosts,

291 ; principal colonies of,
near Calcutta, 292 ; native
methods of taking, 295

,, the short-nosed Fruit-bats, or
small Flying- foxes, Cynopterus
margincttus, 296 ; do not live
in colonies, 296 ; protective
colouring of, 297

Bee-eaters — the common Indian, Merops
viridis, 141 ; winter
residents of Calcutta,
141 ; regularity of their
arrival in autumn, 141 ;
beauty of their appear-
ance and notes, 142 ;
ways of, 142 ; extremely
keen vision of, 143 ;

method of disposing of
their prey, 143 ; take
insects from the surface
of water, 144 ; rarely
alight on the ground,
144 ; very rarely nest
near Calcutta, 144

Bee-eaters — the blue - tailed, Merops
philippinus, 145 ; larger
than M. viridis, 145 ;
abundant during the
rainy season, 145 ; not
so brightly coloured as
M. viridis, 145
Blood-sucker — the, Oalotes vcrsicolor,

322
Brachypternus aurantius, the golden -

backed Woodpecker, 223
Brain-fever-bird, Hierococcyx varius,

or common Hawk-cuckoo, 71
Bubulcus coromandus, the Cattle-egret,

169
Bv/o melanostictus, the common Indian

Toad, 365

Bulbuls — the Bengal red - vented ,
Molpastes bengalensis, 91 ;
often kept in captivity by
natives of India, 91 ; call
of, 92 ; nesting of, 92 ;
exuberant vitality of, 93 ;
often venture far into
towns, 87

,, the Bengal red-whiskered,
Otocompsa emeria, 87 ;
very abundant in suburban
gardens, 88 ; hardly ever
enters the town, 88 ; rare
attractiveness of their
appearance and ways, 88 ;
exceptional tameness of,
88 ; very rare in the
Botanic Garden at Shibpur,
89 ; almost always in
pairs, 89 ; faithful and
loving habits of the mates,
89 ; nesting of, 89
Bungarus cceruleiis, the Krait, 352
,, fasciatus, the banded Krait,

354

Butorides javanica, the little green
Heron, 170

INDEX

411

CACOMANTIS PASSERINUS, the Indian

plaintive Cuckoo, 81
Calliope camtschatkensis, the common

Ruby-throat, 260
Calotes versicolor, the Blood-sucker,

322

Canis aureus, the Jackal, 267
Caprimidgus asiaticus, the common
Indian Goatsucker,
252
, , macrurus, Horsfield's

Goatsucker, 254

Carnivorous animals, trouble given by
wild ones in tropical Zoological
Gardens, 272

Catla buchanani, the Catla, 380
Cats — the Jungle, Felis chaus, 273 ;
seldom approaches nouses,
273

, , the Fishing, Felis viverrina, not
uncommon in gardens, 273 ;
extremely savage and untam-
able, 273; sometimes rear their
young in gardens, 273
Centropus sinensis, the Crow-pheasant

or common Coucal, 74
Ceryle varia, the Indian pied King-
fisher, 163
Chalcophaps indica, the bronze-winged

Dove, 102

Chloropsis aurifrons, or Phyllornis
aurifrons, the gold-fronted Chloropsis
or green Bulbul, 93

Civets — the large Indian, Viverra,
zibetha, 274 ; rare in
gardens, 274 ; curious
colouring of, 274 ; instances
of occurrence in gardens in
Calcutta, 274

,, the small Indian, Viverricula
malaccensis, 277 ; abound
in Calcutta, 277

,, the Indian Palm, Para-
doxurus niger, 277 ; often
visit gardens and mobbed
by crows there, 277
Cobras, Naia tripudians, 339
Coccystes coromandus, the red- winged

crested Cuckoo, 80
,, jacobinus, the pied crested

Cuckoo, 78
Colouring, protective adaptation of,

in Bull-frogs, 359 ; in Chloropsis, 93 ;
in Geckos, 320; in green Pigeons,
101 ; in Thrushes, 255 ; in Herons,
166
Copsychus saularis, the Magpie-robin,

116

Coracias indica, the Indian Roller, 146
Cormorant — the little, Phalacrocorax
javanicus, 175 ; sometimes appears
in gardens, 175 ; occasionally per-
manent colonies may be established,
176 ; such settlements undesirable
features in small gardens, 176 ; great
colony of, on an island in the Zoo-
logical Garden at Alipur, 176
Corvusmacrorhynchus, the Jungle-crow,
Gorvus culminatus of Jerdon,
60

,, splendens, the Indian House-
crow, 36
Crateropus canorus, the Jungle-babbler,

82

Crocidura ccerulescens, the grey Musk-
shrew, 284

,, murina, the brown Musk-
shrew, 286

,, perrotteti, the Indian Pigmy-
shrew, 286

Crocodilus palustris, the Swamp-croco-
dile, 326
, , porosus, the Coast-crocodile,

326 ; common in the tidal
channels of the Sun-
darbans, 326 ; difficulties
of clearing them out of
gardens containing ponds,

327 ; intelligence of, 328 ;
a crocodile in a brougham,
329

Crocopus phcenicopterus, the Bengal
green Pigeon, or Hariyal, 100

Crows — the Indian Corbie, or Jungle-
crow, Corvus macrorhynchus,
60 ; habits of, 60 ; call of,
61 ; greeting the sunrise in
winter, 61

,, the Indian House- crow, Cormis
splendens, 36 ; energy and
mischief of, 37 ; habit of
gossiping at sundown, 38 ;
bathing at sundown, 39 ;
clamour of, at dawn, 40 ;

412

INDEX

Crows (continiied) —

best means of reducing the
number of crows living in a
garden, 43 ; crow-catching
with bird-lime, 44 ; torment-
ing habits of, 45; teasing
King-crows, 47 ; mobbing
formidable birds or mam-
mals, 47 ; trouble caused by,
in the Zoological Garden at
Alipur, 48 ; tormenting
River- tortoises, 49 ; respect
of, for Corvusmacrorhynchus,
51 ; nesting of, 51 ; intelli-
gence showed by, in cases of
accidents to nests, 52 ;
cuckolded by the Koil, 53 ;
do not persecute young Koils
after they have left the nest,
54 ; faithful and affectionate
mates and parents, 54 ;
moral code of, 55 ; assemble
in crowds on any alarm, etc. ,
55 ; quarrels of, 56 ; sus-
picious nature of, 56 ; diffi-
culty of taming, 57 ; variety
of notes of, 58 ; discomfort
^ and depression of, during

wet weather, 59

Cuckoos — the Brain - fever - bird, or
common Hawk - cuckoo,
Hierococcyx varius, 71 ;
oftenest heard in Calcutta
during the rainy season,
71 ; calls of, 71 ; one of
the calls a harbinger of
rain, 72 ; beautyand hawk-
like aspect pf, 72; often
mistaken for" hawks by
other birds, 73; attitude
and movements of, whilst
perching, 73 ; wakefulness
of, 73 ; lay in the nests of
Babblers, 74

,, the Crow-pheasant or com-
mon Coucal, Centropus
sinensis, 74 ; abound in
gardens, 74 ; appearance
of, 74 ; instance of one
being eaten as a pheasant,
75 ; nesting of, 75 ; flight
of, 76 ; extreme agility of,

in climbing, 75 ; calls of,
76 ; other notes of, 77 ;
courting of, 78

Cuckoos — the Indian, Cuculus mi-
cropterus, 80 ; abundant
in the Botanic Garden at
Shibpur during the hot
weather, 80

,, the Indian plaintive, Coco-
mantis passer inus, 81 ;
occasionally ventures into
streets, 81

,, the Koil, Eudynamis hono-
rata, 63 ; behaviour of the
sexes in securing the de-
position of eggs in crows'
nests, 64; utility of the
great differences in plum age
of the sexes, 65 ; cries of
the male, 66 ; cry of the
female, 68 ; attracted by
particular kinds of fruit,
68 ; habits in captivity,
69 ; often call during the
night, 70 ; curious attitude
of, whilst basking, 70 ;
flight of, 70

,, the pied-crested, Coccystes
jacobinus, 78 ; likeness of
to large Bulbuls, 78 ; call
of, 79 ; often mobbed by
Babblers, etc., 79
,, the red - winged crested,
Coccystes coromandus, 80 ;
great beauty of, 80 ; must
sometimes lay in Calcutta,
80

Cuckoo-shrike — the large, Graucalus
macii, 184 ; often present in gardens,
184 ; habits of, 184

Cuculus micropterus, the Indian
Cuckoo, Boukotako, or Kaephal-
pakka, 80
Cyanops asiatica, the blue-throated

Barbet, 109

Cynopterus marginatus, the short-nosed
Fruit - bat, or small Flying - fox,
296

Cypselus affinis, the common Indian
Swift, 251

DABOIA — the, Vipera russellii, 355

INDEX

413

Dayal — the, Copsychus saularis, the

Magpie-robin, 116
Dendrocitta rufa, the Indian Tree-

pie, 187

Dendrocopus himalayensis, the western
Himalayan pied Wood-
pecker, 226
, , macii, the fulvous-breasted

pied Woodpecker, 225
Dhamin, or Rat - snake, Zamenis

mucosus, 336
Dicceum crue?itatum, the scarlet-backed

Flower-pecker, 127
,, erythrorhynchus, Tickell's

Flower-pecker, 127

Dicrurus ater, black Drongo, or King-
crow, 148

,, ccerulescens, the white- bellied
Drongo, or King - crow,
154

Dolphins, the Gangetic, Platanista
gangetica, 314 ; behaviour of, in
rising, 315 ; sounds made by, 315 ;
do not usually occur in herds, 316 ;
apparent absence of, from the Hugli
when in full flood, 316 ; troublesome
to fishermen, 316 ; easily drowned,
317

Drongos — the black or common King-
crow, Dicrurus ater, 148
,, the white-bellied, Dicrurus

ccerulescens, 154

Dryophis mycterizans, the Tree-snake,
338

EAGLES — the white-bellied Sea-, Hali-
aetus leucogaster, 244 ;
splendid colouring of, 244
,, Pallas' Fishing, Haliaetus
leucoryphus, 243 ; occasion-
ally visits gardens, 243 ;
usually driven off by crows,
244 ; great abundance of,
in the Sundarbans and the
lower part of the river
Surma, 245

,, the crested Serpent- Spilornis
cheela, 245 ; sometimes seen
in gardens, 245 ; its spotted
plumage, 245

Egrets — the large, Herodias alba, oc-
casionally to be seen flying

aloft over the town of Cal-
cutta, 172

Egrets — the Cattle-, Bubulcus coro-
mandus, 169 ; occasionally
visits ponds within Calcutta,
169

Epidemics — occurrence of, as a cause of
periodic variations in the numbers
of Sparrows, 195 ; of Squirrels, 301 ;
of Mole-rats, 312
Eudynamis honor ata, the Koil, 63

FALCON — the Peregrine, Falco pere-
grinus, 245 ; relatively rare in Cal-
cutta, 245 ; constant visitors to towns
in Upper India in winter, 246 ; ex-
cessive numbers of, in the swamps
of the lower Surma, 246
Fan tail — the white-throated, Ehipidura
albicollis, 121 ; extremely attractive
ways of, 121 ; ludicrous size of their
tails, 122 ; boldness of, 122
Felis chaus, the Jungle-cat, 273
,, pardus, the Leopard, 272
,, viverrina, the Fishing-cat, 273
Finch — the common Rose-, Carpodacus
erythrinus, 260 ; not uncommon in
gardens in Calcutta in winter, 260
Fish— the Catla, Catla buchanani, 380 ;
in high repute as food, 380 ;
attaining to a great size even
in small ponds, 380 ; wonder-
ful activity of, 380; rod-
fishing for, 382

,, Mud-skippers, Periophthalmi,
375 ; found in gardens
abutting on the Hugli, 375 ;
appear in autumn and dis-
appear whilst the river is in
full flood, 376 ; when on land
look like small lizards or great
tadpoles, 376 ; great numbers
of, in the channels of the
Sundarbans, 377 ; probable
origin of the different be-
haviour that they show in
different areas there, 378
,, Mullet, Mugil corsula, 372;
swim with their eyes project-
ing from the surface of the
water, 372 ; ways of travelling
against strong currents, 373

414

INDEX

Fish (continued) —
,, the Kohu, Ldbeo rohita, 380 ;

rod-fishing for, 382
Fishing-cat, Felis viverrina, 273
Flower-peckers — the scarlet-backed,
Dicceum cruen-
tatum, 127

,, Tickell's, Dicceum

erythrorhynchus,
127

Fly-catchers — the common black -
naped blue, Hypo-
thymis azurea, 124 ;
beauty of, 124 ;
common in gardens
during winter, 124 ;
shy birds, 125 ; me-
thodical in habits,
125

, the Indian Paradise,

Terpsiphone para-
disi, 122; beautiful
flight of, 122; not
very common in
Calcutta, 123; fully
plumaged males usu-
ally only seen there
in spring, 123 ;
astonishing changes
occurring in the
plumage of the
males, 123
Flying-foxes — the common, Pteropus

medius, 290

,, the smaller or short-

nosed Fruit - bat,
Cynopterus margin-
atus, 29,6

Flying-squirrels — the "large, red,
Pteromys inor-
natus, 305

,, the smaller Kash-

mir, Sciuropterus
fimbriatus, 305 ;
habits of, 305

Fox — the Indian, Vulpes bengalensis,
271; formerly abundant in
Calcutta, 272 ; breeding call
of, 272

Frogs, the common Indian Bull-frog,
Rana tigrina, 359 ; great size
and striking colouring of,

359 ; changes in colour of,

359 ; power of immobility,
360 ; extreme voracity of,

360 ; tadpoles of, 360 ; rapid
emergence of, after heavy
falls of rain, 362 ; concerts
of, 363 ; cries of, 363 ; sites
in which the ova are
deposited, 364

Frogs — the Chunam-frog, Rhacoplwrus
maculatus, 369 ; not common
in Calcutta, 369

GECKO — the common House, ffemi-

dactylus gleadovii, 319
Geocichla citrina, the orange-headed

Ground- thrush, 254
Goatsuckers — llorsfield's, Capri -
tnulgus macrurus,
254 ; nocturnal din,
like hammering on
planks, caused by,
254

,, the common Indian,

or Ice-bird, Capri-
mulgus asiaticus,
252 ; call of, 253 ;
flight of, 253 ;
alarm - notes of,
254

Graucalus macii, the large Cuckoo-
shrike, 184

HALCYON SMYRNENSIS, the white-
breasted Kingfisher, 159

Haliaetus leucogaster, the white-bellied
Sea-eagle, 244

Haliaetus leucoryphus, Pallas' Fishing-
eagle, 243

Haliastur indus, the Brahmini Kite,
247

Hamadryad — the, Naia bungarus, 350.

Hanuman — the, Semnopithecus entellus,
or Langur, 263

Hare — the common Indian, Lepus
ruficaudatus, 314 ; troublesome in
suburban gardens, 314 ; classed as
an "insect," 314

Hariyals — Crocopus phmnicopterus and
Osmotreron bicincta, 100

Hawk-cuckoo — the common, Hiero-
coccyx varius, or Brain-fever-bird, 71

INDEX

415

Hemidactylus gleadovii, the common

House-gecko, 319

Herodias alba, the large Egret, 172
Herons— the Pond, or Paddy-bird,
Ardeola grayi, 165; pro-
tective colouring and tame-
ness of, 166 ; roosting-
habits of, 167 ; movements
of, on land, 169
,, the little green, Butorides

javanica, 170
,, the Indian Reef, Lepterodius

asha, 170
, , the night, Nycticorax griseus,

170 ; colony of, in the Zoo-
logical Garden at Alipnr,

171 ; use of the cry of,
172

Herpestes mungo — the common Indian

Mungoose, 278

Hierococcyx varius, the common Hawk-
cuckoo or Brain-fever-bird, 71
Honeysuckers — the purple, Arach-
nechthra asiatiea,
136

,, the purple -rumped,

A rachnechthra
zeylonica, 128 ; as
cross -fertilisers of
flowers, 129 ; pug-
nacity of, 131 ;
nests of, 133
Hoolock — the white-browed Gibbon.

Hylobates hoolock, 265
Hoopoe — the Indian, Upupa indica,
146 ; neither abundant nor a per-
manent resident in Calcutta, 147 ;
call of, and behaviour whilst calling,
147

Hydrophasianus chirurgus, the Water-
pheasant, or Pheasant- tailed Jacana,
175
Hylobates hoolock, the Hoolock, or

white-browed Gibbon, 265
Hypothymis azurea, the black -naped

blue Flycatcher, 124
Hystrix bengalensis, the Bengal Porcu-
pine, 313

,, leucura, the Indian Porcupine,
313

IORA— the common, sEgithina tiphia,

125 ; nest of, 126 ; sexual calls and
displays of the male, 126

JACANAS — the bronze- winged, Meto-
pidius indicus, 174 ; rare
in gardens, 174 ; nest in
ponds in the Botanic
Garden at Shibpur, 174;
rarely come to land, 175 ;
enormous feet of, 175
,, the Pheasant - tailed, or
Water-pheasant, Hydro-
phasianus chirurgus, 175;
very rare in Calcutta,
175 ; extraordinary ap-
pearance and cries of,
175

Jackals — the common, Canis aureus,
267 ; concerts of, 267 ; formerly
very abundant in Calcutta, 268 ;
objection to solitary ones frequenting
houses, 269 ; boldness of, when un-
molested, 270 ; seeking out cool
places during hot weather, 271

KESTREL, the, Tinnunculus alaudarius,
247

Ketupa zeylonensis, the Fishing-owl
214

King-crows — the black Drongo, Dicru-
rus ater, 148 ; notes of,
148 ; way of flying of,
149; slow flight of,
very noisy, 149 ; very
aggressive save for a
time in autumn, 150 ;
animosity of, to Bee-
eaters, 151 ; attend
grazing cattle, 151 ;
cause great mortality
in insects, 151 ; way of
bathing, 152 ; nesting-
season of, in Calcutta,
152 ; structure of nests
of, 153 ; great admira-
tion of, for their nests,
154

,, the white-bellied, Dicru-

rus ccerulescens, 154 ;
peculiar plover-like cry
of, 155

King- fishers— the brown-headed Stork-

416

INDEX

King-fishers (continued)—

billed, Pelargopsis
gurialy 162 ; rare in
gardens in the town
of Calcutta, 162; very
common in the Botanic-
Garden, 162 ; cry of,
162; flight of, 162;
nesting of, 163 ; easy
to keep in captivity,
163

,, the brown -winged, Pelar-

gopsis amauroptera,
164 ; very common in
the Sundarbans, 164
,, the common, Alcedo

ispida, 157; Indian
specimens said to be
smaller than European
ones, 157 ; constantly
present in the town of
Calcutta, 157; often
hovers, 158 ; habits
of, 158

,, the Indian pied, Ceryle

varia, 163 ; rarely
visits gardens, 163 ;
a conspicuous feature
in the ornithology of
railway journeys, 164
,, the white-breasted Hal-

cyon smyrnensis, 159 ;
very common in
gardens, 159 ; call of,
160 ; sexual displays
of, 160 ; nesting of,
160 ; diet of, 161
,, the white-collared Sauro-

pcutis chforis, 164 ;
occasionally appears
in the Botanic Garden
at Shibpur, 164

Kites— the common Pariah, Milvus
govinda, 11 ; extreme abun-
dance of, 11 ; beauty of, 11 ;
flight of, 11 ; scratches from
the claws of, dangerous, 11 ;
stupidity of, 13 ; often robbed
by crows, 14 ; quarrels with
dogs for refuse, 15; good
tempered as a rule, 16 ; one
enraged by parrots, 16 ;

irritable whilst nesting, 16 ;
very methodical, 17 ; be-
haviour of, in dealing with
swarms of white-ants, 18 ;
nesting season of, 18 ; ac-
cidents to nests from storms
prolongs nesting, 18 ; decora-
tive feathering of the young
birds, 19 ; seldom take living
birds, 20 ; behaviour in bath-
ing and drying their plumage,
20 ; temporary absence of,
from Calcutta on the onset
of the rainy season, 21; enjoy
the cool air attending sudden
storms, 22

Kites — the Brahmini, Haliastur indus,
247 ; splendid colouring of,

247 ; great numbers of, in
Madras, 248 ; occasionally
come into Calcutta in flocks,

248 ; peculiar calls of, 249 ;
animosity of, to common
kites, 249 ; often mobbed
by crows in Calcutta, 249 ;
never build in Calcutta, 250 ;

Kokila, green Pigeon — the, Sphenocercus

sphenurus, 101, 104
Kraits — the common, Bungarus cceru-

leus, 352

,, the banded, Bungarus fasci-
atus, 354

LABEO ROHITA, the Rohu, 380
Langur — the, Semnopithecus entellus,

263
Lanius cristatus, the brown Shrike,

180
,, nigriceps, the black - headed

Shrike, 184

Leopard— the, Felispardus, 272 ; stray
specimens sometimes wander into
gardens in Calcutta, 272
Leptoptilus dubius, the Adjutant, 227
, , j a v a n i c ti s, the smaller

Adjutant, 236

Lepterodius asha, the Indian Reef-
heron, 170
Lepus ruficaudahis, the common Indian

Hare, 314

Lizards — the Blood-sucker, Calotes
versicolor, 322 ; adaptation

INDEX

417

Lizards (continued) —

of, to arboreal life, 322;
habits of, 322 ; occasionally
attacked by crows, etc. , 323
,, Mabuia carinata, 323; ex-
cessive brittleness of, 324
,, the Wall -gecko, or House-
gecko, Hemidactylus
gleadovii, 319 ; feet of,
320 ; chamseleonic changes
of colour in, 320 ; its mode
of stalking insects, 320;
readily tamed, 321 ; eggs
of, 322

,, the "Water, or Goh, Varanus
salvator, 32-4; visits gardens
containing ponds, 324 ;
diet of, 324 ; swimming
powers of, 324 ; habits in
captivity, 325 ; native
belief in the poisonous
properties of the tongue
of, 325

Loriculus vernalis, the Indian Loriquet,
221

Lutra vulgaris, the common Otter, 282

Lycodon aulicus, 333

MABUIA CARINATA, 323

Macacus rhesus, the Bengal Monkey, or

Bandar, 263

Magpies — the Indian Tree-pie, Dendro-
citta rufa, 187 ; notes of,

187 ; family parties of,

188 ; methodical habits of,
188 ; objects of suspicion
to other birds, 189; attend
drinking - bouts in silk-
cotton trees, 190 ; very
untamable, 190

,, Himalayan blue — Urocissa
flamrostris and U. oc-
cipitalis, 190 ; very readily
tamed, 190

Merlin— the red-headed, or Taramti,

dSsalon chicquera, 250 ; a charming

pet but difficult to keep in captivity,

250

Merops philippinus, the blue -tailed

Bee-eater, 145

,, viridis, the common Indian
Bee-eater, 141

Metopidius indicus, the bronze-winged

Jacana, 174

Mice — the common House-, Mus mus-
culus, 310 ; abundance of, in
Calcutta, 310 ; more mis-
chievous in houses than rats,
310 ; best methods of killing,
311
,, the common Indian Field-, Mus

buduga, 311
Milvus govinda, the common or Pariah

Kite, 11
Minivet — the scarlet, Pericrocotus

speciosus, 184

Molpastes bengalensis, the Bengal red-
vented Bulbul, 91

Monkeys — the Bengal, or common
Bandar, Macacus rhesus,
264; repulsive appearance
and habits of, 265 ;
abundance of, in Banaras
and Mathura, 265
fi the Hoolock, or white-
browed Gibbon, Hylobates
hoolock, 265; common in
captivity in Calcutta, 265
,, the Langur or Haniiman,
Semnopithecus entellus,
263 ; the only monkeys
occurring in the country
around Calcutta, 263 ;
troops of, occasionally visit
the Botanic Garden at
Shibpur, 263 ; warning
given by, of the presence
of a tiger in the garden,
263 ; wonderful agility
of, 263 ; excessive abund-
ance of, in the town of
Ahmedabad, 264

,, the Himalayan Langur,
Semnopithecus schistaceus^
264; abundance of, in
Simla and other hill-
stations, 264
Motacilla borealis, the grey-headed

Wagtail, 197
,, citreola, the yellow -faced

Wagtail, 198

,, citreoloides, Hodgson's
yellow-headed Wagtail,
198

2 D

418

INDEX

Motacilla leucopsis, the white- faced
Wagtail, or Dhobin, 195
,, melanope, the grey Wagtail,

195

Mud-skippers, Periophthalmi, 375
Mugil corsula, the Mullet, 372
Mungoose — the common Indian, Her-
pestes mungo, 278 ; very common in
gardens, 278 ; very destructive of
birds, 278 ; astonishing alertness and
activity of, 278 ; have a relative im-
munity from the toxic action of snake
venoms, 279 ; questions regarding
the nature and origin of this im-
munity, 279 ; curiously snake-like
look of, 280 ; behaviour whilst hunt-
ing, 281
Munias — the green, Stictospizaformosa,

258

,, the Indian red, Sporceginthus
amandava 258 ; habits of,
in captivity, 259

,, the spotted, Urolonchapunctu-
lata, 257 ; common in
gardens, 257 ; plumage and
nesting of, 257

Mus buduga, the common Indian Field-
mouse, 311

,, decumanus, the brown Rat, 308
,, musculuSy the common House-
mouse, 310

,, rattus, the common Indian Rat or
black Rat, 306

NAIA BUNGARUS, the Hamadryad, 350
„ tripudians, the Cobra, 339

Neophron ginginianus, the smaller
white Scavenger- vulture, 242

Nesocia bengalensis, the Indian Mole-
rat, 312

Nycticorax griseus, the Night-heron,
170

OREOCINCLA DAUMA, the small-billed
Mountain-thrush, 255

Orioles— the black-headed, Oriolus
melanocephalus, 185; beauty
of the plumage of, 185 ;
astonishing variety in their
notes, 185 ; flight of, 186 ;
solitary birds often ill-
tempered, 187 ; very easily

tamed, but do not usually

survive captivity long, 187

Oriole — the maroon, Oriolus traillii,

187 ; does well as a cage-

bird, 187

Orthotomus sutorius, the Tailor-bird,

136

Osmotreron bicincta, the orange -breasted
green Pigeon, or small Hariyal, 100
Otocompsa emeria, the Bengal red-
whiskered Bulbul, 87
Otogypscalvus, the Pondicherry vulture,

242

Otters — the common, Lutra vulgaris,

282 ; abundance of, in the lower Gan-

getic delta, 282 ; occasionally occur

within the limits of Calcutta, 282 ;

used by fishermen in the rivers of the

delta, 282 ; inordinate appetite of, 283

Owls— the Barn-owl, Strix Jtammea,

211 ; prejudice of the natives

against, 212

,, the Fishing-owl, Ketupa zeylon-
cnsis, 214 ; occasionally occurs
in gardens, 214

,, the Scops, Scops giu, 208 ;
apparently commoner in
gardens in Calcutta than S.
bakkamoena, the collared
Scops, 209

,, the spotted owlet, Athene
brama, 203 ; not purely noc-
turnal, 205 ; habits in calling,
205 ; enters houses, 207

PAL&ORNIS CYANOCEPHALUS, the
western blossom-headed
Paroquet, 221
,, nepalensis, the large Indian

Paroquet, 221

„ rosa, the eastern blossom-
headed Paroquet, 220
,, torquatus, the rose-ringed

Paroquet, 215

Paradoxurus niger, the Indian Palm-
civet, 277

Parrots — the Indian Loriquet, Lori-
culus vernalis, 221 ; con-
stantly for sale in the
bazaars of Calcutta, 221;
stupid and ill-tempered as
cage-birds, 221 ; one sub-

INDEX

419

Parrots (continued) —

dued by a Honeysucker,
132 ; eat the eggs of other
birds, 259 ; natural food of,
the juices of flowers and
fruits, 222

,, the eastern blossom-headed
Paroquet, Palceornis rosa,
220 ; occasionally visits
gardens in Calcutta, 220
,, the large Indian Paroquet,
Palceornis nepalensis, and
the western blossom -headed
Paroquet, Palceornis cyano-
cephalus, 221 ; constantly
for sale in Calcutta, 221
,, the rose-ringed Paroquet, or
common green Parrot,
Palceornis torquatus, 215 ;
noisy and mischievous habits
of, 215 ; hatred of, very
soon acquired, 216 ; very
destructive in fields and'
gardens, 217 ; great beauty
of, 218 ; ready to mob
strange birds, 220
Passer do?nesticus, the House-sparrow,

191

Pelargopsis amauroptera, the brown-
winged Kingfisher, 164
,, gurial, the brown-headed
stork-billed Kingfisher,
162
Pericrocotus speciosus, the scarlet

Mini vet, 184

Periophtfialmi, Mudskippers, 375
Phalacrocorax javanicus, the little

Cormorant, 175

Phyllornis cuurifr&ns, the gold-fronted,
Chloropsis, or CJiloropsis aurifrons,
93

Phylloscopus affinis, TickelPs Willow-
warbler, 260

Pigeons — the snow, Columba leuconota,
103 ; power of adaptation
to life at low levels, 103
,, the bronze - winged Dove,
Chalcophaps indica, 102 ;
common in well -wooded
gardens, 102 ; wonderful
beauty of, 102 ; extreme
pugnacity of, 103

Pigeons— the Bengal green, or Hariyal,
Crocopus phcenicopterus,
100 ; invisibility of, in
leafy trees, 101

,, the orange-breasted green,

or small Hariyal, Osmo-

treron bicincta, 101

,, the Kokila green, Spheno-

cercus sphenurus, 101 ;

beauty of the notes of, 1 04

,, the purple Wood-, AUocomus

puniceus, 103

,, the spotted Dove, Turtur
suratensis, 95 ; distri-
bution of it and the little
brown Dove in Upper
India, 96 ; pugnacity of
this species and of pigeons
generally, 97 ; ferocity of,
whilst nesting, 98 ; habits
of, in fighting, 98 ; nests
of, 98 ; towering of, 99 ;
suspiciousness of, 100
,, the little brown Dove, Turtur
cambayensis, 96 ; cry of,
compared with that of the
spotted Dove, 96
,, the Indian Ring-dove, Turtur

risorius, 96

Pipits — the Indian Tree-pipit, Anthus
maculatus, 198 ; peculiar
habit of swaying from side
to side before taking flight,
199

,, the Indian Tit-lark, Anthus

rufulus, 199 ; nesting of, 200

Pitta brachyura, the Indian Pitta, 255;

ways of a caged one, 256 ; rare in

gardens in Calcutta, 255

Platanista gangetica, the Gangetic

Dolphin, 314
Ploceus baya, the Baya or Weaver-bird,

179
Plotus melanogaster, the Indian Darter

or Snake-bird, 175

Porcupines — the Bengal, Hystrix ben-
galensis, 313; rare in
gardens about Calcutta,
313 ; behaviour of one
in captivity, 318
,, the Indian, Hystrix leu-
cura, 313 ; very de-

4,20

INDEX

Porcupines (continued] —

structive in gardens in
many parts of India,
313
Pseudogyps bengalensis, the Indian

white-backed Vulture, 238
Pteromys inomatus, the large red

Flying-squirrel, 305
Pteropus medius, the common Flying-
fox, 290

RAN A TIGRINA, the Indian Bull-frog,
359

Rats — the common Indian, the Black-
rat of Europe, Mus rattus,
306 ; ordinarily inhabit
gardens, 306 ; invade houses
during the rainy season,
306 ; more mischievous in
houses than Brown-rats are,

307 ; boldness of, 307

,, the Brown-, Mus decumanus,

308 ; regarded with un-
foundedly excessive prejudice,
308 ; habits of some Indian
ones, 309

„ the Indian Mole-, Nesocia ben-
galensist 312 ; very trouble-
some in gardens, 312 ;
periodical fluctuations in the
numbers of, 312

Redstart — the Indian, Ruticilla rufi-
ventris, 260 ; appears in Calcutta
during winter, 260 ; haunts clumps
of bamboos, 260 ; notes of, 260 ;
strange habit of vibrating the tail,
260
Rhacophorus tnaculatus, the Chunam

Tree-frog, 369
Rhipidura albicollis, the white-throated

Fantail, 121

Robins — the Magpie, Copsychussaularis,
116 ; likeness in ways to
the common British Robin,
116 ; autumnal songs of,
harbingers of the onset of
cool weather, 117 ; do not
enter houses, 117 ; pugna-
city of, 118; nesting of,
118 ; distinct areas in
gardens claimed by different
pairs of, 118 ; alarm notes

of, and behaviour coincident
with them, 119 ; family
parties of, 120

Robins — the brown - backed Indian,
Thamnobia cambaiensis,
117 ; boldness in entering
houses, 117

Roller — the Indian, Coracias indica,
146 ; rare in Calcutta, 146 ; treated
as intruders by the crows there, 146 ;
are emblems of Shiv on account of
the colour of their throats, 146
Ruby-throat — the common, Calliope
camtschatkensis, 260 ; occasionally
visits gardens in Calcutta during
winter, 260

Ruticilla rufiventris, the Indian Red-
start, 260

SAUROPATIS CHLORIS, the white-
collared Kingfisher, 164
Sciuropterus fimbriatus, the smaller

Kashmir Flying- squirrel, 305
Sciurus indicus, the large Indian

Squirrel, 306

,, palmarum, the Palm, 300
Scops bakkamwna, the collared Scops-
owl, 209

,, giu, the Scops-owl, 208
Semnopithecus entellus, the Langiir, or
Hanuman - monkey,
263

,, schistaceus, the Hima-

layan Langiir, 264

Shikra — Astur badius, 246 ; an un-
interesting hawk in captivity, 250
Shrews — the brown Musk, Crocidura

murina, 286

,, the grey Musk, Crocidura
ccerulescens, 284 ; luminous
aspect of, in the dusk, 284 ;
behaviour of, in rooms, 285 ;
offensive odour of, 285 ;
behaviour of dogs when
hunting them, 286
,, the Indian pigmy, Crocidura
perrotteti, 286 ; inhabits
gardens in Calcutta, 286
Shrikes — the black - headed, Lanius
nigriceps, 184 ; abundant
in the Sundarbans during
winter, 184

INDEX

Shrikes (continued] —

,, the brown, Lanius cristatus,
180 ; abounds in Calcutta
except in summer, 180;
times of arrival and de-
parture of, 180; presence
of, advertised by calls, 181 ;
calls of, one of the earliest
harbingers of the approach
of winter, 181 ; possible
function of their calls, 182 ;
occasionally attack small
birds, 183 ; sometimes im-
pale their prey, 183 ;
plumage of, 183

,, the large Cuckoo, Graucalus
maciiy 184 ; often seen in
gardens, 184 ; habits of, 184

,, the scarlet Mini vet, Pericro-
cotus speciosuSy rare in
Calcutta, 184 ; splendid
colouring of, 184

Snakes — the Dhamin, or Rat-snake,
Zamenis mucoms, 336 ;
reputed ferocity of, 337 ;
behaviour when swallowing
toads, 337

,, Lycodon aulicus, 333 ; often
enters houses, 334 ; re-
semblance to the Krait, 334

,, the Grass, Tropidonotus sto-
latus, 334 ; abundant in
gardens, 334; often swallows
relatively large victims, 334

,, the Pond, Tropidonotus pis-
cator, 336; colouring of, 336;
boldness of, 336 ; behaviour
of, after securing fish, 336

, , the Tree, Dryophis mycterizans,

338 ; suspicious character
of the teeth of, 338

,, the Cobra, Naia tripudians,

339 ; rare within the town
proper of Calcutta, 339 ;
very common in the suburbs,
339 ; trouble caused by, in
the Zoological Garden at
Alipur, 339 ; case in which
a keeper there was bitten
by one, 339; not aggressive,
343 ; vigilance and activity
of, 344 ; differences in dis-

position of distinct varieties
of, 344 ; easily handled,

344 ; sacks full of Cobras,

345 ; danger of, to sporting
dogs, 347 ; much infested
by ticks, 349 ; behaviour of,
in striking, 349 ; Indian
mode of taking the venom
of, 349 ; average discharge
and lethal value of the
venom of, 350

Snakes — the Hamadryad, Naia bun-
garuSy 350 ; extremely rare
in the neighbourhood of
Calcutta, 350; not specially
fierce or aggressive in cap-
tivity, 351 ; cannibal be-
haviour of, 351

,, the Krait, Bungarus cceruleus,
352 ; very rare in the lower
Gangetic delta, 353 ; possi-
bility of the occurrence of
imported specimens, 353 ;
Lycodon aulicus often mis-
taken for it, 334

,, the banded Krait, Bungarus
fasciatus, 354 ; common in
the lower Gangetic delta,
354 ; as essentially ophio-
phagous as the Hamadryad,
354 ; venom of, poor in
quantity and quality, 354
,, the Daboia, Vipera russellii,
355 ; habits of, 355 ;
symptoms following the
bites of, 356 ; caution with
which they are treated by
snake-charmers, 357 ; ready
method of showing the
essential differences between
the toxic principles of colu-
brine and viperine venoms,
358

Snake-bird — the Indian, or Darter,
Plotus melanogaster, 175 ; rarely
visits ponds in Calcutta, 175 ; colony
of in the Zoological Garden at Alipur,
176

Snake-bite — fallacies to be guarded
against in estimating the value of
evidence in cases of reputed cures of,
342 ; possibility of the superficial

422

INDEX

Snake-bite (continued — )

escape of venom in certain cases of

colubrine bites, 343
Sparrows — the House, Passer domesticus,

191 ; Indian Sparrows more richly
coloured than British ones, 191 ;
extreme audacity of, 192; pertinacity
of, in insisting on nesting in rooms,

192 ; exasperating ingratitude of,
194 ; appear to suffer from destruc-
tive epidemics, 195

Sphenocercus sphenurus, the Kokila green

Pigeon, 104

Spilornis cheela, the crested Serpent-
eagle, 245
Sporceginthus amandava, the Indian

red Munia, 258

Squirrels— the Palm, Sciurus pal-
marum, 300 ; abound in
gardens, 300 ; trouble-
some when they enter
houses, 301 ; mischief
done by, in gardens, 301 ;
periodic fluctuations in
the numbers of, 301 ;
movements of, 302 ; rarely
taken by dogs, 303 ;
seldom venture far from
trees, 303 ; very readily
tamed, 304

,, Flying, Sciuropterus fimbri-

atus and Pteromys in-
ornatus, 305 ; common
on the Simla hill, 305 ;
behaviour of, 305

,, the large Indian, Sciurus

indicus, 306 ; often for

sale in the bazaars of

Calcutta, 306 '

Stictospiza formosa, the green Munia,

258
Storks — Adjutants, Leptoptilus dubius,

and L. javanicus, 227 and 236
Strix flammed, the Barn-owl, 211
Sturnia malabarita, the grey-headed
Myna, Temenuchus malabaricus of
Jerdon, 34
Stumopastor contra, the pied Myna, or

mud Myna, 32

Sunbirds, or Honeysuckers, Arach-
nechthra asiatica and A. zeylonica,
136 and 128

Swifts — the common Indian, Cypselm
affinis, 251 ; nesting in
colonies in verandahs, 251
,, the Palm, Tachornis batas-
siensis, 251 ; habits of, 252

TACHORNIS BATASSIENSIS, the Palm-
swift, 251

Tailor- bird, Orthotomus sutorius, 136 ;
notes of, 136 ; boldness of, 138 ; way
of bathing of, 138; nest of, 139;
death of leaves employed in the
nests of, 140
Temenuchus pagodarum, the black -

headed Myna, 34
Terpsiphone parodist, the Indian

Paradise-Flycatcher, 122
Thamnobia cambaiensis, the brown -

backed Indian Robin, 117
Thrushes— the orange-headed Ground-,
Geocichla citrina, 254 ;
occasional visitor of
gardens in Calcutta dur-
ing winter, 254 ; decora-
tive colouring of, 254 ;
breaks the shells of snails
as Song-thrushes do, 254
,, the small-billed Mountain,
Oreocincla dauma, 255 ;
rare in Calcutta, 255 ;
adaptation in colouring
of it and of Geocichla
citrina to their normal
environments, 255
Tinnunculus alaudarius, the Kestrel,

247

Toad — the common Indian, Bufo
mclanostictus, 365 ; chamseleonic
changes in colour of, 365 ; acrid
secretion of cutaneous tubercles of,
366 ; effects of this on dogs, 366 ;
call of, 367 ; attracted by the emer-
gence of white-ants, 367
Tortoises — Water, Trionyx, 329; in-
fested by flukes, 330 ; hardness of
the shells of eggs of, 330 ; tormented
by crows, 49 ; sacred ones in the
Jamna, 265
Tropidonotus piscator the Pond-snake,

336

,, stolatus, the Grass-snake,
334

INDEX

Turtur cambay ens-is, the little brown
Dove, 96

,, risorius, the Indian Ring-
dove, 96

, , mratensis, the spotted Dove, 95

UPUPA INDICA, the Indian Hoopoe,

147
Uroloncha punctulata, the spotted

Munia, 257

VARANUS SALVATOR, the Water-
lizard, 324

Venom — Indian mode of collecting
that of snakes, 349 ; average dis-
charge and lethal power of that of
Cobras, 350 ; ready method of
demonstrating essential differences
between colubrine and viperine
toxins, 358

Viper a russellii, the Daboia, 355
Viverra zibetha, the large Indian Civet,

274
Viverricula malaccensis, the small

Indian Civet, 277

Vulpes bengalensis, the Indian Fox, 271
Vultures — the Indian white-backed,
Pseudogyps bengalensis,
238; superb flight of,
238 ; other good features
of, 239; excessive bold-
ness whilst feeding, 240 ;
often have difficulty in
rising from the ground,

241 ; fondness for basking
in the sunshine, 241 ;
nesting habits of, 241 ;

,, the Pondicherry, Otogyps
calvus, 242 ; disgusting
aspect and foul odour of,
242

, , the smaller white Scavenger,
Neophron ginginianus,

242 ; absent from the
lower Gangetic delta, 242

WAGTAILS — the white - faced, or
Dhobin, Motadlla leu-
copsis, 195 ; along with
M. melanope, one of
the earliest harbingers
of winter, 195

Wagtails — the grey Motadlla
melanope, 195 ; ex-
ceeding elegance of
form and movements
of, 196 ; tameness of,
196 ; almost always
go in pairs, 196

,, the grey-headed Mota-
dlla borealis, 197 ;
extreme abundance of,
in Calcutta formerly,
197 ; reasons for their
desertion of the place,
197

,, the yellow-faced, Mota-

dlla dtreola, 198
,, Hodgson's yellow-

headed, Motadlla
dtreoloides, 198

Water - hen — the white - breasted,
Amaurornis phcenicurus, 173; nest-
ing of, 173

Weaver-bird — Ploceus bay a, 179
Wigeon — Mareca penelope, one spend-
ing many successive winters in the
Zoological Garden at Alipur, 178
Wild-ducks — occasional appearance of
in ponds in gardens in Calcutta, 177
Willow-warbler — Tickell's, Phyllos-

copus affinis, 260

Wood-peckers — the golden - backed
Brachypternus aur-
antius, 223; call
of, 223 ; visiting
flowers of silk-
cotton trees, 225
,, the fulvous-breasted

pied, Dendrocopus
macii, 225 ;
common in the
Botanic Garden at
Shibpur, 225

,, the western Hima-

layan v'ied,Dendro-
copus himalayensis,
226 ; nest of, 226

XANTHOL&MA H^MATOCEPHALA, the
Coppersmith Barbet, 105

ZAMENIS MUCOSUS, the Dhamin, or
Rat-snake, 336

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