i I) I r I IM

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FORTHE PEOPLE

FOR EDVCATION

FOR SCIENCE

LIBRARY

OF

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

OF

NATURAL HISTORY

BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

BV THE SAME AUTHOR

BOMBAY DUCKS: An account of
some of the Every-day Birds and Beasts
found in a Naturalist's El Dorado -;:>
With Numerous Illustrations from
Photographs of Living- Birds by
Captain F. D. S. Fayrer, I. M.S.

ANIMALS OF NO IMPORTANCE

THE INDIAN CROW: HIS BOOK

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BIRDS OF
THE PLAINS

BY DOUGLAS DEWAR, F.Z.S., I.C.S.
WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF LIVING BIRDS
BY CAPTAIN F. D. S. FAYRER, I.M.S.

LONDON : JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX

yj>l- (ilc4^/^

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

PREFACE

IT is easy enough to write a book. The difficulty-
is to sell the production when it is finished.
That, however, is not the author's business.
Nevertheless, the labours of the writer are not
over when he has completed the last paragraph of his
book. He has, then, in most cases, to find a title
for it

This, I maintain, should be a matter of little difficulty.
I regard a title as a mere distinguishing mark, a brand,
a label, a something by which the book may be called
when spoken of — nothing more.

According to this view, the value of a title lies, not
in its appropriateness to the subject-matter, but in its
distinctiveness.

To illustrate : some years ago a lady entered a book-
seller's shop and asked for " Drummond's latest book —
Nux Vomica!' The bookseller without a word handed
her Lux Mundi.

To my way of thinking Lux Mundi is a good title
inasmuch as no other popular book has one like it.
So distinctive is it that even when different words
were substituted the bookseller at once knew what was
intended. That the view here put forward does not

yj'l- (ili4f^/w-

^<iy*y/

WILLIAM BRKNDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMODTH

PREFACE

IT is easy enough to write a book. The difficulty-
is to sell the production when it is finished.
That, however, is not the author's business.
Nevertheless, the labours of the writer are not
over when he has completed the last paragraph of his
book. He has, then, in most cases, to find a title
for it.

This, I maintain, should be a matter of little difficulty.
I regard a title as a mere distinguishing mark, a brand,
a label, a something by which the book may be called
when spoken of — nothing more.

According to this view, the value of a title lies, not
in its appropriateness to the subject-matter, but in its
distinctiveness.

To illustrate : some years ago a lady entered a book-
seller's shop and asked for " Drummond's latest book —
Nux Vomica" The bookseller without a word handed
her Lux Mundi.

To my way of thinking Lux Mundi is a good title
inasmuch as no other popular book has one like it.
So distinctive is it that even when different words
were substituted the bookseller at once knew what was
intended. That the view here put forward does not

vi PREFACE

find favour with the critics may perhaps be inferred
by the exception many of them took to the title of my
last book — Bombay Ducks.

While commending my view to their consideration,
I have on this occasion endeavoured to meet them by
resorting to a more orthodox designation. I am, doubt-
less, pursuing a risky policy. Most of the reviewers
were kind enough to say that Bovibay Ducks was a
good book with a bad title. When criticising the
present work they may reverse the adjectives. Who
knows? Y) D

CONTENTS

I.

British Birds in the Plains of India

PAGE

I

II.

The Bird in Blue ....

lO

III.

Sparrows in the Nursery

i6

IV.

The Care of Young Birds after the\

LEAVE the Nest .

23

V.

The Adjutant Bird ....

29

VI.

The Sarus

35

VII.

The Stability of Species .

40

VIII.

The Amadavat

46

IX.

The Nutmeg Bird ....

52

X.

The Did-he-do-it ....

56

XL

Cobbler or Tailor? ....

62

XII.

A Crow in Colours ....

68

XIII.

Up-to-date Species Making

73

XIV.

HONEYSUCKERS

78

XV.

A Hewer of Wood ....

84

XVI.

A Feathered Sprinter

89

XVII.

A Bird of Character

94

CVIII.

Swifts

99

XIX.

Birds as Automata ....

104

viii CONTENTS

PACK

XX. Playing Cuckoo . , . . iii

XXL The Koel 117

XXII. The Common Doves of India . .124

XXIII. Doves in a Verandah . . . 130

XXIV. The Golden Oriole . . . • i3S
XXV. The Barn Owl 140

XXVI. A Tree-top Tragedy . . . .145

XXVII. Two Little Birds . . . -150

XXVIII. The Paradise Flycatcher . . .156

XXIX Butcher Birds 163

XXX. Ducks 168

XXXI. A Dethroned Monarch . . . i73

XXXII. Birds in the Rain . . . .178

XXXIII. The Weaver Bird . . . .183

XXXIV. Green Parrots 190

XXXV. The Roosting of the Sparrows . -197

XXXVI. A Gay Deceiver . ... 202

XXXVII. The Emerald Merops . . . .208

XXX VIII. Do Animals Think? . . . .213

XXXIX. A Couple of Neglected Craftsmen . 219

XL. Birds in their Nests .... 224

XLI. BuLBULS 229

XLII. The Indian Corby . . . .235

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGS

The Grey Pelican {Pelecanus philippensis)^ a Bird of

THE Plains Frontispiece

The White-breasted Kingfisher {Halcyon smyrnensis) 4

The Redshank {Tetanus caldidris\ one of the British

Birds found in India 8

The Indian Roller, or "Blue Jay" {Coradas indica) 12

The Indian Adjutant {Leptoptilus dubius)

Loten'S Sunbird {Arachnechthra lotenia) .

(Note the long curved bill, adapted to insertion in flowers.)
The Yellow Sunbird {Arachnechthra zeylonica) .

Nest of Loten's Sunbird

(Notice that it is built in a spider's web.)

Loten's Sunbird (Hen) about to enter nest .

The Indian Spotted Owlet {Athene brama)

The Indian Paddy Bird {Ardeola grayii)

The Common Kingfisher {Alctdo ispida), one of the

British Birds found in India
The Indian Kite {Milvus govinda) ....
The Grey-necked Crow {Corvus splendens) .
The Bengal Red-whiskered Bulbvl {Otocompsaemeria) 230

28
34
78

80
82

90

94
114

144
148
190

BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

BRITISH BIRDS IN THE PLAINS
OF INDIA

MOST birds are cosmopolitans and belong
to no nationality. Strictly speaking,
there is only one British bird, only one
bird found in the British Isles and no-
where else, and that is the red grouse ( Tetrao scoticus).

For this reason some apology seems necessary for
the heading of this article. " Birds common to the
Plains of India and the British Isles" would doubtless
be a more correct title. However, I write as an
Englishman. When I meet in a foreign land a bird
I knew in England I like to set that bird down as a
fellow-countryman.

In India most of the familiar birds : the thrush, the
blackbird, the robin redbreast, the wren, the chaffinch,
and the blue tit are conspicuous by their absence ; their
places being taken by such strange forms as mynas,
bulbuls, seven sisters, parakeets, etc. The Englishman
is therefore prone to exaggerate the differences between
the avifauna of his own country and that of India. The

2 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

dissimilarity is indeed great, but not so great as is
generally supposed.

A complete list of British birds comprises some four
hundred species ; of these nearly one-half occur in India.
But a list of British species is apt to be a misleading
document. You may keep a sharp look-out in England
for a lifetime without ever setting eyes on many of the
so-called British birds. Every feathered thing that has
been blown by contrary winds, or whose dead body has
been washed by the waves, on to the shores of Albion
has been appropriated as a British species. This sounds
very hospitable. Unfortunately the hospitality is of
a dubious nature, seeing that every casual bird visitor
promptly falls a victim to the gun of some self-styled
naturalist. Having slaughtered his " feathered friend "
the aforesaid naturalist proceeds to boast in the press of
his exploit.

I do not deem it correct to speak of these occasional
visitors as British birds. On the other hand, I think
we may legitimately call the birds we see constantly in
England, at certain or all seasons of the year, English
birds. Of these many are also found in India. More
of them occur in the Punjab than in any other part of
the country because of our long cold weather, and
because, as the crow flies, if not as the sahib travels, the
Punjab is nearer England than is any other province.

The ubiquitous sparrow first demands our attention.
This much-abused little bird is, thanks to his " push,"
quite as much at home in the " Gorgeous East " as he
is in England. He is certainly not quite so abundant
out here ; the crows and spotted owlets take care of

BRITISH BIRDS IN PLAINS OF INDIA 3
that. They are very fond of sparrow for breakfast.
Nevertheless, Passer domesticus is quite plentiful enough
and is ever ready to nest inside one's bungalow.

The Indian cock sparrow differs slightly in appear-
ance from the English bird, having more white on the
sides of his neck. This is not, as might be supposed,
due to the fact that he is not coated with soot to
such an extent as the cockney bird. Every widely
distributed species, including man, has its local pecu-
liarities, due to climatic influences, isolation, and other
causes. If the isolation be maintained long enough the
process of divergence continues until the various races
differ from one another to such an extent as to be
called species. Local races are incipient species, species
in the making. The barn owl {Strix flammed) is another
case in point. This is a familiar owl in England, and
is common out here, but not nearly so abundant as the
little spotted owlet that makes night hideous by its
caterwaulings. The Indian barn owl, which, in default
of barns, haunts mosques, temples, deserted buildings,
and even secluded verandahs, differs from our English
friend in having stronger claws and feet, and the breast
spotted instead of plain white. These trivial differences
are not usually considered sufficient to justify the division
of the barn owl into two species.

Some of our English birds assume diminutive pro-
portions in India, as, for example, the kingfisher and
the raven. This may perhaps be attributed to the
enervating Indian climate. The common kingfisher
(Alcedo ispida) is exceedingly common in all parts of
India except the Punjab. It does, indeed, occur in

4 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

that province, but not abundantly. The commonest
kingfisher in the Land of the Five Rivers is the much
more splendid white-breasted species (Halcyon smyr-
nensis), which may be recognised by its beautiful blue
wings with a white bar, and by its anything but
melodious " rattling scream."

This winter the ravens are invading Lahore in very
large numbers. It is impossible not to notice the great
black creatures as they fly overhead in couples or in
companies of six or eight, uttering solemn croaks.

But the Indian raven, large as it is, is a diminutive
form ; its length is but twenty-four inches as compared
with the twenty-eight of its English cousin. Moreover,
there are slight anatomical differences between the two
races; hence the Indian bird was at one time considered
to be a separate species and was called Corvus law-
rencii. There certainly does seem to be some justi-
fication for this procedure, since the Indian raven has
not the solitary, shy, and retiring disposition of the bird
at Home. It consorts with those feathered villains the
Indian crows, and, like them, thieves from man and
delights to tease and annoy birds bigger than itself by
pulling their tail ! But there exist ravens of all sizes
intermediate between the large European form and the
small Indian one, so that it is not possible to find a
point at which a line may be drawn between them.
For this reason the Indian raven is now held to be one
and the same species as the English bird — Corvus corax.

Two cousins of the raven, namely, the rook and the
jackdaw, also occur in the Punjab. They both visit us
in the cold weather and fraternise with the common

THE WHITK-BKKASTEI) K 1 N(;KIS1IEK. (HALCYON SMYKNENSIS)

BRITISH BIRDS IN PLAINS OF INDIA 5
crows. The rook may be readily distinguished from
these by the bare whitish patch of skin in front of its
face. Last year hundreds of rooks were to be seen in
the fields between the big and the little Ravi. They
are not so abundant this winter owing to the compar-
ative mildness of the weather.

The jackdaw is very like Corvus splendens in appear-
ance. It may, however, be easily distinguished by its
white eye. There is at present a jackdaw in confine-
ment in the Lahore " Zoo,"

The coot {Fulica atra) is another bird common at
Home which is also abundant in India. He needs
no description, being familiar — too familiar — to every
sportsman in India. He is the " black duck " of
Thomas Atkins that remains on the jhil after all the
duck have disappeared. It is unnecessary to say that
the bird is not a duck, but a water-hen that apes the
manners of one. His black plumage, white face, and
the difficulty he experiences in rising from the water
prevent him being confounded with a duck.

Ornithological text-books tell us that the skylark
{Alauda arvensis) visits India during the winter. This
may be so, but I do not think I have ever seen one in
the Punjab. I have seen thousands of the Indian
skylark {Alauda gulguld) — a very similar bird, which is
said to soar and sing "just as the lark in England does."

As a rule it soars only at daybreak. There are in
India so many birds of prey, ever on the look out for
quarry, that our larks are not able to sing with im-
punity at heaven's gate. They usually put forth their
vocal efforts from a less exalted platform.

6 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

"The eel's foe, the heron" {Ardea cinered), need not
detain us long, although he is a common bird in
both England and India, for the Punjab is too dry to
be a favourite resort of waders. There is, however, a
heron in the "Zoo" at Lahore who lives happily enough
among the ducks and storks in spite of the way in
which the kites worry him when he is at supper.

The blue-rock pigeon {Coluniba livid) is another
English bird found in the Punjab. This must not
be confounded with its cousin {Columba ititennedid) the
very common Indian blue pigeon, of which so many
have taken up their quarters in the Montgomery Hall.
The European form is not nearly so abundant, and is
distinguished by its paler colour and by the fact that its
lower back is white instead of bluish grey.

The family of birds of prey affords us a large number
of species common to England and India. Almost all
the well-known English raptores are found in India
— the peregrine falcon, the marsh harrier, the hen-
harrier, the merlin, the kestrel, the sparrow-hawk, and the
buzzard. All these are considerably more abundant in
India than in the British Isles.

Thus far we have spoken chiefly of birds that are
found in the plains of India all the year round. Wc
have now to deal with migrants. As was to be
expected, many of these are common to Hindustan and
to England.

Surprising as it may seem, stationary birds are the
exception rather than the rule. The majority of
species, like viceroys and lieutenant-governors, divide
their time more or less equally between two different

BRITISH BIRDS IN PLAINS OF INDIA 7
places. It is by no means always easy to determine
whether any particular species is a migrant one or not.
The mere fact that specimens of it are seen in any
given place at all seasons of the year is not sufficient to
prove that it is non-migratory. For the birds of a
species we saw six months ago are not necessarily the
same ones that we have with us to-day. To take a
concrete example, the crested lark {Galerita cristata) is
found in Lahore all the year round, but is far more
plentiful in summer than in winter, which is the only
time when it is seen in England. The species is
therefore a migratory one.

The general rule as regards migratory birds is that
they breed in the north and then go south for a season
to enjoy themselves. Great Britain is further north
than India and has a much colder climate, hence we
should expect birds to crowd to India for the pleasant
cold weather and go to England for the genial summer.
This does happen to a large extent. Yet there are
surprisingly few birds which winter in India and
summer in England. The only common ones that I
can call to mind are the wagtails, the pipits, and the
quail {Coturnix communis). There are two reasons for
this. The first is that migration takes place in a more
or less northerly and southerly direction, and the
British Isles are not due north of India. The second
reason is that England is a long way south of the Arctic
Circle. Its winter is therefore not cold enough for the
taste of many birds. Geese, ducks, and snipe are cold-
loving creatures. Their idea of nice mild weather is
the English winter ! In order to avoid anything in the

8 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

shape of heat they migrate very far north in summer,
and in winter, being driven southwards by the intense
Arctic cold, spread themselves all over the temperate
zone. Thus it comes to pass that the full and the jack
snipe, the grey lag-goose, the mallard, the gadwall, the
pintail and the shoveller ducks, the widgeon and the teal,
are winter visitors both to India and the British Isles.
But whereas snipe, geese, and most ducks leave India
for the hot weather, many of them remain in Great
Britain for the summer and nest there. It is probable
that the birds which spend the winter in Great Britain
go further north to breed, their place in the British Isles
being taken by species that have wintered in Africa.
The north of Scotland, even, is too far south to serve as
a breeding place for some species. The little jack snipe
{Gallinago gallim^la) is one of these ; he never breeds
in England, whereas the common or full snipe {Galli-
nago ca^lestis) does. Hence the former is set down as a
migrant in England, while the latter is thought to be a
permanent resident. In point of fact both are migrants,
as we see in India, but while some full snipe find a
Scotch summer cool enough for them to breed in, all
jack snipe find it insufferably hot.

A curious fact regarding snipe in India is that these
birds appear in the south earlier than they do in the
north. I do not know the earliest date after the end of
the hot weather on which a snipe has been shot in the
Punjab, but believe it to be considerably later than the last
week in August, at which time snipe are regularly shot
in the Madras Presidency, This is not what we should
have expected. It is but reasonable to suppose that

THE REDSHANK. (TOTANU^
(One of the British birds foun,,

CALIDRIS)
/// India)

BRITISH BIRDS IN PLAINS OF INDIA 9
the earliest birds to arrive in India would take up their
winter quarters in the north, and that the later arrivals,
finding all eligible residences in the north already
occupied, would go farther afield. The only explana-
tion of the phenomenon which occurs to me is that the
most northerly birds are the first to feel the approach-
ing Arctic winter and so are the first to migrate. These,
when they arrive in India, find the northern portion of
the peninsula too hot for them, so pass on southwards
until they come to the places where the temperature is
at that season lower.

This article has already reached an undue length,
yet quite a number of birds, more or less common in
England and in India, have not been mentioned. On
this account I owe apologies to the cuckoo, the stint,
the sandpiper, the redshank, the ringed and the Kentish
plovers. But the names of these and of eight score
others, are they not written in the appendix ?

THE BIRD IN BLUE

^ S I write my tympanic membranes are being
/^L somewhat rudely shaken by the clamorous

/ — m voices of a brood of young blue jays, which
-^ -^^ are in a nest somewhere in one of the
chimneys of my bungalow.

From the point of view of the blue jays the site they
have chosen for their nursery is an admirable one ;
indeed, had the architect of the bungalow received a
handsome "tip" he could not have provided the birds
with more comfortable accommodation.

The shaft of the chimney is not straight, as, in my
humble opinion, it should be. At a few feet from the
top it is bent at a right angle, and runs horizontally for a
short distance before it again assumes what I consider
to be its normal course.

The architect was, however, not such a fool as he
may appear, for it is quite impossible to clean properly
the chimney of his design ; it must therefore take fire
sooner or later, and the fire may spread and result in
the destruction of the house. The re-erection thereof
would of course mean more work for the said
architect.

The blue jays are as satisfied as the designer with the
chimney, because the horizontal portion forms a shelf

THE BIRD IN BLUE ii

upon which they can lay their eggs. These are visible
neither from above nor from below, and they are as
inaccessible as invisible, for the chimney is so narrow as
to baffle all attempts at ascent or descent on the part
of human beings.

The blue jays make good to my ear what they deny
my eye. The young hopefuls utter unceasingly a loud
cry resembling that of some creature in distress. This
is what I have to listen to all the time I am in the
bungalow. Outside, the parent birds make the welkin
ring with their raucous voices. Never were father and
mother prouder of their offspring or fonder of pro-
claiming the fact. When not cumbered about much
serving they squat either on the roof or on a blue gum
tree hard by, and, at regular intervals, utter a short,
sharp, harsh " Tshow." This is emphasised by a jerk of
the tail ; the blue jay does nothing without first consult-
ing its caudal appendage.

On the occasions when I made vain attempts to
obtain a look at the young birds the parents took to
their wings, and, as they sped through the air, uttered
cries so harsh and dry-sounding as to make me feel
quite thirsty !

The blue jay is so familiar to us Anglo-Indians as to
need no description. We have all admired the bird as
it lazily sailed through the air on outstretched pinions
of pale blue and rich ultramarine. We have, each of us
watched it perched on a railing looking out for its insect
quarry. It is then comparatively inconspicuous, its
neck and wing coverts being the hue of a faded port-
wine stain. We have seen it pounce upon some object

12 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

too small for us to distinguish, and either devour it then

and there or bear it off in triumph.

We all know that the bird is not a jay at all, that its
proper name is the Indian roller {Coracias indica), that
it is related to the kingfisher family, and that it is called
a jay merely on account of its gaudy plumage.

Next to its colour the most striking thing about the
blue jay is its wonderful power of flight. Ordinarily the
bird is content to flap along at an easy pace, but, when it
likes, it can move for a little as though it were shot out
of a catapult ; moreover, it is able to completely change
its course with startling rapidity ; hence even the swiftest
birds of prey find it no child's play to catch a roller bird.
A good idea of its aerial performances may be obtained
by watching it attack a kite that persists in hovering
about in the neighbourhood of the nest. Blue jays, like
king-crows and doves, are exceedingly short-tempered
when they have young.

This species seems to indulge in very little sleep ; it
is up betimes, and may be seen about long after every
other day bird, with the possible exception of the king-
crow, is fast asleep.

The blue jay is a good friend to the gardener, since
it feeds exclusively on insects and small animals. Jerdon
cites as the chief articles of its diet, large insects, grass-
hoppers, crickets, mantidae, and beetles, with an occa-
sional field-mouse or shrew. To this list he might have
added-frogs and small snakes.

At most seasons of the year the blue jay strikes one
as a rather sluggish bird, being content to squat on a
perch for a great part of the day and wait patiently for

THE INDIAN ROLLER, OR "BLUE JAV." (CORACIAS INDICA)

THE BIRD IN BLUE 13

quarry to come its way. At the breeding season, how-
ever, it becomes very sprightly. It is then more than
usually vociferous and indulges in a course of aerial
gymnastics. It may be seen at these throughout the
month of March, now towering high above the earth,
then dropping headlong down, to suddenly check itself
and sail away, emitting the while the hoarsest and
wheeziest notes imaginable, and behaving generally
like the proverbial March hare. These performances
are either actual love-making or a prelude to it. By
the end of March the various birds have sorted them-
selves out, and then the billing and cooing stage begins.

At this season the birds are invariably found in
pairs ; the cock and hen delight to sit side by side on
some exposed branch. Like the young couples that
moon about Hyde Park on Sundays, blue jays do not
mind spooning in public. As the sexes dress alike
it is not possible to say which of a couple is the
cock and which is the hen. Under such circumstances
naturalists always assume that the bird which makes
the advances is the cock. I am not at all sure that
this assumption is justified. Among human beings the
ladies very frequently set their caps at the men. Why
should not the fair sex among birds do likewise ?

In many species the sexes dress differently, and it is
then easy to discover which sex " makes the running,"
and in such cases this is by no means always the cock.
I have seen one hen paradise flycatcher drive away
another and then go and make up to a cock bird. Simi-
larly I have seen two hen orioles behave in a very un-
ladylike manner to one another, all because they both had

14 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

designs on the same cock. He sat and looked on from
a distance at the contest, and would assuredly have
purred with delight had he known how to do so ! But
of this more anon. The blue-jay lovers sit on a branch,
side by side, and gaze upon one another with enraptured
eyes. Suddenly one of them betakes itself to some
other tree, uttering its hoarse screeches as it flies. Its
companion follows almost immediately and then begins
to bow and scrape, puff out its neck, slowly wave its
tail, and utter unmusical cries. The bird which is being
thus courted adds its voice to that of its companion.
The raucous duet over, silence reigns for a little. Then
one of the birds moves on, to be followed by its com-
panion, and the above performance is repeated, and will
continue to be repeated dozens of times before the
birds give themselves over to family cares.

The greatest admirer of the blue jay could not call
its nest a work of art. The eggs are laid in a hole in a
tree or building. Usually the hole is more or less lined
by a promiscuous collection of grass, tow, feathers, and
the like, but sometimes the birds are content to lay
their eggs in the bare cavity.

The blue jay, although so brazen over its courtship,
strongly objects to having its family affairs pried into,
so if you would find its nursery you must, unless you
are lucky, exercise some patience. The birds stead-
fastly refuse to visit the nest when they know they are
being watched. If patience be a virtue great, the blue
jay is a most virtuous bird, for, if it is aware that it is
being observed, it will take up a perch and sit there for
hours, mournfully croaking, rather than betray the

THE BIRD IN BLUE 15

whereabouts of its eggs or young. Most of the nests
I have seen have been discovered by accident. For
example, when going along a road I have had occasion
to look round suddenly at some bird flying overhead
and caught sight of a roller entering a hole in a tree.

Some days ago I was out with a friend, when we saw
a hoopoe, with food in its mouth, disappear into a hole
in the wall of a Hindu temple. The aperture was about
seven feet from the ground, so, in order to look into it,
I mounted my friend's back. While I was investigating
the hoopoe's hole, a blue jay flew out of another hole in
the wall within a yard of my face !

Like Moses of old, I turned aside to investigate this
new wonder, and found that the hole went two and a
half feet into the wall, and that its aperture was a
square six inches in both length and breadth. The
floor of this little alcove was covered with earth and
tiny bits of dirty straw, which may or may not have
been put there by the blue jay. On this lay a clutch of
four glossy white eggs, nearly as large as those laid by
the degenerate Indian murghi. Fortunately for those
blue jays I am not an ^gg collector. As it was, I did
remove one of them for a lady who was anxious to have
it, but this was not missed. Birds cannot count.

SPARROWS IN THE NURSERY

THE sparrow, as every Anglo-Indian knows,
is a bird that goes about dumping down
nests in sahibs' bungalows. It is greatly
assisted in this noble work by the native of
India, who has brought to the acme of perfection the art
of jerry-building. In the ramshackle, half-finished
modern bungalow the rafters that support the ceiling
never, by any chance, fit properly into the walls. There
are thus in every room a number of cracks, holes, and
crevices in which the sparrows love to nest. As a
matter of fact, these are not at all safe nesting places.
Apart from the fact that the nest is liable to be pulled
down at any moment by an angry human being, the
situation is dangerous, because there is nothing to
prevent a restless young bird from falling out of the
nest and thus terminating a promising career. A few
days ago a servant brought me a baby sparrow that had
fallen out of a nest in the pantry. I always feel inclined
to wring the neck of any sparrow that fate has put
within my grasp, for I have many a score to pay off
against the species. Upon this occasion, however, I
felt mercifully inclined, so took the young bird, which
was nearly covered with feathers, and offered it bread
soaked in milk. This it swallowed greedily. When
i6

SPARROWS IN THE NURSERY 17

the youngster was as full up inside as the Hammersmith
'bus on a wet day, I told the bearer to put it in the
cage in which my amadavats dwell. When I left for
office I directed the man to feed the new arrival. On
my return in the evening the bearer informed me that
the young hopeful had declined its food. Now, a young
sparrow refuses to eat only when it is stuffed to the
brim. It was thus evident that its parents had found it
out and were feeding it, in spite of the fact that the nest
from which it came was in the pantry on the east side
of the house, while its new quarters were in the west
verandah.

The next day a second sparrow fell out of the nest in
the pantry and was also consigned to the amadavats'
cage. At bed -time that night I took a look at the
birds, and found that the two young sparrows had
tucked themselves snugly in the seed tin ! The next
morning a third sparrow from the same nest was
brought to me ; it was put in the cage along with
its brethren. As my office was closed on the day in
question, I had the cage placed in front of my study
window. I could thus watch the doings of the latest
additions to my aviary. The hen sparrow does the
lion's share of the feeding ; she works like a slave from
morning to night. At intervals, varying from one to
ten minutes, throughout the day she appears with a
beakful of food, which consists chiefly of green cater-
pillars.

It is the custom to speak of the sparrow as a curse to
the husbandman. The bird is popularly supposed to
live on grain, fruit, seedlings, and buds — those of
c

i8 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

valuable plants by preference. There is no denying
the fact that the sparrow does devour a certain amount
of fruit and grain, but, so far from being a pest, I
believe that the good it does by destroying noxious
insects far outweighs the harm. Adult sparrows fre-
quently feed on insects. I have watched them hawking
flies in company with the swifts, and the skill displayed
by the " spadger " showed that his was no 'prentice
hand at the game.

Sparrow nestlings in the early stages are fed almost
exclusively on caterpillars, grubs, and insects. As there
are usually five or six baby sparrows in a brood, and as
these have appalling appetites, they must consume an
enormous number of insects. Let us work out a little
sum. We may assume that the sparrow brings at
least three caterpillars in each beakful of food she
carries to her brood. She feeds them at least fifteen
times in the hour, and works for not less than twelve
hours in the day. I timed the sparrows in question to
commence feeding operations at 5.30 a.m., and when I
left the bungalow at 6 p.m. the birds were still at it.
Thus the hen sparrow brings in something like 540
insects per diem to her brood. She feeds them on this
diet for at least twenty days, so that the brood is re-
sponsible for no less than 10,000 insects, mostly cater-
pillars, before its units are ready to fend for themselves.
According to Hume, the sparrow in India brings up
two broods in the year. I should have doubled this
figure, since the species appears to be always breeding.
But it is better to understate than exaggerate. We
thus arrive at the conclusion that the hen sparrow

SPARROWS IN THE NURSERY 19

destroys each year over 20,000 insects, mostly injurious,
in the feeding of her young. Add to this number those
she herself consumes, those the cock eats, and those he
brings to the nest, and you have a fine insect mortality
bill.

The movements of the mother bird when feeding
her young are so rapid that it is not easy to determine
what it is she brings to the nest, even though the objects
hang down from her beak ; the same applies to the cock.
In order to make quite certain of the nature of the food
she was bringing, I sought, by frightening her, to make
her drop a beakful ; accordingly, at one of her visits I
tapped the window-pane smartly just as she was about
to ram the food down the gaping mouth of a young
bird. She flew off chirruping with anger and alarm,
but kept her bill tightly closed on the food she was
carrying. As the parents had to feed the young ones
through the bars of a cage the process required some
manipulation, and, in spite of its care, the bird some-
times dropped part of its burden ; but, almost before
I had time to move, it had dashed down to the ground
and retrieved it. However, by dint of careful watching
I managed to bang the window immediately after the
hen had dropped something of a dark colour. Having
frightened her away I rushed outside and found that the
object in question was part of a sausage-shaped sac
containing a number of tiny green grubs. After a few
minutes the hen returned with her beak full. Her fright
had made her suspicious, so she perched on the verandah
trellis-work and looked around for a little. Nine times
she flew towards the cage, but on each occasion her

20 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

courage failed her, to the intense disgust of her
clamouring brood. At the tenth attempt she plucked
up sufficient courage to feed the young birds.

At a subsequent visit she dropped a caterpillar, and
I frightened her away before she could retrieve it. I
found it to be alive and about an inch in length.

On another occasion I saw her ramming something
black down the throat of a young hopeful. Frightening
her away, I went outside and found the youthful bird
making valiant attempts to swallow a whole mulberry.
But it was not often that she gave them fruit ; green
caterpillars formed quite nine-tenths of what she brought
in ; the remainder was composed chiefly of grubs, with
an occasional grasshopper or moth. As the young
grew older the proportion of insect food given to them
diminished until, when they were about twenty-two
days old, their diet was made up principally of grain.

The day on which the third young sparrow was put
into the cage was a warm one, so at 2 p.m., when the
shade temperature was about 115°, I brought the cage
into the comparatively cool bungalow, for the sake of
the amadavats. The cock sparrow witnessed the re-
moval of the cage and did not hesitate to give me a bit
of his mind. In a minute or so the hen returned with
her beak full of green caterpillars. When she found
the cage gone, she, too, expressed her opinion of me
and of mankind in general in no uncertain terms. It
was the last straw. Earlier in the day I had removed
one of the baby sparrows from the cage and placed it
in a cigar-ash tray outside the cage. The hen had
affected not to notice that anything had happened, and

SPARROWS IN THE NURSERY 21

fed it in the ash-tray as though she were unconscious
of the removal. When, however, the whole cage and
its contents disappeared it was quite useless for her to
pretend that nothing was wrong, so she treated me to
her best " Billingsgate."

After the cage had been inside for about three-
quarters of an hour the young "spadgers" began to
feel the pangs of hunger, and made this known by
giving vent to a torrent of chirrups which differed in
no way from those that make the adult so offensive.
All that the poor mother could do was to answer from
the outside. I felt, that afternoon, that I was paying
off with interest some of my score against the sparrow.

The next day I did not take the cage into the bunga-
low, because I wanted to ascertain whether sparrows
feed their young throughout the day, or whether they
indulge in a noonday siesta. They kept it up, at their
respective rates, throughout the day, although the ther-
mometer in the shade must have risen to 115°. After
the hen had disburdened herself of the food she brought,
she would perch for a moment on the trellis, and pant
with open beak as though she were thoroughly ex-
hausted.

I have long been trying to ascertain how birds in the
nest obtain the liquid they require. Do the succulent
caterpillars, on which young sparrows are fed, provide
them with sufficient moisture, or do the parents water
them? Although I spent several hours in watching
those sparrows, I am not able to answer the question
satisfactorily. I placed a bowl of water on the ground
near the cage, hoping that this would tempt the hen

22 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

bird to drink, and that I should see her carry some of
the liquid to her offspring. But she took no notice of
the water. She certainly used to come to the cage
sometimes with her beak apparently empty, and yet
insert it into the open mouth of a young one. Was
she then watering the nestling, or did her beak hold
some small seeds that did not protrude? It seems
incredible that unfledged birds exposed to the tempera-
ture of an Indian summer require no water ; neverthe-
less, I never actually saw any pass from the crop of the
parents to those of the youngsters.

THE CARE OF YOUNG BIRDS
AFTER THEY LEAVE THE NEST

IT has been urged as an objection to the Darwinian
theory that Natural Selection, if that force exists,
must tend to destroy species rather than cause
new ones to come into being. Nearly all birds
leave the nest before they are fully developed. When
they first come out of the nursery they have attained
neither their full powers of flight nor complete skill
in obtaining food. Every young bird, no matter how
fine a specimen it be, leaves the nest an inexperienced
weakling, and can therefore stand no chance in com-
petition with the fully grown and experienced members
of the species. Natural Selection takes an individual
as it finds it and pays no attention to potentialities.

That such an objection should have been urged
against the theory of Natural Selection is proof of the
fact that naturalists are inclined to forget that, with
many, if not all, species of birds, the duties of the
parents towards their offspring by no means cease
when the young birds leave the nest.

The parent birds, in many cases, continue to feed

their young long after these are apparently well able

to fend for themselves. This fact is not sufficiently

emphasised in books on natural history. On the other

23

24 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

hand, such works lay stress upon the fact that in many-
species of birds the parents drive their offspring away
from the place of their birth in order that the numbers
of the species in the locality shall not outgrow the food
supply. How far this is a general characteristic of
birds I do not know. What I desire to emphasise is
that the driving-away process, when it occurs, does not
take place until some time after the young have left the
nest. The fact that the parent birds tend the young
long after they have left the nest, and even after they
are fully capable of holding their own in the struggle
for existence, disposes of the above-cited objection to
the theory of Natural Selection. Nature is so careful
of the young warriors that she prolongs the instinct
of parental affection longer than is absolutely necessary.
So important is it that the young should have a fair
start in life that she errs on the safe side.

It is common knowledge that foster-parents feed
cuckoos when these have grown so large that, in order
to reach the mouth of their spurious babes, the little
foster-mothers have to perch on their shoulders.

The sight of a tiny bird feeding the great parasite
is laughable, but it is also most instructive. It demon-
strates how thoroughly bird mothers perform their
duties.

Crows tend their young ones for weeks after they
have left the nest. I have had ample opportunity of
satisfying myself as to this.

It was my custom in Madras to breakfast on the
verandah. A number of crows used to assemble daily
to watch operations and to pick up the pieces of food

THE CARE OF YOUNG BIRDS 25

thrown to them. They would go farther when the
opportunity occurred, and commit petty larceny.

The crows were all grey-necked ones, with the excep-
tion of two belonging to the larger black species. But
these latter are comparatively shy birds, and conse-
quently used to hang about on the outskirts of the
crowd.

Among the grey-necked crows was a family of four
— the parents and two young birds. Every day, without
fail, they used to visit the verandah ; the two young
birds made more noise than all the rest of the crows
put together. They were easily recognisable, firstly, by
their more raucous voices, and, secondly, by the pink
inside of the mouth. When I first noticed them they
were so old that, in size, they were very nearly equal to
the mother. Further, the grey of the neck was sharply
differentiated from the black portions of the plumage,
showing that they had left the nest some time ago.

Unfortunately I did not make a note of the day
on which they first put in an appearance. I can,
however, safely say that they visited my verandah
regularly for some weeks, during the whole of which
time the mother bird fed them most assiduously. It was
ludicrous to see the great creatures sidle up to mamma
when she had seized a piece of toast, and open their
red mouths, often pecking at one another out of
jealousy.

They were obviously well able to look after them-
selves; their flight was as powerful as that of the mother
bird, yet she treated them as though they were infants,
incapable of doing anything for themselves.

26 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

At the beginning of the cold weather I changed
my quarters, so was not able to witness the break-up
of the crow family. Probably this did not occur
until the following spring, when nesting operations
commenced.

The feeding of the young after they have left the nest
and are full-grown is not confined to crows.

I was walking one morning along a shady lane when
I noticed on the grass by the roadside a bird which
I did not recognise. It was a small creature, clothed in
black and white, which tripped along like a wagtail. It
had no tail, but it wagged the hind end of its body just
as a sandpiper does. While I was trying to identify
this strange creature, a young pied wagtail came running
up to it with open mouth, into which the first bird
popped something. I then saw that the unknown bird
was simply a pied wagtail {Motacilla maderaspatensis)
which had lost her tail ! The young bird was fully as
large as the mother, and having a respectable tail, which
it wagged in a very sedate manner, looked far more
imposing. The parts of the plumage which were black
in the mother were brownish grey in the young bird. The
white eyebrow was not so well defined in the youngster
as in the adult, while the former had rather more white
in the wing, but as regards size there was nothing to
choose between the two. The young bird remained in
close attendance on the mother. It was able to keep
pace with her as she dashed after a flying insect. It ran
after her begging continually for food. The mother
swallowed most of the flies she caught, but now and
again put one into the mouth of the young bird, but she

THE CARE OF YOUNG BIRDS 27

did so very severely, as if she were saying, " You are
far too old to be fed ; it is no use to pretend you cannot
catch insects, you are a naughty, lazy, little bird ! " But
the lackadaisical air of the young one expressed more
plainly than words : " Oh, mother, it tires me to chase
insects. They move so fast. I have tried, but have
caught so few, and am very hungry."

For several minutes the young wagtail followed the
mother ; then something arrested its attention, so that
it tarried behind its parent. The mother moved away,
apparently glad to be rid of the troublesome child for a
little. Then she suddenly flew off. Presently the
young wagtail looked round for its mother, and I was
interested to see what would happen when it noticed
that she had flown away. My curiosity was soon
satisfied. Directly the young bird perceived that the
mother had gone, it set itself most philosophically to
catch insects, which it did with all the skill of an old
bird, turning, twisting, doubling, with the elegance of an
experienced wagtail.

I describe these two little incidents, not as anything
wonderful, but as examples of what is continually going
on in the world around us.

The parental instinct is probably developed in some
birds more than in others, but I believe that in all cases
the affection of a bird mother for her young persists
long after they have left the nest, and for some time
after they are fully capable of looking after them-
selves.

Birds are born with many instincts, but they have
much to learn both before and after they leave the nest.

28 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

It is not until their education is complete, until the

mother bird has taught them all she herself knows,

until they are as strong or stronger than she, that the

young birds are driven away and made to look after

themselves.

HIE INDIAN ADJUTANT. (i.EPTOPTILUS DUBIU<

THE ADJUTANT BIRD

THE adjutant bird {Leptoptilus dubiiis) is one
of Nature's little jokes. It is a caricature of
a bird, a mixture of gravity and clownish-
ness. Everything about it is calculated to
excite mirth — its weird figure, its great beak, its long,
thin legs, its conspicuous pouch, its bald head, and every
attitude it strikes. The adjutant bird is a stork which
has acquired the habits of the vulture. Forsaking to
a large extent frogs and such-like delicacies, which
constitute the normal diet of its kind, it lives chiefly
upon offal. Now, most, if not all, birds which feed on
carrion have the head and neck devoid of feathers.
This arrangement, if not ornamental, is very useful.
The bare head and neck are, as " Eha " remarks, " the
sleeves tucked up for earnest work." The adjutant
forms no exception to the rule, it wears the badge of its
profession. But let me here give a full description of
this truly comic bird. It stands five feet in its stockings.
Its bill is over a foot in length and correspondingly
massive. As we have seen, the whole head and neck
are bare, except for a few feathers scattered over it like
the hairs on an elephant's head. The bare skin is not
lacking in colour. On the forehead it is blackish ; it
becomes saffron-yellow on the upper neck, while lower
29

30 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

down it turns to brick-red. There is a rufif of white
feathers round the base of the neck. This ruff, of
course, appears entirely out of place and adds to the
general grotesqueness of the bird. The back and wings
are ashy black, becoming slaty grey at the breeding
season. The lower parts are white.

As if the creature, thus arrayed, were not sufficiently
comic, Nature has given it a great pouch which dangles
from the neck. This is over a foot in length and hangs
down like a bag when inflated. It is red in colour,
spotted with black. Its situation naturally leads one to
believe that it is connected with the gullet, that it is
a receptacle into which the bird can hastily pass the
garbage it swallows pending more complete disposal.
But it is nothing of the sort. It does not communicate
directly with the oesophagus. Knowing this, one is able
to appreciate to the full the splendid mendacity of the
writer to Chambers's Journal m 1861, who declares that
he witnessed an adjutant swallow a crow which he
watched " pass into the sienna-toned pouch of the gaunt
avenger. He who writes saw it done."

Note the last sentence. The scribe was evidently of
opinion that people would not believe him, so thought
to clinch matters by bluffing ! But, to do him justice,
it is quite possible that he did see an adjutant swallow
a crow, for other observers have witnessed this, but the
remainder of the story rests upon the sandy foundation
of the imagination. If the truth must be told, we do
not know for certain what the use of this pouch is.
Blyth suggested that it is analogous to the air cell
attached to one lung only of the python or the boa-

THE ADJUTANT BIRD 31

constrictor, and, as in that case, no doubt supplies
oxj^'gcn to the lungs during protracted meals. The
bird can thus " guzzle " to its heart's content without
having to stop every now and then to take a "breather."

But we must return to the appearance of the bird, for
the account of this is not yet complete, since no
mention has been made of the eye. This is white and
very small, and so gives the bird a wicked, knowing
expression, like that of an elephant. Colonel Cunning-
ham speaks of " the malignantly sneaking expression of
the pallid eyes." This is perhaps a little severe on the
adjutant, but it is, I fear, quite useless to deny the fact
that he has " a canister look in his heye."

A mere description of the shape and colouring of the
adjutant does not give any idea of his comicality. It is
his acts rather than his appearance that make him so
ludicrous. Except when floating high above the earth
on his great pinions the bird always looks grotesque.
To say that he, as he walks along, recalls a hunch-
backed old man who is deliberately " clowning " is to
give a hopelessly inadequate idea of the absurdity of
his movements. Lockwood Kipling is nearer the mark
when he says : " For grotesque devilry of dancing the
Indian adjutant beats creation. Don Quixote or Mal-
volio were not half so solemn or mincing, and yet there
is an abandonment and lightness of step, a wild lift in
each solemn prance, which are almost demoniacal. If
it were possible for the most angular, tall, and demure
of elderly maiden ladies to take a great deal too much
champagne and then to give a lesson in ballet dancing,
with occasional pauses of acute sobriety, perhaps some

32 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

faint idea might be conveyed of the peculiar quah'ty of

the adjutant's movements."

Sometimes the bird struts along solemnly with bent
back and forvvardly pointed bill, at others it will jump
or skip along with outstretched wings and clap its beak.
It cannot even stand still without striking ludicrous
attitudes. Seen from behind, it looks like a little hunch-
backed old man with very thin legs, dressed in a grey
swallow - tail coat. Adjutants sometimes vary the
monotony of existence by standing on one leg ; occa-
sionally they sit down, stretching their long legs out in
front, and looking " as though they were kneeling wrong
side foremost."

Colonel Cunningham gives a most entertaining
account of the habits of these birds, many of which
used, until quite recently, to be seen about Calcutta.
My observations are chiefly confined to birds in cap-
tivity ; this perhaps accounts for the fact that they do
not agree in all respects with those of the Colonel.
According to him, adjutants "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 expression of
slow malignity with which such duellists regard one

THE ADJUTANT BIRD 33

another is gruesome, and the injuries resulting from the
fray are often ghastly ; blinded eyes and bloody cocks-
combs being matters of everyday occurrence."

Captive adjutants seem to be most placid birds.
There are three of them in the " Zoo " at Lahore, kept
in a large park-like enclosure, and I have never seen
these fighting. They appear to be always, if not on the
best of terms, at any rate, indifferent to one another.
The three will stand for many minutes at a time in
a row, motionless as statues. Sometimes a male and
a female will huddle up to one another and remain thus,
with their heads almost touching, looking like carica-
tures of Darby and Joan.

The table manners of adjutants, like those of most
other carrion feeders, are not polite. I will therefore
not attempt to describe them. In the good old days,
feeding adjutants used to be a favourite pastime of
Mr. Thomas Atkins at Calcutta. I regret to have to
say that his motives were not always purely philan-
thropic. To connect two pieces of meat by a long
string and then throw them among a crowd of adju-
tants savours of practical joking. One bird, of course,
swallows one piece of meat, while a second adjutant
secures the other morsel. All goes well until each of
the birds tries to go its own way — then a tug-of-war
results, fraught with gastronomical disturbance to the
combatants.

Adjutants are nowhere very abundant ; they are
nevertheless spread over the whole of Northern India,
but do not appear to be found so far south as
Madras. Another species, however — the smaller adju-

D

34 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

tant {L. javaniais) — has been observed on the Malabar

coast.

Some natives make adjutant-catching their profession.
The birds are captured on account of their down-Hke
feathers, which are of considerable commercial value.

The catcher fits the skin of an adjutant over his head
and shoulders, and in this attire creeps up to a com-
pany of the birds as they stand half-asleep, knee-deep
in water. Great is the surprise of the unsuspecting
birds when one of them is unceremoniously seized by
the wolf in the adjutant's skin.

THE SARUS

HAVING discoursed upon the adjutant, it
seems but fitting that we should turn our
attention to another long-shanked gentle-
man— the sarus. The adjutant is, as we
have seen, a stork, while the sarus is a crane. I do not
know whether this conveys very much information
to the average mind. Most people will, I imagine,
" give it up " if asked, *' What is the difference between
a stork and a crane ? " Yet there are considerable dif-
ferences between the two ; they belong to different
families, and, like rival tradesmen of the same name,
" have no connection with one another." I do not pro-
pose to detail the anatomical differences between storks
and cranes, for the excellent reason that I myself do
not know them all, nor have I the least intention of
acquiring such knowledge. It forms part of the dry
bones of science, and these are best left to museum
ornithologists to squabble over. There are, however,
one or two simple points which suffice to enable us to
distinguish at a glance a crane from a stork. The hind
toe of the stork is well developed, while that of the
crane is small and does not touch the ground ; the con-
sequence is that the stork likes to rest on trees, while
the crane prefers to stand on terra jirma on its flat feet.
35

36 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

The nostrils of the crane are half-way down the beak,
while they are at the base in the bill of the stork. The
crane nests on the ground ; the stork builds in a tree.
Young storks are helpless creatures, while little cranes
hop and run about from the moment they leave the
egg. Lastly, the crane has a voice, a fine loud voice,
a voice that can be heard a mile away, a voice like a
trumpet, for its windpipe is coiled. King stork, on the
other hand, has no voice ; when he wants to make a
joyful noise he is obliged to clap together his great
mandibles.

Cranes have been favourites with man from time
immemorial. The result is that ancient and mediaeval
writers have plenty to say about them. Now the
naturalist of old considered himself in honour bound
to attribute some wonderful characteristic to every
beast of which he wrote. If he did not know of any
clever thing done by any creature, he invented some-
thing for it to do. This method had the advantage of
making natural history a very exciting and interesting
study. Cranes were supposed to perform all manner
of tricks with stones. As we have seen, they are blessed
with powerful voices, and, like other loud-voiced people,
find it difficult to keep silent. They are fully persuaded
that silence is golden ; but, when it comes to acting up
to this belief, the flesh proves itself very frail. Thus it
came to pass that the sagacious birds, when migrating,
used to stop up their mouths with stones. As they are
far too well-bred to speak with the mouth full, they
were able to maintain a decorous silence when travel-
ling.

THE SARUS 37

I can cite plenty of authority for this statement.
There is, in particular, no less a personage than " Robert
Tanner, Gent. Practitioner in Astrologie and Physic."
" The cranes," he writes, " when they fly out of Cilicia,
over the mountain Taurus, carried in their mouths a
pebble stone, lest by their chattering they should be
ceased upon by eagles."

The cranes had yet another use for their stones.
When the main body were resting at night, sentinels
were posted to guard against surprise, so that the com-
pany could go to sleep in security. To ensure necessary
vigilance, the sentinels stood on one foot and held in the
other a large stone. If they inadvertently nodded,
their muscles relaxed and the stone dropped. This, of
course, used to wake them up. Even Alexander the
Great was glad to learn a lesson from the cranes. He
used to go to roost with, not a stone in his hands, but a
silver ball, as more befitting his royal dignity. On the
slightest movement the ball would fall and he wake up.
Thus it was that he never overslept himself. We do
not do such heroic things nowadays ; nor do cranes.

Cranes are birds which will not stand nonsense. The
pigmies used to go egg-collecting among them ; the
result of this was, to translate Homer : —

When inclement winters vex the plain.

With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain,

To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly.

With noise and order, through the midway sky :

To pigmy nations wound and death they bring.

Notice that as the cranes were on the war-path there
was no necessity for them to fill their mouths with

38 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

stones ; they wanted all their lung power to bark at
their pigmy foes.

Having considered cranes as they are not, it behoves
us to glance at them as they are. The sarus is a hand-
some creature. It stands over five feet high. The
general colour of the plumage is a beautiful French
grey. The head and long neck are devoid of feathers,
but are covered with numerous tiny crimson warts or
papilla;. These assume a deeper hue at the breeding
season, which occurs from July to September. There
is a patch of grey on the sides of the head. The throat
and a ring round the nape are covered with black hairs.

Saruses feed upon vegetable substances, insects, earth-
worms, frogs, lizards, and other small reptiles, with an
occasional snake thrown in by way of condiment.
"This," remarks Babu Ram Brama Sanyal, "shows
the kind of accommodation they must have."

Saruses are not gregarious birds, but hunt in couples
and are said to mate for life. It is further asserted that
when one of a pair is killed the other pines away and
dies. I believe this to be true, although I cannot vouch
for it, and am certainly not going to put the statement
to the test by shooting one of a pair : for these cranes
are such tame, confiding birds that to shoot them savours
strongly of murder.

According to Jerdon, a young sarus is not bad eating,
but old birds are worthless for the table. Lucky old birds !
Saruses thrive very well in captivity. As they habitu-
ally indulge in all manner of eccentric dances they make
most amusing pets. They are usually gentle and let
strangers caress them and tickle their heads. But I

THE SARUS 39

always let others try this on for the first time with a
strange crane, because some birds resent this head-
tickling ,and, to again quote from the worthy Babu
above mentioned, " appear to exist only as it were for
pecking at everything, bird, beast, and man : children
being the special object of their wrath."

There are two cranes in the " Zoo " at Lahore ; they
are a most mischievous couple. They used to be kept
with the ducks and geese, and amused themselves by
rooting up all freshly planted rushes. At feeding time
it was their habit to hop from one dish of food to
another with outstretched wings and thus frighten off
the ducks and secure the lion's share for themselves.
They were then removed to the enclosure where the
adjutants are. They started playing tricks on these,
but the adjutant has a powerful beak which he is quite
ready to use when necessity arises. The result is that
the saruses are not on speaking terms with the
adjutants.

Unlike the adjutant, whose nest is a huge platform
of sticks placed on the top of a very lofty tree, the sarus
builds its nursery on the ground. This takes the form
of a large cone, several feet in diameter at the base and
two or three feet high. It is composed of reeds, rushes,
and straw, and placed by preference in shallow water.
Great care is taken to keep the eggs above water level.
If, as is apt to happen in India, heavy rain comes on ,
after the completion of the nest, the parents speedily set
to work to raise the eggs by adding more material to
that upon which they rest.

THE STABILITY OF SPECIES

IF two crows be taken to an ornithologist and he
be told that one of them was caught in the
Himalayas while the other was captured in
Madras, he will not be able to tell which in-
dividual came from which area : in other words, the
crows of Madras resemble those of the Himalayas.
This, of course, is no unusual phenomenon. The same
may be said of the myna, the king-crow, and a great
many other birds and beasts. Yet the phenomenon is
a remarkable one if we take into account the facts of
variation.

If several hundred thousand crows be collected and
carefully examined, it will be found that no two of them
resemble one another in all respects. This being so,
we should expect the crows of Madras to differ from
those of the Himalayas, since the two environments
are so dissimilar. We may say with tolerable certainty
that no intercrossing takes place between the crows of
the two localities : for these birds are stay-at-home
creatures, and do not wander far afield. In this case,
therefore, it is not intercrossing that has prevented the
origin of local races.

A consideration of the main causes which conduce
to the stability of species may not be devoid of in-
40

THE STABILITY OF SPECIES 41

terest ; for the subject is one which has hitherto at-
tracted but Httle attention. Since the Darwinian
hypothesis was given to the world we have heard so
much of variation and the origin of new species that
the other phenomenon — that of the fixity of species — in
spite of varying environments has been almost entirely
overlooked. Yet it was just this feature of animal life
that attracted the attention of the older zoologists and
led them to believe that species had been created once
and for all, and that, when created, they were immutably
fixed.

Most biologists, if asked to explain the comparative
fixity of species, the slowness of evolution, would, I
think, refer to the fact that variations appear to take
place indiscriminately in all directions. Take, for
example, a large number of birds of any species and
measure any one organ, let us say the first primary
wing feather. Suppose the average length be six inches.
We shall find that in a considerable percentage of the
individuals measured the wing is exactly six inches in
length : that six inches is what we may call the favour-
ite or fashionable length of the wing. The next com-
monest lengths will be 5'99 and 6"Oi inches, and so on.
We shall find that only a very small percentage of the
individuals have wings shorter than 5| inches or longer
than 6| inches ; and if we measured a thousand in-
dividuals we probably should not find any in which the
wing was shorter than five inches or longer than seven.

Now, the commonly accepted theory is that in those
cases where there is free interbreeding the long-winged
varieties and the short-winsfed varieties tend to neutralise

42 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

one another, hence no change in character takes place.
The effects of variation are swamped by intercrossing.
It is only when intercrossing is checked, as when
natural selection weeds out certain varieties, that
evolution occurs.

This theory, of course, explains, or helps to explain,
why species are so stable ; but it involves the assump-
tion that there is no such thing as sexual selection
among animals in a state of nature. The theory
assumes that individuals mate in a haphazard manner,
that a long-winged hen is as likely to select a short-
winged husband as a long-winged one. Are we justified
in assuming this? At present there is little evidence
on the subject. Evidence can only be procured by
measuring a number of pairs of birds that have mated,
and seeing whether large hens mate chiefly with large
cocks or with small cocks, or indifferently with large or
small cock-birds.

That sexual selection is a reality and not a mere
hypothesis there can, I think, be but little doubt. It
is with the theory that supposes that the females alone
exercise selection that I feel compelled to quarrel. The
male selects his partner just as much as the female
selects hers. The choice is mutual.

In the Zoological Gardens at Lahore there are a
number of ordinary coloured peacocks and a number of
albinos. No coloured hen will mate with a coloured
cock if she is allowed to exercise a choice between him
and an albino. Here, then, is a clear example of sexual
selection.

Professor Karl Pearson has spent much time in trying

THE STABILITY OF SPECIES 43

to discover whether there is such a thing as sexual
selection — what we may call unconscious selection —
among human beings. His experiments tend to show
that there is.

If we take a thousand married men whose stature is
not less than six feet, and a thousand also who are none
of them taller than 5 ft. 8 in., we shall find that the
average height of the wives of the former is greater
than that of the wives of the shorter men.

If wild animals display a similar characteristic, it is
evident that to say that intercrossing swamps variation
and causes species to remain stable is not altogether
accurate ; for, if like select like as partners, we should
expect a number of races to rapidly arise, or, at any
rate, three races — a large, medium, and small one. So
far, however, as we can see, species display no such
tendency. We are therefore driven to the conclusion
either that there is among species in a state of nature
no tendency for like individuals to select like as their
partners, or, if there be such a tendency, there is some
force at work which counteracts it.

It may be thought that the case of the peafowl in
the Lahore " Zoo " tends to show that among animals
it is dissimilarity, not similarity, that attracts, for the
coloured hens mate with white cocks in preference to
those like themselves.

As a matter of fact the hens select the white
cocks, not because they are white, but because of
the strength of the sexual instincts of these latter.
The white cocks continually show off before the hens ;
the sexual desire is developed more highly in them

44 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

than in the ordinary cocks, and it is this that attracts

the hens.

We must also bear in mind that abnormal variations
have a strong tendency to perpetuate themselves. If
a white cock mates with an ordinary peahen, the
majority of the offspring are pure white.

If there be such a thing as sexual selection, and
if it be, as I believe, the strongest, the most mettle-
some individuals, those in which the sexual instincts
reach the highest development, that attract the opposite
sex, then the question arises : is there any connection
between these characteristics and the size and colour
of their possessor ? We are not in possession of
sufficient data to answer this question in the affirmative.
Nevertheless I believe that such a relation does exist.

The researches of Professor Pearson seem to point to
the fact that there exists a definite relation between
variation and fertility. For every species there is a
mode or typical size and form, and from this there are
deviations in all directions, and, speaking generally, the
greater the deviation from the mode the less the fertility
of the individual.

If this be a general law we have here a very potent
factor tending to make species stable. Those indi-
viduals which deviate least from the common type are
the most fertile ; they produce the most offspring ;
moreover, they are the most numerous, hence they, by
sheer force of numbers, keep a species stable. The
abnormal individuals are comparatively few in number,
and they beget comparatively few of their kind, so have
no chance of establishing themselves and crushing out

THE STABILITY OF SPECIES 45

the normal type, unless natural selection steps in to
their aid.

Is comparative infertility the result of feebleness of
the sexual instinct ? If so, sexual selection must be
conducive to the stability of species.

For if the rule be the greater the deviation of an
individual from the normal the less the development in
it of the sexual instinct and the less its fertility, it
follows that an abnormal organism is less likely to
find a mate than a normal individual is ; and if it do
succeed in forming a union, that union will probably
produce less than the average number of offspring.

THE AMADAVAT

" X'"^ ENTLEMEN," said a Cambridge professor

■ to his class, " I regret that owing to the

^ W forgetfulness of my assistant, I am unable
to show you a specimen of the shell of the
mollusc of which we are speaking. You have, however,
but to step into the parlour of any seaside lodging-
house and on the mantelpiece you will see two of the
shells in question." Every undergraduate immediately
knew what the shell was like ; so will my readers at
once recognise the bird of which I write when I inform
them that the amadavat is the little red bird with white
spots that occurs in every aviary in India. The bird is,
indeed, not all red, but the bill is bright red and there
are patches of this colour all over the plumage — more in
the cock than in the hen, and more in the former in the
breeding season than at other times. Thus the general
effect is that of a red bird ; hence the native name Lai
munia, which, being interpreted, is the red munia. This
is the proper English name of the bird, although fanciers
frequently call it the red waxbill. Men of science know
it as SporGeginihus amandava. I may say here that the
name avadavat or amadavat is derived from Ahmeda-
bad, whence great numbers used to be exported, for thg
bird is a great favourite in England.
46

THE AMADAVAT 47

It is the cage bird of India, par excellence. Hundreds
of thousands of amadavats must at this moment be
living in captivity. The bird takes to cage Hfe as a
Scotsman to whisky. Within five minutes of capture
the Httle creature is contentedly eating its seed and
singing quite gaily. This is no exaggeration. I was
recently out with a friend when we came upon a small
boy catching munias. We saw captured a fine cock
which my friend purchased for two annas. Not hap-
pening to have a cage in his pocket, he put the tiny
creature into a fold of his handkerchief and placed the
remainder of the handkerchief in his pocket. While we
were walking home our captive began twittering in
answer to his companions who were still free. If this
be not philosophical behaviour, I do not know what is.

Nothing is easier than to catch munias. All that is
required is the common, pyramidal-shaped, four-anna
wicker cage in which birds are usually carried about in
India. To the base of one of the walls of this a flap is
attached by a hinge. The flap is the same size and
shape as the wall of the cage, and composed of a frame
over which a narrow-meshed string net is stretched. A
string is fastened to the apex of the flap. The cage,
with a captive bird inside, is placed in the open so that
the flap rests on the ground. On this some groundsel
is thrown. In a few minutes a passing amadavat is
attracted to the cage by the song of the bird inside.
The new-comer at once begins to feed on the groundsel.
Then the bird-catcher, who is seated a few yards away,
pulls the string sharply, so that the flap closes over the
side of the cage and thus the bird is secured. It is then

48 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

placed inside the cage and the flap again set. In this
manner a dozen or more amadavats can be captured in
an hour. As nine red munias are sold for a rupee, and
as they will live for years in captivity and cost next to
nothing to keep, it is not surprising that they are
popular pets.

Moreover, the amadavat is no mean songster. "Eha"
is, I think, a little severe on the bird when he states
that "fifty in a cage make an admirable chorus." The
bird is small, so is its voice, but what there is of the
latter is exceedingly sweet. Were its notes only louder
the bird would be in the first rank as a songster. A rip-
pling stream of cheery twitters emanates unceasingly
from a cage of munias. The birds seem never to tire.
The cock frequently utters, in addition to this perpetual
twitter, a warble of five or six notes. The birds love to
huddle together in a row on a perch and twitter in
chorus. Suddenly the chorus ceases ; one of the birds
raises his head above the level of the others and sings a
solo, while the rest listen in silence with the air of
connoisseurs. When he has finished, another bird has a
" turn," then another. The whole performance always
puts me in mind of one of those impromptu concerts
which soldiers are so fond of getting up.

Quite apart from their song, munias afford him
who keeps them much pleasure, because they are
most amusing birds to watch. They are very fond
of heat. They are happiest when the thermometer
stands at about a hundred. When they huddle
together for the sake of warmth, all are content except
the two end birds, who are kept warm only on one

THE AMADAVAT 49

side. No bird, therefore, likes to be an outside one
of a row. If two or three, sitting close together, are
joined by another, this last does not take up a position
at the end of the line. He knows a trick worth two of
that. He perches on the backs of two in the middle
and tries to wedge himself in between them. Some-
times he succeeds. Sometimes he does not. When he
does succeed he frequently upsets the equilibrium of
the whole row.

Needless to say, the birds roost huddled together, and
at bed-time there is great manoeuvring to avoid an
outside position. Each tries to get somewhere in the
middle, and, in order to do so, adopts one of two
methods. He either flops on top of birds already in
position, and, if he cannot wedge himself in, sleeps
with one foot on the back of one bird and the other
on its neighbour's back. The birds do not seem to
mind being sat upon in this way. The other method
is for the two outer birds to press inwards until one of
those in the middle of the row is squeezed so hard
as to lose its foothold and be violently ejected upwards.
The bird thus jockeyed out of its position then hops to
one end and in its turn begins to push inwards, and so
the process continues until the birds grow too sleepy to
struggle any more. All this contest is conducted with-
out a sound. There is no bickering or squabbling.
The only thing I know like it is the contest in the
dining-room of an Indian hotel, when two "boys,"
each belonging to a different master, seize a dish
simultaneously. Each is determined to secure that
dish, and neither dares utter a sound for fear of

50 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

angering his Sahib. Thus they struggle in grim
silence. Eventually one is victorious and walks off
in triumph with the dish. The defeated servant at
once accepts the situation ; so is it with a munia ejected
from a central position.

Although amadavats are widely distributed in India
and fairly common in most parts of the country, they
usually escape notice on account of their small size.
When flying overhead they are probably mistaken for
sparrows. Moreover, they do not often visit gardens ;
they prefer open country.

Amadavats belong to the finch family, to the great tribe
which includes the sparrow, the canary, and the weaver-
bird. By their coarse, stout beak, tapering to a point,
you may know them. The use of this big beak is to
husk grain. Finches do not gobble up their seed whole
as pigeons or fowls do ; they carefully husk each grain
before swallowing it. Hence the meal of a bird of this
family is a somewhat protracted affair. He who keeps
an aviary should remember this and provide his birds
with several seed-boxes, otherwise one or two bullies
(for there are bullies even among tiny birds) are apt to
monopolise the food.

He should also bear in mind that Nature does not
provide her feathered children with teeth. Seed-eating
birds, therefore, habitually swallow small stones and
pieces of grit. These perform the function of millstones
inside the bird. From this it follows that it is cruel to
keep seed-eating birds without supplying them with
sand and grit.

The bone of a cuttle-fish, tied to the wall of the cage.

THE AMADAVAT 51

is much appreciated by all the finch tribe and helps to
keep them in condition.

The nest of the amadavat is a large ball of fibrous
material, somewhat carelessly put together, with a hole
at one side by way of entrance. Winter is the season
in which to look for the nests, but they are not easy to
find, being well concealed in low bushes. Six pure
white glossless eggs are usually laid.

THE NUTMEG BIRD

THE nutmeg bird or spotted munia {Uro-
loncha punctulata) is second only to the
amadavat as an aviary favourite. The two
species are almost invariably caged together*
This is, perhaps, the reason why I was once gravely
assured by a lady that the spotted munia is the hen
and the amadavat the cock of one and the same species !
Needless to say, the birds, although relatives, belong to
different genera. The stouter bill of the spotted munia
proclaims this. In colour the beak is bluish black or
dark slate colour, and contrasts strongly with the
chocolate-brown of the head, neck, back, wings, and
tail. The breast is white with a number of black rings,
which give it the appearance of a nutmeg-grater, hence
the popular name of the bird. Fanciers go one better
and call it the spice bird. If in years to come the
former name be forgotten, etymologists will put their
wise heads together and puzzle and wrangle over the
derivation of the name " spice bird " !

The habits of the spotted munia are those of the
amadavat. Like the latter, it seems to thrive in cap-
tivity ; it also loves warmth, and likes to go to roost with
a warm companion on each side of it. Red and spotted
munias live together very amicably in a cage ; but as
52

THE NUTMEG BIRD 53

the latter, owing to their less showy plumage, are
usually in a minority, they have to be content with
outside positions at roosting-time. Sometimes my
munias take it into their tiny heads to sleep on a perch
which runs across a corner of the cage, and is barely
long enough to accommodate them all. There are
several other finer and longer perches, but, for some
reason or other, they seem to prefer this one. Possibly
its breadth is better adapted to the grip of their feet
than that of any of the others. I may here say, in
parenthesis, for the benefit of those who keep cage
birds, that every cage should contain several perches of
varying diameter, so as to permit the inmates of the
cage the luxury of a change of grip.

Well, when a dozen birds persist in roosting on a
perch intended only to seat ten, at least one of them is
unable to find room on the perch, and is obliged either
to sleep on the backs of some of his companions or
make-believe that he is roosting on the perch. This
latter feat is accomplished by the bird clutching hold of
the two wires between which the perch passes and
maintaining himself at an angle of 45° with the vertical.
In this attitude a bird will sometimes sleep ! Of course,
its body is in part resting on that of its neighbour, but,
allowing for this, a more uncomfortable position is in-
conceivable to a human being. The spotted munia,
however, seems to find it tolerably comfortable.

Birds sleep standing, often on one leg. Did this
require any appreciable muscular effort on the part of
the bird there could be no rest in such an attitude, and
the bird would fall off its perch as soon as it went to

54 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

sleep. As a matter of fact, the muscles and tendons of
a bird's hind -limb are so arranged that, to use the
words of Mr. F. W, Headley, "when the leg bends
at the ankle, there is a pull upon the tendons, the
muscles are stretched, the toes are bent and grasp the
perch on which the bird sits. Thus he is maintained
by his own weight, which bends the leg and so causes
the toes to grip." Thanks to this feature of their
anatomy, passerine birds are able to sleep on branches
of trees out of reach of prowling beasts of prey.

The great force with which a bird grasps its perch
is worthy of note. As every hawker is aware, a falcon,
when carried on the wrist, grips the leather gauntlet so
tightly as to almost stop the circulation of the blood in
the hand of the carrier. A fox cannot open its mouth
when once its snout is in the iron grip of an eagle.
Examples of the power of the grip of the foot of a
passerine bird will occur to every one who has had much
to do with our feathered friends. Crows habitually
roost in the topmost branches of trees, which must be
very violently shaken in a gale of wind ; yet the birds
never seem to lose their hold.

I have said that the habits of the spotted munia are
those of the amadavat ; what was said of the latter
applies to the former, with one exception. The spotted
munia is no songster. Those who keep the bird must
have seen him go through all the motions of singing,
with a considerable display of energy, but scarcely a
sound seems to issue. You may perhaps hear the
feeblest noise, like that made by a wheezy and de-
crepit mosquito. When you see the bird's mandibles

THE NUTMEG BIRD 55

moving nineteen to the dozen with scarcely a sound
issuing, you are inclined to think that he is either play-
ing dumb crambo or that he has taken leave of his
senses. Nothing of the kind. The bird is singing his
top notes, which are doubtless greatly appreciated by
his mate. Sound is, as we all know in this scientific age,
vibration appreciable to the ear. Air is the usual vibrat-
ing medium. Only certain vibrations are perceptible
to the human auditory organ. Those having a recur-
rence of below thirty or above sixteen thousand per
second do not produce the sensation of sound to the
average human ear. There are thus numbers of vibra-
tions continually going on which are lost to us; to this
category belong the vibrations in the air produced by
the vocal cords of the spotted munia. The ear of a
bird is constituted very differently from that of man,
so that it is not surprising if birds can hear certain
sounds imperceptible to us human beings. I may here
say that the range of the human ear varies greatly in
different individuals. Some men can hear vibrations
of which the recurrence is but fifteen in the second,
while others are said to appreciate notes caused by forty
thousand vibrations per second. I have a friend who
cannot hear a black partridge when it is calling ; its
notes are too high for the unusually limited range of his
ear. I do not know if there are any people to whom
the note of the nutmeg bird sounds quite loud ; if
there be, and these lines meet their eye, I hope they will
give their brethren of more limited capacity the benefit
of their experience.

THE DID-HE-DO-IT

MR. " did-he-do-it " is a dandy of the first
water. I should like to add "and so is
his wife," for she dresses exactly as he
does, and is every bit as particular
regarding her personal appearance, but owing to the
peculiarity of our Anglo-Saxon tongue, it is incorrect
to apply the term " dandy " to a lady, and there appears
to be no feminine equivalent of it. I must therefore
be content to say that Mrs. Did-he-do-it is a dressy
little person. Before describing the attire of the Did-
he-do-it let me say that the bird is correctly styled the
red-wattled lapwing. Ornithologists used to call it
Lobivanellus goensis, but this was found to be a bit of a
mouthful for even an ornithologist ; accordingly the
bird is now named Sarcograimnus indicus for short.

The Did-he-do-it belongs to the noble family of
plovers. Its head, neck, and upper back are black,
and the under parts are white. A broad white band
runs down each side of the neck from the eye to join
the white of the under parts. The wings are of a
beautiful greenish-bronze hue ; the legs are bright
yellow. The beak is crimson-red, as is the forwardly
pointing wattle which forms so conspicuous a feature of
the bird's physiognomy. The lapwing is thus an easy
56

THE DID-HE-DO-IT 57

bird to identify. Even if you cannot see him, you
know he is there the moment you hear his loud,
shrill "Did he do it, pity to do it." The only bird
with which he can possibly be confounded is his cousin,
the yellow-wattled lapwing {Sarciophonis malabaricus).
This latter, however, has a yellow wattle and one
syllable less in its cry.

The Did-he-do-it is a bird which frequents open
plains in the neighbourhood of water. I have never
seen it perched on a tree, and as it does not possess
the luxury of a hind toe, I imagine that, like the old
lady after a rough Channel crossing, it likes to feel
itself on ^^ terra cottar

This bird is not likely to be seen within municipal
limits, but it is fairly abundant outside Madras. It
feeds chiefly upon insects and small Crustacea. It is
not a gluttonous fowl. " Eha " declares that you never
find it where there is food and that it does without
sleep, since you never catch it napping. Jerdon, how-
ever, informs us that in the South of India it is said
to sleep on its back with its legs in the air — a distinctly
undignified position for a dandy. It sleeps thus so as
to be able to catch on its toes the sky in case this
should happen to fall down. As " Eha " says, the chief
point about this truly native yarn is that it is impossible
to contradict it, for who has seen a lapwing asleep ?

The nesting habits of the Did-he-do-it are most
interesting. Strictly speaking, it does not build a nest.
It scrapes a cavity, about a quarter of an inch deep,
in some stony place. This is the nest. Round
it there are a few pieces of kankar or some twigs;

58 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

whether these are brought thither by the bird, or have
merely been brushed there in the making of the cavity,
I know not. Very frequently the nest is situated
in the ballast of the railway line. Sometimes it is so
placed that the footboard of every carriage passes over
the head of the sitting bird. There is no accounting
for tastes ! Four eggs are usually laid ; they are much
more pointed at one end than at the other, and are
invariably placed in the nest so as to form a star, the
blunt ends projecting outwards and the thin ends nearly
meeting at the centre.

Lapwings' eggs are protectively coloured. Being
laid in the open and not hidden away in a nest, it is
important that they should not be conspicuous, other-
wise they would soon be espied and devoured by some
egg-eating creature. Thus they are coloured so as to
assimilate with their surroundings. The ground colour is
greenish and is boldly splotched with sepia, some of the
splotches being darker than others. The eggs are dull
and not glossy, hence are very difficult to distinguish from
the stones which lie round about them. From the above
description it will be seen that the Did-he-do-it's egg is
very like that of his cousin the English plover, whose
eggs are held to be so great a delicacy. Why these
eggs are so much esteemed I do not know. I suspect
that it is because they are difficult to find, and so
costly. If tripe and onions cost fifty shillings a pound,
this dish would probably form the piece de resistance of
every millionaire's banquet.

The eggs of the Did-he-do-it, then, are interesting
as forming perfect examples of protectively coloured

THE DID-HE-DO-IT 59

objects. As I have previously remarked, the theory of
protective colouration has my deepest sympathy. It is
an unfortunate jade upon which every biologist seems
to think that he is entitled to take free rides ; the
result is that the poor beast's ribs are cutting through
its skin ! For example, every bird's egg is supposed to
be protectively coloured — even the gorgeous shining
blue egg laid by the seven sisters, which is, in truth,
about as much protectively coloured as the I Zingari
Cricket Club blazer is. The majority of eggs are laid
in nests which are either covered in or more or less
well concealed among foliage, hence there is no neces-
sity for them to be protectively coloured. Dame Nature
is free to exercise on them to the uttermost her artistic
temperament, with the result that there are few things
more beautiful than a collection of birds' eggs.

So well do the eggs of the lapwing assimilate with
their surroundings, that, if you would discover a clutch
of them, your only chance is to watch the actions of the
possessors of the nest. But the Did-he-do-it is a wily
bird, and if you are not very cute he will live up to his
name by " doing you in the eye." He does not, like
babblers and bulbuLs, make a tremendous noise as you
approach the nest. He assumes a nonchalant, I might
say jaunty, air, hoping thereby to put the intruder off
the scent. The other day I had the pleasure of circum-
venting a couple of lapwings. Feeling tolerably certain
that a pair had a nest on a flat piece of ground near a
canal bank, I determined to find that nest. My wife
accompanied me. On arriving at the spot we took
cover under some trees and scanned the horizon with

6o BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

field-glasses, but saw no trace of a lapwing. I began to
think I had made a mistake. After a time we walked
on towards the canal ; when we had gone some three
hundred yards my wife noticed a bird on a ridge by the
canal. By the aid of glasses I saw it was a Did-he-
do-it. We both dropped down and watched. The bird
had " spotted " us, for he had assumed the air of an old
sailor who is smoking a pipe over a mug of beer, the air
of a man without a care in the world. Presently he
quietly disappeared behind the little ridge. We then
made a big detour so as to reach the other side of this.
Having arrived there we sat behind a tree. The lap-
wing was now eyeing us suspiciously. We affected to
take no notice of him. Presently a second Did-he-do-it
came out from behind a clump of low plants only to
disappear into it almost immediately, and then ostenta-
tiously reappear after a few seconds. Had we not
known the wiles of the lapwing we should have located
the nest behind that clump. But we knew better and
waited. One of the birds again disappeared behind the
clump, but emerged at the other side and strolled along
very slowly ; presently it came to some stones, where it
stood motionless for a few seconds. It then sat down,
or rather slowly sank into a sitting position. There
was no doubt that the bird was now on the nest. We
made for it. As we approached, the bird that was not
on the nest flew off, making a noise with the object of
putting us off the scent. The lapwing on the nest
quietly got up and strolled off without a sound. On
arriving at the place where she had been sitting we
found three eggs. I took one of them for a lady who was

THE DID-HE-DO-IT 6i

anxious to have one. Meanwhile both birds had flown
away without making any noise. Having examined
the nest, we returned to our watching place. In about
ten minutes the bird was again sitting quite happily.
She had not missed the egg.

COBBLER OR TAILOR?

THE disagreement between the popular and
the scientific name of the tailor-bird
{Oi'thotomus sutorius) must, I suppose, be
attributed to the fact that the average
ornithologist is not learned in the Classics. I freely
admit that I did not notice the discrepancy until it was
pointed out to me. Orthotomus sutorius means, not the
tailoring, but the cobbling Orthotomus. It was, I
believe, Forester who, considerably over a century ago,
gave the bird the specific name which it now possesses,
or rather the allied name, sutoria. If he wrote this in
mistake for sartoria, the error was a stroke of genius,
since the bird should certainly be called the cobbler
rather than the tailor. The so-called sewing of the nest
is undoubtedly a great performance for a little bird that
does not possess a workbox. Nevertheless, if the dirsie
who squats in the verandah did not work more neatly
than the tailor-bird he would soon lose his place.
Orthotovms sutorius does not sew leaves one to
another, it merely cobbles them together, much as
the " boy " cobbles together the holes in his master's
socks.

When last I wrote about the tailor-bird, I had honestly
to admit that I did not know how the bird did its work.
62

COBBLER OR TAILOR? 63

My attitude towards its sewing was then that of the
child who sings —

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
How I wonder what you are !

To-day I can boast with the learned astronomer —

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
Now we all know what you are !

for I have found out how the bird does its sewing.

Some months ago Mr. G. A. Pinto, a very keen
ornithologist, informed me that a tailor-bird built regu-
larly every year in the verandah in front of his drawing-
room window. He told me that he had never thought
of watching the stitching operation, and was much
surprised when I informed him that, so far as I knew,
no one had ever observed the complete process. He
said that as the bird would undoubtedly begin building
shortly, he would follow the whole process from the
other side of the window. He was as good as his word.
It is thanks to his patient watching that I am in a
position to pen this article. Towards the end of May
the hen tailor-bird began "prospecting" for a likely site,
for the hen alone works at the nest, and selected a
Dracana plant on the left-hand side of the entrance to
the verandah. One of the leaves of the plant was so
curved that its terminal half was parallel with the
ground. Upon this she commenced operations. The
first thing she did was to make with her sharp little
beak a number of punctures along each edge of the leaf.
In this particular case the punctures took the form of
longitudinal slits, owing to the fact that the veins of the

64 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

Draccena leaf run longitudinally. In leaves of different
texture the punctures take other shapes. Having thus
prepared the leaf, she disappeared for a little and
returned with a strand of cobweb. One end of this she
wound round the narrow part of the leaf that separated
one of the punctures from the edge ; having done this,
she carried the loose end of the strand across the under
surface of the leaf to a puncture on the opposite side,
where she attached it to the leaf and thus drew the
edges a little way together. She then proceeded to
connect most of the other punctures with those opposite
to them, so that the leaf took the form of a tunnel con-
verging to a point. The under surface of the leaf formed
the roof and sides of the tunnel or arch. There was no
floor to this, since the edges of the leaf did not meet
below, the gap between them being bridged by strands
of cobweb. This was a full day's work for the little
bird, and more than sufficient to disqualify her for
membership in any trade union.

She next went on to line with cotton this cul-de-sac
which she had made in the leaf. She, of course, com-
menced by filling the tip, and the weight of the lining
soon caused the hitherto horizontal leaf to hang down-
wards, so that it eventually became almost vertical, with
the tip pointing towards the ground. When lining the
nest the bird made a number of punctures in the leaf,
through which she poked the lining with her beak, the
object of this being to keep the lining in situ. It was
Mr. Pinto who first called my attention to these punc-
tures in the body of the leaf. He informed me that he
had never seen a tailor-bird's nest in which the lining

COBBLER OR TAILOR? 65

did not thus project through holes in the leaf, and that
when searching for such nests he always looked out
for this. My subsequent observations have tended to
confirm his statement.

All this time the edges of the leaf that formed the
nest had been held together by the thinnest strands of
cobweb, and it is a mystery how these can have stood
the strain. However, before the lining was completed,
the bird proceeded to strengthen them by connecting
the punctures on opposite edges of the leaf with threads
of cotton. Her inodtis operandi was to push one end of
a thread through a puncture on one edge and the other
end through a puncture on the opposite edge of the leaf.
The cotton used is soft and frays easily, so that that
part of it which is forced through a tiny aperture issues
as a fluffy knob, which looks like a knot and is usually
taken for such. As a matter of fact, the bird makes
no knots ; she merely forces a portion of the cotton
strand through a puncture, and the silicon which
enters into the composition of the leaf catches the
soft, minute strands of the cotton and prevents them
from slipping.

Every one must have noticed how brittle a dead leaf is.
This brittleness is due to the silicon which is deposited
in the epidermis of the leaf. When the leaf is green the
silicon is not so obvious ; it is nevertheless there. Some
leaves take up more silicon than others ; grasses, for
example, contain so much that many will cut one's hand
if roughly plucked. I imagine that the tailor-bird usually
selects for her nest a leaf or leaves in which there is
plenty of silicon. Thus the bird does not make a knot

F

66 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

as is popularly supposed, nor is there any necessity for
her to do so. Sometimes the connecting threads of
cotton are sufficiently long to admit of their being
passed to and fro, in which case the bird utilises the
full length.

I may mention that when the nest, the building of
which I have attempted to describe, was about three
parts finished, Mr. Pinto noticed that the bird had ceased
to work at it. He was surprised and disappointed. He
then discovered that the little builder was at work on a
DraccBna plant on the right-hand side of the entrance to
the verandah, not two yards distant from the first nest.
He was much astonished at the strange behaviour of
the bird, and still more so when, the next day, she had
resumed work at her first nest, which she completed,
leaving the second unfinished at the stage when the
punctures had been made and the edges of the leaf
drawn together by strands of cobweb. Presently an
explanation of the bird's unusual behaviour occurred to
him. His dog which, ordinarily, is chained up at one
end of the verandah, was, on the day the tailor-bird left
her first nest, fastened up in the middle of the verandah,
so that the bird while working at her nest would be
within its reach. She evidently objected to this, so
began a new nest; but next day, when the dog had been
removed, she returned to her more advanced nursery.
This accident of chaining up the dog for one day in the
middle of the verandah was particularly fortunate, for it
enabled me to examine carefully a nest in an early state
of construction.

This account must, I fear, close with a tragedy.

COBBLER OR TAILOR? ty

When the little cobbler had been sitting on her eggs for
about ten days one of the garden coolies broke them,
out of mischief, and thought he had done a clever thing.
He is now a sadder if not a wiser rascal !

A CROW IN COLOURS

From bough to bough the restless magpie roves,
And chatters as she flies.

THE magpie has been well called a crow in
gay attire. The two species are related,
and, as regards character, they are " birds
of a feather." Both are bold, bad creatures,
both rogues, thieves, and villains, and, as such, both
appeal to me. The magpie with which we are familiar
in England can scarcely be called an Indian bird. It
does disport itself in happy Kashmir, and has been seen
in the uninviting tract of land over which the Khan of
Khelat presides. But India, as defined in the Income
Tax Act, extends neither to Kashmir nor to Baluchistan,
hence Pica rustica may decline to be considered an
Indian subject. In this land of many trials his place
is taken by his cousins the tree-pies. One of these —
the Indian tree-pie {Dendrocita rufd) — is distributed
throughout the plains of India, at least, so the
books tell us. As a matter of fact, I have never seen
the bird in or about Madras. This is curious,
for Madras is a garden city (I speak not of George-
town), and the bird ought to revel in the well-
wooded compounds which beautify the capital of the
Southern Presidency. Lest its absence from Madras
68

A CROW IN COLOURS 69

be attributed to the profession tax, let me say that the
best legal authorities are of opinion that the bird would
not be liable to pay the tax. Not that it would make
any difference if the bird were liable. If I know him
aright, he would say to the importunate tax collector,
" Go and get your hair cut," or words to that effect.
Nor is there, so far as I can see, anything in the
much-abused climate of Madras to frighten away the
bird. Perhaps the doves are too much for him. If
there be one thing more than another calculated to
disturb the easily upset equilibrium of the gentle dove
it is the sight of a tree-pie. In those places where it
occurs you may, any day of the week, see one of these
long-tailed rascals being pursued and buffeted by a pair
of irate and hysterically screaming doves. In this
particular case the doves have some excuse for their
anger. The tree-pie, or the Indian magpie as Jerdon
calls him, is, to use a colloquialism, dead-nuts on a new-
laid egg for his breakfast, and, as doves always display
their oological productions on a shakedown in a tree,
and as I defy even a museum ornithologist to discover
any trace of protective colouration about the aforesaid
oological treasures, we cannot be surprised if the tree-
pie thinks that doves lay eggs for his especial benefit.
Even if the tree-pie does not happen to have been
breakfasting off their eggs the doves have ample excuse
for chastising him, for does not tradition tell us that
Noah's curse is upon the bird? The rascal flatly re-
fused to enter the Ark with the other birds, so that the
Patriarch had actually to send Japhet to catch it !

Unfortunately, the tree-pie does not draw the line

70 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

at eggs. It is said that it makes no bones about
devouring a young bird. I have never seen the creature
commit this enormity, but Jerdon is my authority for
the fact that " Mr. Smith " has known a bird to enter
a covered verandah of a house and nip off half a dozen
young geraniums, visit a cage of small birds, begin by
stealing the grain, and end by killing and eating the
birds, and repeating these visits daily until destroyed.
Facilis est descensus Averni.

This is only one side of the bird's character. I have
seen a tree-pie literally obey the Biblical doctrine of
turning the smitten cheek to the smiter ; nor, so far as
I know, did it, like the well-brought-up boy, after
having allowed its second cheek to be smitten, take off
its coat and thrash the smiter. The bird in question
sat motionless on a branch with a seraphic smile on its
face, and appeared to be ignorant of the fact that two
little furies, in the shape of fantailed flycatchers, were
making puny pecks at its plumage.

But before discoursing further upon the merits and
demerits of our crow in colours, let me describe him.
What applies to him applies to her. To the human eye
there is no external difference between the two sexes.
This by way of introduction. The tree-pie is a foot
and a half long, one foot being tail and the remaining
inches body. The head, neck, and breast are sooty
brown, and the greater part of the remaining plumage
is reddish fawn. The wings are brown and silver-grey.
The tail is ashy grey broadly tipped with black. It is
impossible to mistake a tree-pie; there is no other bird
like it. Its flight is very characteristic, consisting of half

A CROW IN COLOURS Ji

a dozen rapid flaps of the wing followed by a little sail.
The two middle tail feathers are much longer than the
others, the pair next to the middle ones are the second
longest, and the outer ones shortest of all. The bird,
like all others, spreads out its tail during flight, and the
expanded tail gives it a curious appearance.

The Indian tree-pie, as its name implies, dwells
principally in trees, and spends most of its time in
picking insects off the leaves and branches. When
fruit is in season, it feeds largely on that. It moves
with great agility from branch to branch, but it fre-
quently descends to the ground to feed and drink. It
does not, I think, ever accompany cattle, as does our
poor, persecuted magpie at home. It is a sociable bird
and is frequently seen in little companies of six or
seven.

Like all socially inclined birds, it is very conver-
sational. It has a great variety of notes, many of
which are harsh and angry-sounding, others are
whistling, metallic calls, acceptable to the human
ear. The commonest of these sounds something Hke
coch-lee, coch-lce. If, in a place where magpies abound,
you hear any new and strange cry, you are tolerably
safe in attributing it to one of those birds.

The Indian pie is not so expert a nest-builder as its
European cousin. This latter, it will be remembered,
builds a large domed structure of prickly twigs with an
entrance at one side, well protected by thorns. I have
not been able to discover why this bird is at such pains
to protect the entrance to its nursery. It is so aggres-
sive and pugnacious that no sane thing in feathers

72 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

would dream of attempting to rob its nest. One
ornithologist has put forth the brilliant suggestion
that the protection is against its brother magpies. I
cannot accept this, for I take it as an axiom that where
one magpie can enter, there can another. We must
also bear in mind that the Indian species manage to
thrive very well in spite of their roofless nests.

UP-TO-DATE SPECIES MAKING

THE ornithological world is peopled by two
classes of human beings. There are those
who study nature inside the museum with
the microscope and the scalpel ; and there
are those who love to observe birds in the open and
study their habits. The former, if kept in their place,
perform a very useful function, for they co-ordinate
and elaborate the observations of the field naturalist.
They should be most useful servants to him. Unfor-
tunately these museum men are growing very powerful,
and, like trade unions, are beginning to dictate to their
masters. Indeed, they bid fair to become the masters
and turn the field naturalists into their slaves. The
chief aim of the arm-chair or museum ornithologist
appears to be the multiplication of new species. Nowa-
days more species seem to be brought into being by
these men than by natural selection. When they are
not manufacturing new species, they are tampering with
those that already exist.

I have repeatedly had occasion to speak of the marvel-
lous, kaleidoscopic changes undergone by ornithological
terminology — changes which are the despair of the field
naturalist. I am not a statistician, but at a rough guess
I should say that every species of bird has its name
72,

74 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

changed about once in each decade. The object of
having a classical terminology is that naturalists of all
countries shall have a common name for every bird and
beast, and thus not be at cross-purposes when con-
versing or corresponding. But this object is most
successfully defeated when the classical name is con-
tinually undergoing alteration. It is practically im-
possible for any one but the professional ornithologist
to keep pace with these changes. A poor dilettante
like myself has not a look in. For example, I received
by the last mail * the latest issue of the Avicultural
Society's Magazine and noticed in it an article on the
collared turtle-dove of Burma. Wondering what this
bird might be, I looked at its scientific name and found
it to be Turtur decaocta. I looked this up in both Jerdon
and the Fauna of British India, but could not find it;
nor could I see any mention of the collared turtle-dove.
On reading through the paper I found, to my astonish-
ment, that the bird referred to was our familiar friend
the common or garden Indian ring-dove, which for
years has been called Turtur risorius. Risorius was a
name good enough for Jerdon, Hume, Vidal, Legge,
Barnes, Reid, Davison, and a hundred other good
ornithologists ; but because, forsooth, one Salvadori
would like a change, we shall, I suppose, be obliged
to adopt the latest new-fangled appellation.

The museum ornithologist has yet another craze.
He sees that there must be some limit to the present
multiplication of species, so he has hit upon the brilliant
idea of making sub-species. Just as the inhabitants of

* Written towards the end of 1906.

UP-TO-DATE SPECIES MAKING 75

every town and village have little local peculiarities, so
have birds of the same species which live in different
provinces. The latest idea is to make each of these a
different sub-species with a special name of its own.
In the near future the scientific name of every bird
will be composed of three parts, the generic, the spe-
cific, and the sub-specific. Thus Mr. T. H. Newman
has discovered that the skin round the eye of the
ring-dove of Burma is not whitish, as it is in India,
but yellow ; Mr. Newman therefore manufactures a
new sub-species, which he calls Turtur decaocta xantho-
cydus as opposed to the Indian bird which he calls
Tiirtur decaocta douraca. We may consider ourselves
lucky that he has not made a new species of the Bur-
mese bird !

This is not an isolated case. Almost every unfor-
tunate species in the universe is being split up into a
dozen or more sub-species. Any local variation in the
colour of the plumage is considered sufficient justifica-
tion for the formation of a sub-species, and we shall
undoubtedly, ere long, hear of sub-sub-species ! !

The hopeless thing is that any Juggins can make
new sub-species. It is as easy as falling out of a tree.
Let me show how it is done. Take the common spar-
row. This pushing little bird, this " feathered Hooligan,"
as Mr. Finn calls him, is found all over the world, and
every one is able to recognise the sparrow wherever he
,meets him as the same bird that insults people in
London. But the sparrows of each country have their
little peculiarities. For example, the cock sparrow in
India has more white on his neck than his brother in

ye BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

England. Hence we may make a sub-species of the

Indian bird and call him Passer doviesticiis indiais.

Now, close and patient observation during a pro-
longed sojourn in Madras has convinced me that the
sparrow in the Southern Presidency (I will no longer
call it the Benighted Presidency, for experience has
shown me that there are other parts of India far more
benighted) is quite twenty per cent, more impudent
than the sparrows in Northern India. Hence we have
no option but to make a sub-sub-species of him. Let
us call him Passer domesticus indicus maderaspatejtsis.
We may go even a step further. The sparrows that
hold chorus along the ledges of the iron rafters of the
Connemara Hotel are far more insulting and exasper-
ating than any other sparrows I have set eyes upon.
This surely is quite sufficient provocation for making a
sub-sub-sub-species of those birds. I propose to call
them Passer domesticus indicus maderaspatejisis connemara
hotelwalla — a name which I am sure will be received
with acclamation both by sparrows and human beings.

But enough of this foolery. The multiplication of
species is really a very serious matter, for it is likely to
deter sane persons from taking up the most delightful
of studies. If the ornithological societies of every
country in the world would combine to suppress the
evil, it could easily be put down. But there is, I fear,
no likelihood of such combination, because these socie-
ties are composed mostly of museum ornithologists, and
it is too much to expect of these men that they will
voluntarily suppress their chief enjoyment in life. To
persuade them to act in this altruistic manner it will be

UP-TO-DATE SPECIES MAKING tj

necessary to offer them a quid pro quo. The only quid
that suggests itself to me is to invite each of them to
name a bird after himself. Let the name of every known
species (I mean proper and indisputable species) be put in
a hat and let each member draw one out. The bird he
draws will henceforth be called after him. If any birds
are left undrawn after every man has shed his name on
one species, the remainder could be balloted for, and
thus some lucky dogs would be able to give their name
to two birds. When this is once done, it should be made
an offence punishable with death to change the specific
name of any feathered thing. Newly discovered birds
and beasts could, as heretofore, be named after the happy
discoverer. This proposal will, if adopted, cure the evil.
My point is that it does not matter a jot what a bird be
called ; the important thing is to give it a fixed and
immutable name, so that we poor field naturalists shall
know where we are.

HONEYSUCKERS

HONEYSUCKERS are birds that have
adopted the manner of living of the butter-
fly, and a charming mode of life it is. To
flit about in the sunshine and drink sweet
draughts of the nectar that lies hidden away at the base
of the petals of flowers is indeed an idyllic existence.

The sunbird, as the honeysucker is frequently called,
is provided with a curved beak and a long tubular
tongue to enable it the better to rob cup-like blossoms
of their honey. The bird must perforce be very small
and light, or it would find it impossible to reach the
nectar of many flowers. As a matter of fact, it is
almost as light as air, so is able to support itself on one
flower when drinking honey from another. Sometimes,
if no perch be available, the little honeysucker will
hover in the air on rapidly vibrating wings and thus
extract the sweets from a flower. In this attitude it
looks very like a butterfly. I may here mention that
sunbirds do not live exclusively upon honey : they
vary this diet with minute insects which they pick off"
flowers and leaves.

Honeysuckers are frequently called humming-birds
by Anglo-Indians. This is not correct. Humming-
birds are confined to the New World, and are smaller
78

i

{

LOTEN S SUNBIRI). (AKACHNEC-
(Xote the long curved bill. n,fa/>ieci to in

OTEMA)
r JJowers)

HONEYSUCKERS 79

and more ethereal than our little honeysuckers, but
their methods of feeding are so similar that the mistake
is a pardonable one.

As every one knows, butterflies and bees, in return
for the honey they receive, render service to the flowers
by carrying the pollen from the stamen of one to the
stigma of the other and thus bring about cross-fertilisa-
tion, which most botanists believe to be essential to the
well-being of a species. Honeysuckers probably perform
a similar service, for, as they flit from flower to flower,
their little heads may be seen to be well dusted with
yellow pollen.

Sunbirds are found all over India, but they are most
plentiful in the South, being essentially tropical birds ;
they are merely summer visitors to the Punjab ; when
the short, cold winter days come, they leave that
province and betake themselves to some milder clime.

Three species may be seen in our Madras gardens —
Loten's, the purple, and the yellow honeysucker.

Of the cocks of the first and second species {Arach-
nechthra lotenia and A. asiatica) it may perhaps be said
that they are clothed in purple and fine linen, for their
plumage is a deep, rich purple with a sheen and a gloss
like that on a brand-new silk hat. Sometimes the bird
looks black, at others green, and more frequently
mauve, according to the intensity of the light and the
angle at which the sun's rays fall upon it. It is not
very easy to distinguish between these two sunbirds
unless specimens are held in the hand, when the violet-
black abdomen of the purple species can be easily
distinguished from the snuff"-brown lower parts of

8o BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

Loten's. However, the latter has a much longer and
stouter beak, and is very abundant in Madras, while the
purple bird is comparatively rare, so that the Madrassi
is fairly safe in setting down all the purple birds he sees
as Loten's honeysuckers. If, however, he espies a purple
sunbird, with an unusually short bill, a bird that sings
like a canary, he may be certain that that particular
one is A. asiatica. If the cock Loten's sunbird is
clothed in purple and fine linen, that of the yellow
species {^A, zeylonica) may be said to be arrayed in a
coat of many colours, each of which is so beautiful as
to defy imitation by the painter. There is a patch on
the crown which appears metallic lilac in some lights
and emerald-green in others. His neck and upper back
are dull crimson, the lower back, chin, and throat are
brilliant metallic purple. The tail and wing feathers
are dark brown. There is a maroon collar below the
throat, and the plumage from this collar downwards is
bright yellow. Verily, Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these.

The hens of all three species are homely-looking
birds, difficult to distinguish one from the other. The
upper plumage of each is dingy brown and the lower
parts dull yellow. Many ornithologists declare that
sexual dimorphism, such as is here displayed, is due to
the greater need of the hen for protection when sitting
on the eggs. These people allege that if the hens of
brightly plumaged species were as showy as the cocks,
they would be conspicuous objects when brooding, and
so fall easy victims to birds of prey. This is a theory
typical of the arm-chair naturalist, or of him who studies

THE VEI.l.OW SL'NBIKI). (ARACHNEC-THRA ZEVI.O.NICA)

HONEYSUCKERS 8i

nature through the grimy panes of a museum window.
Like all such theories, it is tempting at first sight, but
is untenable because it fails to take cognisance of facts
with which every field-naturalist should be acquainted.
In the first place, birds of prey rarely attack stationary
objects : they look out for moving quarry. Secondly,
the cock of many species, such as the paradise flycatcher
{Terpsiphone paradisi), although he is far more showy
than the hen, sits on the eggs in the open nest quite as
much as she does. In this case what is sauce for the
goose is sauce for the gander ; if she needs protective
colouring, so does he. It is true that the cock sunbird
never takes a turn on the nest ; he is not a family man,
but a gay young spark, who goes about bravely attired,
with his hand upon the handle of his sword, ready to
draw it upon the least provocation. A more pugnacious
little bird does not exist. While the hen is laboriously
building the wonderful little nest, he spends his time in
drinking and revelry, with an occasional visit to the
growing nursery to criticise its construction. Hence it
might seem that, in the case of the sunbird, the above-
mentioned explanation of the sexual dimorphism is the
true one. Unfortunately, the nest is not an open one,
but a little mango-shaped structure with an entrance at
the side, so that the hen when sitting in it is not visible
from above. In this case, therefore, as in so many
others, we must seek a new explanation of this difference
in the appearance of the cocks and hens.

The nest is in shape and size like a mango. It
hangs down from the end of a branch, or any other
convenient object. It is composed of dried grass,

G

82 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

leaves, cocoons, bits of paper, and any kind of rubbish,
held together by means of cobweb and some glutinous
substance. There is an entrance at the side, over
which is a little porch that serves to keep out rain and
sun, but this porch is seen in every nest, even when the
bird builds, as it very frequently does, in a verandah.
A sunbird recently made its nest in the verandah of a
friend of mine ; the latter came to me and expressed his
contempt for the intellect of the little architect, since she
had been fool enough to construct a porch, although the
nest was built under cover. He forgot that the building
of nests is largely an instinctive act, that each bird
builds on a fixed plan, learned by it in " the school of
the woods."

The nest is cosily lined with cotton down. No
attempt is made to conceal it ; nevertheless it frequently
escapes the notice of human beings, because it does not
look like a nest ; one is apt to mistake it for a mass of
dried grass and rubbish that has become caught in a
branch. A sunbird in my compound completely covered
her nest with the paper shavings that had once formed
the packing for a tin of biscuits. The khansamah,
when opening the tin, had, after the manner of his kind,
pitched the shavings out of the window of the cook-
house.

It is doubtful whether predacious creatures mistake
the sunbird's nest for a mass of rubbish ; but it is so
well placed that they cannot get at it. It is invariably
situated sufficiently far above the ground to be out of
reach of a four-legged animal ; it hangs from an out-
standing branch so that no crow or kite can get a

NKsr OK I.OTEN S SUNBIRI)
Xotke that it is Iniilt in a spider s ',

HONEYSUCKERS 83

foothold anywhere near it, and the squirrel who ventured
to trust himself on to the nest would, I believe, look
very foolish when attacked by the owners.

As is usually the case with birds that build covered
nests, the hen is not at all shy. If her nursery happens
to be in a verandah, she will sit in it with her head out
of the window, and watch with interest the owners of
the bungalow taking afternoon tea three feet below her.

A HEWER OF WOOD

NOT the least of the many benefits which
birds confer upon man is the unceasing
warfare which the majority of them wage
upon insects. Insects maybe said to domi-
nate the earth ; they fill every nook and cranny of it,
preying upon all other living things which they out-
number. If this is the state of affairs when hundreds of
millions of insects are devoured daily by their arch-foes,
the fowls of the air, what would it be were there no
birds ? The earth would certainly not be inhabited by
men.

Most insectivorous birds specialise, that is to say, lay
themselves out to catch a particular class of insect.
Swifts, swallows, and flycatchers have developed pheno-
menal mastery over the air, so prey upon flying insects.
Mynas, hoopoes, " blue jays," magpie-robins, and others
feed upon the hexapod hosts that crawl on the ground.
Not a few birds confine their attention to the creeping
things that inhabit the bark of trees. Such are the
wryneck, the tree-creeper, and the woodpecker. Of
these the woodpecker is chief A mighty insect hunter
is he, one who tracks down his quarry and drags him
out of his lair. How must the insects which lie hidden
away in the crevices of the bark tremble as they hear
84

A HEWER OF WOOD 85

this feathered Nimrod battering at the walls of their
citadel !

No bird is better adapted than the woodpecker to the
work which nature has given him. He is a perfect
hunting machine, constructed for work in trees. Note
the ease with which he moves over the upright trunk.
His sharp claws can obtain a foothold on almost any
surface. I have seen a golden-backed woodpecker hunt-
ing insects on a smooth well-wheel !

His tail, which is short and composed of very stiff
feathers, acts almost like a third leg. The bristle-like
feathers stick in the crevices of the bark and enable the
bird to maintain his position while he hammers away
with might and main. His head is his hammer and his
beak his chisel. The chisel is fixed rigidly in the
hammer so that none of the force of the blow is lost.
It is exhilarating to watch a woodpecker at work. He
stands with his legs wide apart, the tip of his tail
pressed firmly against the bark, and puts all he knows
into each stroke, drawing his head back as far as it will
go and then letting drive. The manner in which his
strokes follow one another puts me in mind of the
clever way in which workmen drive an iron bar into a
macadamised road by raining upon it blows with sledge-
hammers. Almost before the hammer of the first striker
is off the head of the bar the second has struck it, this
is immediately followed by the hammer of the third,
then, without a pause, the first hammerer gets his
second blow home, and so they continue until a halt is
called. As a small boy I would stand for hours watch-
ing the operation. I am ashamed to do so now, so

86 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

have to content myself with observing woodpeckers at
work ! There are few things more fascinating to watch
than an operation in which skill and brute force are
deftly combined.

Even more useful than the beak as a weapon is the
woodpecker's tongue. This is such an important organ
that its owner is known in some parts of England as the
tongue bird. It is so long that there is a special
apparatus at the back of the bird's head for stowing it
away. Its surface is studded with backwardly pointing
bristles and the whole covered with sticky saliva.
When the woodpecker espies a crack in the bark it
inserts into it the long ribbon-like tongue. To this the
luckless insects stick and are ruthlessly dragged out to
their doom.

The commonest woodpecker in India is the beautiful
golden-backed species {Bi'achypternus aurantius). The
head and crest of the cock are bright crimson, the
upper back is a beautiful golden yellow, hence the
popular name of the bird. The lower back and tail are
black ; the wing feathers are black and golden yellow,
spotted with white, and the sides of the head show a
white background on which there is a network of black
lines and streaks.

The hen differs from the cock in having the top of
the head black with small white triangular spots.

The golden-backed woodpecker is one of our noisiest
birds. It constantly utters its loud screaming call, which
is similar to that of the white-breasted kingfisher. Its
flight, like that of most, if not all woodpeckers, is labo-
rious and noisy, the whir of its wings being audible at a

A HEWER OF WOOD 87

considerable distance. The bird gives one or two vig-
orous flaps of its wings and thus moves in an upward
direction, then it sails and sinks ; a few more flaps again
send it upwards, and so it continues until it reaches
the tree trunk for which it is bound.

I do not think that the woodpecker ever takes a
sustained flight. It is seen at its best when on the stem
of a tree, over which it moves with wonderful ease in a
series of silent jerks, like a mechanical toy. It always
keeps its head pointing heavenwards and hops or jerks
itself upwards, downwards, or sideways, with equal ease,
just as though it went by clockwork. It sometimes
ventures on the ground, from which it digs out insects.
On the earth it progresses in the same jerky manner.

I have never seen a woodpecker sitting like an
ordinary bird on a perch. It is often seen on branches,
but always lengthwise, never sitting across the branch.
It can move along the under surface of a horizontal
bough as easily as a fly walks on the ceiling.

I sometimes wonder how woodpeckers roost. Do
they sleep hanging on to the trunk of some tree, do they
sit lengthwise on a branch as a nightjar does, or do
they repair to some hole? I should be inclined to
favour the last of these alternatives but for the fact that
woodpeckers seem to excavate a new nest every year.
This would not be necessary if each bird had a hole in
which it slept at night.

Sometimes the bird digs out the whole of its nest, but
this is not usual. The woodpecker belongs to the
" labouring classes," and, true to the traditions of its
caste, it is averse to work, so generally utilises a ready-

88 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

made cavity. It taps away at tree after tree until it
comes upon a place in a trunk that sounds hollow ; it
then proceeds to excavate a neat, round passage leading
to this hollow. In this ready-made cavity it deposits
its white eggs, not troubling to add any lining to the
nesting chamber.

Woodpeckers in England suffer much at the hands of
rascally starlings. These latter nest in holes, but not of
their own making. If they cannot find any ready-made
hollow they listen for the hammering of a woodpecker.
They wait until he has completed the nest, and then
take possession while his back is turned. When the
rightful owner returns the starling looks out of the
entrance with finely simulated indignation and asks the
woodpecker what he means by intruding. In vain does
the latter expostulate. J'y suis, fy reste is the attitude
of the starling. The result is that our feathered car-
penter, not being over-valorous, retires and proceeds to
hew out another nest. Woodpeckers in India do not
suffer such treatment, for starlings do not breed in this
country. Their cousins, the mynas, are not so im-
pudent. The only Indian birds which nest in holes, and
have sufficient impudence to eject a woodpecker, are the
green parrots ; but these breed in January, so that their
family cares for the year are over long before the wood-
pecker begins nest building.

A FEATHERED SPRINTER

WHICH is the most difficult bird to shoot?
You may put this question to a dozen
sportsmen ; probably no two will name
the same bird, and each will be able to
give excellent reasons why the particular fowl he men-
tions is the hardest to hit. The reason for this diversity
of opinion is simply that there exists no bird more
difficult to shoot than all others. Even as beauty is
said to be in the eye of the beholder, so does the diffi-
culty, or otherwise, of shooting any particular species
depend upon the idiosyncrasies of the would-be slayer.
To some shooters all birds, with the possible exception
of the coot, are difficult to bring down, while others are
able to make every flying thing appear an easy mark.

To my way of thinking the chukor {Caccabis chucar)
takes a lot of hitting, but this species receives much
help on account of its mountainous habitat. It is diffi-
cult to hit even a hoary old peacock if the bird gets up
when you, already pumped to exhaustion by a stiff
climb, are engaged in scrambling from one terraced
field to another with your gun at " safe." The chukor,
thanks to the fact, conclusively proved by our friend
Euclid, that any two sides of a triangle are greater
than the third, enjoys so great an advantage over the
89

90 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

wingless skzkarz that it would be a contemptible creature
were it not difficult to shoot. Were I the leader of a
covey of chukor, I should thoroughly enjoy an attempt
to shoot me. Having taken up a strategic position
near the summit of a steep hill, I should squat there in
full view until the sportsman had by laborious effort
climbed to a spot some hundred and twenty yards from
where I was sitting ; I should then gracefully retire with
my retinue across the k/iud to the opposite hill, and
watch with interest the shooter clamber down one
limb of an isosceles triangle and swarm up the other.
Some time before he had completed the operation I
should again proceed to give him a practical demonstra-
tion of the fact that the base of certain triangles is con-
siderably shorter than the sum of the other two sides.

If you take away from the chukor his natural ad-
vantages I am inclined to think that the grey partridge
{Francolinus pondicerianus) is the more difficult bird to
shoot. This species is common in most parts of India,
yet I do not remember ever having heard of any one
making a big bag of grey partridge. Some there are
who say that the bird is not worth shooting. If these
good folk mean that the shooting of the partridge in-
volves so large an expenditure of ammunition as to
deter them from the undertaking I am inclined to agree
with them. Given a fair field in the shape of a plain
well studded with prickly pear, there is, in my opinion,
no bird more difficult to hit than the grey partridge. It
is, like all game birds proper, a very rapid flier for a
short distance. But it is not so much this which makes
it hard to shoot as the rapidity with which it can run

I'NHIKI) (.HK.N) ABOL'T TO ENTER

A FEATHERED SPRINTER 91

along the ground and the close manner in which it lies
up. According to Mr. Lockwood Kipling, the grey
partridge, as it runs, " suggests a graceful girl tripping
along with a full skirt well held up." In a sense the
simile is a good one, for the lower plumage of the
partridge is curiously " full," and so does make the bird
look as though it were holding up its skirts. But until
graceful young ladies are able to gather up their ample
skirts and sprint the " hundred " two or three yards in-
side " level time," it will be inaccurate to compare the
tripping gait of the one to the speedy motion of the
other. The grey partridge is a winged sprinter, a
feathered Camilla. It can for a short distance hold its
own comfortably against a galloping horse. Frequently
have I come upon a covey, feeding in the open and
giving vent to the familiar call, and have immediately
proceeded to stalk it in the hopes of obtaining a couple
of good shots. Before getting within range, one of the
birds invariably " spots " me and gives the alarm. The
calling immediately ceases and the partridges walk
briskly to cover. The instant they disappear I dash
towards the cover, hoping to surprise and flush them,
but they run three yards to my two, and by the time I
reach the bushes into which they betook themselves
they are laughing at me from afar.

Then the way in which a partridge will sometimes lie
up in comparatively thin cover is remarkable. One
day, when shooting snipe at sunrise, I surprised a
partridge feeding in a field. I fired, but apparently did
not hit the bird, for it disappeared into a clump of palm
trees and prickly pear. Taking up a position close to

92 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

this clump, I instructed my beaters to throw stones into
it. This they did, but half a dozen stones, to say
nothing of as many chunks of clay and the most
frantic yells and shouts, elicited no response from the
partridge. I therefore moved on, and the moment I had
turned my back on the clump the bird flew out ! This
is typical of my experience as a partridge shooter ; the
birds almost invariably get up from cover at a moment
when I cannot possibly take a shot at them. Well
might I sing with Cowper —

I stride o'er the stubble each day with my gun
Never ready to shoot till the covey is flown.

For these reasons partridge shooting is to me a par-
ticularly exasperating form of sport. There are few
things more annoying than to hear — " the partridge
burst away on whirring wings," from a bush on which
you have just turned your back after having thrown
into it half the contents of a ploughed field !

I am not a bloodthirsty individual, and enjoy watching
birds through a field-glass quite as much as, if not more
than, shooting them with a gun, but there is something
in the call of the grey partridge which makes me want
to shoot him. His shrill " pateela, pateela, pateela,"
seems to be a challenge. Grahame sings —

Cheerily
The partridge now her tuneless call repeats.

For " cheerily " write " cheekily " and you have a good
description of the call of our Indian grey partridge,
which may be heard in Madras every morning during
the winter months.

A FEATHERED SPRINTER 93

This bird does not build an elaborate nest. There is
no necessity for it to do so. A nest is a nursery in
which young birds are for a time sheltered from the
dangers that beset them in the world. When they have
developed sufficiently to be able to look after them-
selves they leave the nest.

It is one of the characteristics of the gallinaceous
family of birds, which includes grouse, poultry, pea- and
guinea-fowl, pheasants, turkeys, and quail, that their
young are able to run about almost immediately after
issuing from the egg. They are born covered with
down, and are thus at first very unlike their parents.
They are in reality larvae, that is to say, embryonic
forms which are able to fend for themselves with little
or no assistance from their parents. They change into
the adult form, not hidden away in a nursery, but in the
open world.

The nest, then, of the partridge is a very in-
significant affair. It is usually a depression in the
ground, so shallow as to be barely perceptible, and
always well concealed in a bush or tuft of grass. Some-
times the eggs are laid on the bare soil, but more usually
the depression is lined with grass or leaves. Occasionally
the lining is so thick as to form a regular pad. From
six to nine whitish eggs are laid. These do not match
the ground or material on which they lie, hence cannot
be considered as examples of protective colouring.
Their safety depends on the fact that they are hidden
away under a bush or tuft of grass. The hen, too, is a
very close sitter, and her plumage assimilates well with
the surroundings of the nest.

A BIRD OF CHARACTER

I HAVE hinted more than once at the possibiHty
of there being some understanding between the
architect of my bungalow and the feathered folk.
On this hypothesis alone am I able to account for
the presence of a rectangular hole in the porch, about
eight feet above the level of the ground, a hole caused
by the deliberate omission of one or two bricks. The
scramble for this cavity by those species of birds which
build in holes is as great as that of Europeans to secure
bungalows in a Presidency town. Last year a pair of
spotted owlets (^Athene braind) secured the prize and
reared up a noisy brood of four. These were regarded
with mingled feelings by the human inhabitants of the
bungalow. On the one hand, a bird more amusing than
the clownish little owlet does not exist, on the other,
it is excessively noisy. Each member of the family talks
gibberish at the top of its voice, sixteen to the dozen,
and as all will persist in speaking at once, the result is a
nocturnal chorus that will bear comparison with the
efforts of the cats which enliven the Londoner's back
yard.

This year a couple of mynas {Acridotheres tristis)
secured the highly desirable nesting site. Immediately
on entering into possession they proceeded to cover the
94

IK INDIAN SI'tnTKl) DWI.KT. (AIHKNI-. HKAMA)

A BIRD OF CHARACTER 95

floor of the cavity with a collection of rubbish, com-
posed chiefly of rags, grass, twigs, and bits of paper.
There was no attempt at arranging this rubbish, it was
bundled pell-mell into the hole and four pretty blue
eggs were laid on top of it.

One might suppose that the more intelligent the bird
the greater the degree of architectural skill it would dis-
play. This, however, is not the case. Were it so, crows,
mynas, and parrots would build palatial nests.

Mynas do not always nestle in holes in buildings ;
they are content with any kind of a cavity, whether it be
in a building, a tree, or a sandbank. In default of a hole
they are content with a ledge, provided it be covered
with a roof. A few years ago a pair of mynas reared
up a brood on a ledge in the much-frequented verandah
of the Deputy Commissioner's Court at Fyzabad.

To return to the nest in my porch. The eggs in due
course gave rise to four nestlings of the ordinary ugly,
triangular-mouthed, alderman-stomached variety. When
they were nearly ready to leave the nest I took away
two of them by way of rent for the use of my bungalow.
This action was in complete accord with oriental custom.
In India the landlord has, from time immemorial, taken
from his tenants a portion of their produce as rent or
land revenue. The Congress will doubtless declare that
in levying 50 per cent, of the family brood I assessed
the family too highly ; but I defy even a Bengali orator
to take 33 per cent, of four young mynas. I might, it is
true, have assessed the rent at 25 per cent, but the life
of a solitary myna cannot be a very happy one, so I took
two, a cock and a hen.

96 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

To the ordinary observer the cock myna is as like the
hen as one pea is like any other pea. To one, however,
who has an eye for such things, the bigger head and more
massive body of the cock render him easily recognisable
when in company with his sisters. The brood consisted
of two cocks and two hens, so that I made a fair division.
Some there are who may question the ethics of my
action. I would remind such that, incredible as it may
seem, the parent birds, in all probability, did not miss
the two young ones. Birds cannot count. Even the
wily crow is unable to " spot " the extra egg which the
koel has surreptitiously introduced into the nest. It is, of
course, possible that although those mynas could not
count, they missed the two young birds to the extent of
noticing that something was wrong with their brood.
If they did all I can say is that they concealed their
feelings in an admirable manner.forthey continued to feed
the remaining young as though nothing had happened.
If it be thought incredible that the young birds were not
missed, is it not equally hard to believe that not one of
the lower animals can tell the difference between two and
three? If a dog has three bones before him and you
remove one of them, he will not miss it unless he sees
you remove it !

A chaprassi was appointed to nurse my two young
mynas, with instructions to keep them until they should
become somewhat more presentable. At the end of three
weeks they were adjudged fit to appear in public, being
somewhat smaller and rather lanky editions of their
parents, with the patch behind the eye white instead
of yellow. Having been taken from the nest they were

A BIRD OF CHARACTER 97

perfectly tame, showing no fear of man, and readily-
accepting food from the hand.

Young nestlings display no fear of man, and do not
appear to mind being handled by a human being ; but
as they grow older they learn to fear all strange
creatures, hence it is that captive birds taken from
the nest are always tamer than those which are
caught after they are fledged. It was amusing to see
the way in which my young mynas ran towards the
chaprassi when he called " Puppy, puppy." " Puppy " is
apparently a term applied by native servants indis-
criminately to any kind of pet kept by a sahib,

Mynas make excellent pets because they are so alert
and vivacious, and, above all, because they have so
much character.

A myna is a self-assertive bird, a bird that will stand
no nonsense.

I know of few things more amusing than to witness a
pair of mynas give a snake a bit of their minds as they
waltz along beside it in a most daring manner.

Owing to the self-assertion of the myna he is apt to
be quarrelsome.

Street brawls are, I regret to say, by no means
uncommon. In these two or three mynas attack one
another so fiercely that they get locked together and
roll over and over — a swearing, struggling ball of brown,
yellow, and white.

The myna, although by no means a songster, is able
to emit a great variety of notes, all of which must be
familiar to every Anglo-Indian.

A bird which can produce a large number of sounds
H

98 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

is almost invariably a good mimic, and the common
myna is no exception to this rule. In this respect,
however, he does not compare favourably with the
grackles or hill-mynas, as they are commonly called.
These can imitate any sound, from the crack of a whip
and the exhortations of a bullock-cart driver to the
throat-clearing operation in which our Indian brethren
so frequently indulge.

SWIFTS

SWIFTS are extraordinary birds ; there are no
others like unto them; they are the most mys-
terious of the many mysterious products of
natural selection; their athletic feats transcend
the descriptive powers of the English language. What
adjective is there of suitable application to a bird that
speeds through the air without an appreciable effort at
the rate of a hundred miles an hour, that traverses a
thousand miles every day of its existence ?

These wonderful birds are everywhere common, yet
much of their life history requires elucidation.

Probably not one man in fifty is able to distinguish
between a swallow and a swift. Some think that "swift"
and "swallow" are synonymous terms, while others
believe that a swift is a kind of black swallow. As a
matter of fact, the swift differs more widely from the
swallow than the crow does from the canary. There is,
it is true, a very strong professional likeness between
the swift and the swallow, but this likeness is purely
superficial ; it is merely the resemblance engendered by
similar modes of obtaining a livelihood. Both swallows
and swifts feed exclusively on minute insects which they
catch upon the wing, hence both have a large gape,
light, slender bodies, and long, powerful wings. But
speedy though it be, the swallow is not in the same
99

lOO BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

class with the swift as a flyer. When both birds are
in the hand nothing is easier than to tell a swift from
a swallow or a martin. The latter have the ordinary
passerine foot, which consists of three forwardly directed
toes and a backwardly directed one. This foot enables
a bird to perch, so that one frequently sees swallows
seated on telegraph wires. But one never sees a swift
on a perch, because all its four toes point forward. It
cannot even walk. It spends its life in the air. It eats
and drinks on the wing, it does everything, except
sleeping and incubating, in the air.

But it is not often that one has a swallow or swift
in the hand ; it is difficult to get near enough to them
to put salt on the tail, so that it is necessary to have
some means of distinguishing them when sailing through
the air. There is a very marked difference in the manner
in which these birds use their wings. This is inimitably
described by Mr. E. H. Aitken : "As a swallow darts
along, its wings almost close against its sides at every
stroke, and it looks like a pair of scissors opening and
shutting. Now a swift never closes its wings in this
way. It whips the air rapidly with the points of them,
but they are always extended and evenly curved from
tip to tip like a bow, the slim body of the bird being the
arrow." As a swift speeds through the air it looks some-
thing like an anchor, with a short shaft and enormous
flukes. If this be borne in mind, it is scarcely possible
to mistake a swift for a swallow. Swifts are abundant in
Calcutta, but one is not likely to come across a swallow
there except when the moon happens to be blue.

The two swifts commonly seen in Calcutta are the

SWIFTS loi

Indian swift {Cypselus affinis) and the palm swift {C.
batassiensis).

The latter need not detain us long. It is a small
and weak edition of the former. It builds a cup-
shaped nest on the under side of the great fan-like
leaves of the toddy palm.

The Indian swift is, in size and appearance, much
like the swift which visits England every summer, except
for the fact that it has a white patch on the lower part
of the back. The chin is white, but all the rest of the
plumage, with the exception of the above-mentioned
patch, is black or smoky brown.

This bird nests in colonies in the verandahs of houses
and inside deserted buildings. The nest is a cup-
shaped structure, usually built under an eave in the
angle which a roof-beam makes with the wall. Thus
the swift finds, ready-made, a roof and a couple of walls,
and has merely to add the floor and remaining walls,
in one of which it leaves a hole by way of entrance to
the nursery. Thus the swift reverses the usual order
of things, which is to erect a nest on some foundation
such as a branch or ledge.

As we have seen, all four toes of the swift are for-
wardly directed and each is terminated by a sharp
hook-like claw. Thus the swift is able to cling with
ease to such a vertical surface as that of a wall, and is
therefore quite independent of any ledge or perch.
The nest is a conglomeration of grass, straw, and
feathers, which are made to adhere to one another, and
to the building to which the nest is attached, by the
cement-like saliva of the bird.

I02 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

Some species of swift build their homes entirely of
their glutinous saliva, and so manufacture "edible birds'
nests." The Indian swift, however, utilises all manner
of material by way of economising its saliva.

Nest building is a slow process. Each tiny piece of
material has to be separately stuck on to the structure,
and the saliva, which is, of course, liquid when first
secreted, takes about five minutes to dry. During the
whole of this time the bird remains motionless, holding
in situ whatever it is adding to the structure.

I once timed a pair of swifts at work, and found that
on an average they took forty-five minutes in bringing
each new piece of material. Much of this time was un-
doubtedly spent in seeking for food, for so active a bird
as the swift must have an enormous appetite, and,
as it feeds on the minutest of insects, must consume
thousands of them in the course of the day, each of which
has to be caught separately. But, even allowing for
this, the rate at which the material is added is very
slow. Some naturalists declare that the swift is unable
to pick anything off the ground. If this be so, the labour
of obtaining material must be great, for the creature
must fly about until it espies a feather or piece of straw
floating in the air.

I am not yet in a position to say whether it is really
impossible for the bird to pick anything from off the
ground. I have never seen it do so, and it is a fact
that the birds will, when building, eagerly seize anything
floating in the air. On the other hand, the helplessness
of the swift when placed upon the ground has been
much exaggerated. It is said that the bird, if put upon

SWIFTS 103

a flat surface, is unable to rise and will remain there
until it dies. Quite recently some Indian swifts were
brought to me and I placed one of them on my desk.
In less than twenty seconds the bird was flying about
in the room. Then, again, the grasping powers of its
hook-like claws have been somewhat magnified. The
bird in question made several unsuccessful attempts to
cling on to the whitewashed wall, and eventually fell
to the floor, where it was seized and then liberated in
the open. It flew off none the worse for its adventure.
Nevertheless, its claws are very sharp ; the bird in
question stuck them quite unpleasantly into me when I
held it. A swift can certainly cling to any vertical
surface that is the least rough.

Unlike most birds, swifts use their nests as houses
and sleep in them at night. One frequently hears
issuing from the rafters in the dead of night the
piercing scream so characteristic of swifts. This
disposes of the silly story, so prevalent, that at evening
time the swifts mount into the higher layers of the
atmosphere and there sleep on the wing.

In conclusion, I must mention the characteristic
flight of swifts just before sundown. The birds close
the day in what has been called "a jubilant rout" ; as
if they had not already taken sufficient exercise, they fly
at a breakneck pace round about the building in which
their nests are placed, dodging in and out of the pillars
of the verandah, and fill the air with their shivering
screams. This seems to be a characteristic of swifts
wherever they are found.

BIRDS AS AUTOMATA

THE sudden change that comes over the
nature of most birds at the nesting season is,
perhaps, the most wonderful phenomenon
in nature. Active, restless birds, which
normally spend the whole day on the wing, are content
to sit motionless in a cramped position upon the nest for
hours together. Birds of prey, whose nature it is to
devour every helpless creature that comes within their
grasp, behave most tenderly towards their young, actually
disgorging swallowed food in order to provide them with
a meal. Timid birds become bold. Those which under
ordinary circumstances will not permit a human being
to approach near them, will sometimes, while brooding,
actually allow themselves to be lifted off the nest.

At the breeding season intelligence, which counsels
self-preservation, gives way before the parental instinct,
which causes birds to expose themselves to danger, and,
in some cases, even to sacrifice their lives for the sake of
their offspring.

From the construction of the nest until the time when
the young ones are fledged the actions of the parent
birds are, at any rate in the neighbourhood of the nest,
those of automata, rather than of creatures endowed with
intelligence.

104

BIRDS AS AUTOMATA 105

On this hypothesis alone are many of the actions of
nesting birds comprehensible.

That the construction of the nest is in the main an
instinctive habit and not the result of intelligence is
proved by the fact that a bird which has been hatched
out in an incubator will, at the appointed season, build
a nest. If birds were not guided by instinct they would
never take the trouble to do such a quixotic thing.
What benefit can they derive from laboriously collecting
a number of twigs and weaving them into a nest?

It is, of course, natural selection that has originated
this instinct ; for those species in which the parental
instinct is not developed, or in which there is not some
substitute for it, must inevitably perish. When once
this instinct has taken root natural selection will tend
to perpetuate it, since those species which take the
best care of their young are those which are likely to
survive in the struggle for existence.

Many instances can be adduced to show how auto-
matic are the actions of birds at the nesting season.

It sometimes happens that a bird lays an egg and
then proceeds to build a nest on top of it.

Again, some birds do not know their own eggs.
A whole clutch of different ones may be substituted for
those upon which the bird is sitting and the bird will
not discover the change.

The well-known bird-photographer, Mr. R. Kearton,
was desirous of obtaining a good photograph of a
sitting thrush, and as he was afraid that her eggs would
be hatched before a fine, sunny day presented itself, had
some wooden dummies made. These he painted and

io6 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

varnished to look like those of the thrush, and put them
in the nest, wondering whether the bird would be de-
ceived. He need not have wondered ; she would probably
have sat upon the shams even had they not been
coloured.

Upon another occasion Mr. Kearton replaced some
starling nestlings by his wooden eggs, and waited to see
what would happen. " In a few minutes," he writes,
" back came the starling with a rush. She gazed in
wonder at the contents of the nest for a few seconds,
but, quickly making up her mind to accept the strangely
altered condition of things, she sat down on the bits of
painted wood without a trace of discontent in either
look or action. Putting her off again, I reversed the
order of things and waited. Upon returning, the starling
stared in amazement at the change that had come over
the scene during her absence ; but her curiosity soon
vanished, and she commenced to brood her chicks in the
most matter-of-fact way." Then Mr. Kearton took out
the chicks and put his fist into the nest, so that the back
of his hand was uppermost. The starling actually
brooded his knuckles. We must, of course, remember
that a starling's nest is in a hole, where there is but little
light. But, provided the starling could not see him, I
believe that she would have brooded his knuckles in
broad daylight.

Crows, the most intelligent of birds, will sit upon and
try to hatch golf balls and ping-pong balls. One famous
kite in Calcutta sat long and patiently in a vain attempt
to make a pill-box yield a chick, while another member
of this species subjected a hare's skull to similar treat-

BIRDS AS AUTOMATA 107

ment. Upon one occasion I took a robin's egg that was
quite cold and placed it among the warm ones in a
blackbird's nest. The hen came and brooded the egg
along with her own without appearing to notice the
addition, although it was much smaller than her eggs
and of a totally different colour.

In the same way, if a set of nestlings of another species
be substituted for those already in the nest, the parent
birds will usually feed the new family without noticing
the change. Instinct teaches a bird to brood all in-
animate objects it sees in the nest and to feed all living
things, whether they be its own offspring or not, and
many birds blindly obey this instinct. It is, of course,
to the advantage of the species that this should be so.
For it is only on very rare occasions that foreign objects
get into a nest, and nature cannot provide for such
remote contingencies.

Similarly, instinct will not allow a bird to pay any
attention to objects outside the nest, even though these
objects be the bird's own offspring.

As everybody knows, the common cuckoo nestling
ejects its foster-brethren from the nest, and if the true
parents were able to appreciate what had happened,
how much sorrow among its victims would the cuckoo
cause ! As a matter of fact, no sorrow at all is caused.
Incredible as it may seem, the parent birds do not miss
the young ones, nor do they appear to see them as they
lie outside the nest. In this connection I cannot do
better than quote Mr. W. H. Hudson, who was able to
closely observe what happened when a young cuckoo
had turned a baby robin out of the nest. " Here,"

io8 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

writes Hudson, "the young robin when ejected fell a
distance of but five or six inches, and rested on a broad,
light green leaf, where it was an exceedingly con-
spicuous object ; and when the mother robin was on
the nest — and at that stage she was on it the greater
part of the time — warming that black-skinned, toad-
like, spurious babe of hers, her bright, intelligent eyes
were looking full at the other one, just beneath her,
which she had grown in her body and had hatched with
her warmth, and was her very own, I watched her for
hours ; watched her when warming the cuckoo, when
she left the nest, and when she returned with food and
warmed it again, and never once did she pay the least
attention to the outcast lying there close to her. There
on its green leaf it remained, growing colder by degrees,
hour by hour, motionless, except when it lifted its head
as if to receive food, then dropped it again, and when at
intervals it twitched its body as if trying to move.
During the evening even these slight motions ceased,
though the feeblest flame of life was not yet extinct ;
but in the morning it was dead and cold and stiff; and
just above it, her bright eyes upon it, the mother robin
sat on the nest as before warming the cuckoo."

Even those actions of nesting birds which appear to
be most intelligent can be shown to be merely automatic.
Take, for example, the curious habit of feigning injury,
which some birds have, when an enemy approaches the
young, in order to distract attention from them to itself
and thus enable them to seek cover unobserved. This
surely seems a highly intelligent act. But birds some-
times act thus before the eggs are hatched, and by so

BIRDS AS AUTOMATA 109

doing actually attract attention to the eggs. This action
is purely instinctive, and is perpetuated and strengthened
by natural selection because it is beneficial to the race.

We have seen how at the nesting season all a bird's
normal actions and instincts are subordinated to those of
incubation. It is therefore but reasonable to suppose
the incubating bird to be in a very peculiar and excitable
state, a state bordering on insanity.

A bird in this condition might be expected to go into
something resembling convulsions on the approach of
an enemy, and, provided its acts under such circum-
stances tended to help the offspring to escape, and were
at the same time not sufficiently acute to cause the
mother bird to fall a victim to the enemy, natural
selection would tend to perpetuate and fix such actions.

Want of space prevents further dilation upon this
fascinating subject.

To sum up the conclusions I desire to emphasise. A
bird has during the greater part of its life only to look
after itself, and the more intelligent it be the better will
it do this, hence natural selection tends to increase the
intelligence of birds. But, at certain seasons, it becomes
all-important to the species that the adults should attend
to their young, even at risk to themselves. To secure
this Nature has placed inside birds a force, dormant at
most times, which at periodic intervals completely over-
rides all normal instincts, a force which compels parent
birds to rivet their attention on the nest and its contents.
Thus the sudden conversion of birds into automata is a
necessity, not a mere whim of Dame Nature. The
instinct is not of very long duration ; for as soon as the

no BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

young are able to fend for themselves, the parents some-
times behave in what seems to human beings a most
unnatural way : they drive off their offspring by force.
As a matter of fact, this behaviour is quite natural ; it
is dictated by Nature for the benefit of the species.
Strong as the maternal instinct is, it is liable to be over-
ridden by stronger instincts, such as that of migration.
When the time for the migratory journey comes round,
the parent birds will desert, without apparently a pang
of remorse, or even a thought, the broods for whose
welfare they have been slaving day and night. This
desertion of later broods by migratory birds is far
commoner than is generally supposed. In 1826 Mr.
Blackwell inspected the house-martins' nests under the
eaves of a barn at Blakely after the autumnal migration
of these birds. Of the twenty-two nests under the eaves
inspected on nth November, no fewer than thirteen
were found to contain eggs and dead nestlings.

PLAYING CUCKOO

ORNITHOLOGICAL experience led me
some time back to the belief that at the
nesting season a bird becomes a creature
of instinct, an organism whose actions are,
for the time being, those of a machine, a mere auto-
maton. This view, which has been set forth in the
preceding article, is not held by all naturalists. I there-
fore determined to undertake a systematic series of
experiments with a view to putting it to the test. In
other words, I decided to play cuckoo. I selected the
Indian crow {Corvus splendcns) as the subject of my
experiments, because it is the most intelligent of the
feathered folk. If it can be proved that when on the
nest the actions of this bird are mechanical, it will follow
that the less intelligent birds are likewise mere automata
when incubating. Another reason for selecting the crow
as my victim is that I have been investigating the
habits of the koel {Eudynamis honorata), which is para-
sitic on the crow, and in so doing have had to visit a
large number of crows' nests.

The crow lays a pale blue Qg% blotched with brown,

while the egg of the koel is a dull olive-green also blotched

with brown. It is considerably smaller than the crow's

^%%. I have seen dozens of koel's eggs, but never one that

III

112 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

a human being could possibly mistake for that of a crow,
yet our friend Corviis is unable to detect the strange egg
when deposited in the nest and sits upon it. It is not that
birds are colour-blind. The koel is able to distinguish
its own c^^ from that of the crow, for, after it has
deposited its ^'g'g, it frequently returns to the nest and
removes one or more of the crow's eggs ! I am con-
vinced that ordinarily a crow would have no difficulty in
distinguishing between the two kinds of &%^ ; but at the
nesting time it throws most of its intelligence to the
winds and becomes a puppet in the hands of its in-
stincts, which are to sit upon everything in the nest.

I have myself placed koel's eggs in crows' nests, and
in every case the crow has incubated the eggs. On one
occasion I came upon a crow's nest containing only two
koel's eggs. As the nest was some way from my bunga-
low and in an exposed situation, I knew that, the
moment I left, it would be robbed by some mischievous
native boy, so I took the eggs and placed them in a
crow's nest in my compound. This already contained
three crow's eggs, two of which I moved, substituting
the koel's eggs for them. The crow's eggs had only
been laid three or four days, but the koel's eggs were
nearly incubated, since both yielded chicks on the third
day after I placed them in the nest. If nesting crows
think, that pair must have been somewhat surprised at
the speedy appearance of the chicks !

In all, I have placed six koel's eggs in four different
crow's nests, and as I have already said, in no single
instance did the trick appear to be detected. In the
majority of cases, I did not trouble to keep the number

PLAYING CUCKOO 113

of eggs in the nest constant. I merely added the koel's
egg to those already in the nest.

But I have put my theory to a much more severe test.
In a certain crow's nest containing two eggs I put a
large fowl's egg. This was cream-coloured and fully
three times the size of the crow's egg, yet within ten
minutes the crow was sitting comfortably on the
strange egg. She did not appear to notice the con-
siderable addition to her clutch. She subsequently
laid three more eggs, so that she had six eggs to sit
upon, five of her own and the large fowl's egg ! Day
after day I visited the nest and watched the progress of
the strange egg. On the twentieth day the chick inside
was moving, but when I went to the nest on the twenty-
first day I discovered that some one had climbed the
tree, for several branches were broken. Two young
crows had been taken away and the fowl's egg thrown
upon the ground. There it lay with a fully formed black
chicken inside ! I have that chicken in a bottle of
spirit. Subsequent inquiry showed that the dhobi's son
had taken it upon himself to spoil my experiment.
However, it went sufficiently far to prove that crows
may one day become birds of economic value ; why
not employ them as incubators ? Had the crow come
across that chick's egg anywhere but in its nest, it
would undoubtedly have made its breakfast off it.

I repeated the experiment in another nest. This
time the chick hatched out. When it appeared the
rage of the crows knew no bounds. With angry
squawks the scandalised birds attacked the unfortunate
chick, and so viciously did they peck at it that it was

114 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

in a dying state by the time my climber reached the

nest.

With a view to determining at what stage the incu-
bating instinct secures its dominance, I placed another
fowl's egg in a crow's nest that was almost ready to re-
ceive eggs, wondering whether the presence of this egg
would stimulate the crow to lay, without troubling to
give the final touches to the nest. The bird devoured
the egg. It is my belief that the acts of a nesting bird
do not become completely automatic until it has laid
an egg in the nest. If one visits a crow's nest which is
in course of construction, the owners will as likely as
not desert it ; but I have never known a crow desert its
nest when once it has laid an egg — provided, of course,
he who visits the nest leaves any eggs in it.

In another nest containing two crow's eggs I placed
a golf ball ; on returning next day I found the crow
sitting tight upon her own two eggs and the golf ball !

But in another case, where I had found two eggs and
substituted for them a couple of golf balls, the crow
refused to sit. I suppose the idea was, " I may be a bit
of a fool when I am nesting, but I am not such a fool as
all that!" I once came across a young koel and a crow's
egg in a nest. I removed the former and placed it in a
crow's nest containing four crow's eggs. The owner of
the nest showed no surprise at the sudden appearance
of the koel, but set about feeding it in the most matter-
of-fact way. The young koel was successfully reared ;
it is now at large and will next year victimise some
crow. I may say that no human being could possibly
fail to distinguish between a young koel and a young

i

THE INDIAN PADDY BIRD. (ARDEOI.A (IRAYIl)

PLAYING CUCKOO 115

crow. When first hatched the koel has a black skin,
the crow a pink one. The mouth of the crow nestHng
is an enormous triangle with great fleshy flaps at the
side ; the mouth of the koel is much smaller and lacks
the flaps. The feathers arise very differently in each
species, and whereas those of the crow are black, those
of the koel are tipped with russet in the cock and white
in the hen.

In another nest containing a young koel (put there
by me) and two crow's eggs, I placed a paddy bird's
{Ardeola grayii) Qgg^ hoping that the gallant crow would
hatch it out and appreciate the many-sidedness of her
family. She hatched out the egg all right, at least
I believe she did. I saw it in the nest the day before the
young paddy bird was due ; but when I visited the nest
the following morning neither egg nor young bird was
there. It would seem that the crow did not appreciate
the appearance of the latest addition to the family and
destroyed it. It is, of course, possible that the young
koel declined to associate with such a neighbour and
killed it ; but I think that the crow was the culprit, for
I had previously placed a paddy bird nestling, four
days old, in a crow's nest containing only young crows,
and the paddy bird had similarly disappeared.

These, then, are the main facts which my game of
cuckoo has brought to light. They are not so decisive
as I had expected. They seem to indicate that the
actions of birds with eggs or young are not quite so
mechanical as I had supposed. Were they not largely
mechanical a crow would never hatch out a koel's egg,
nor would it feed the young koel when hatched out ; it

ii6 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

would not incubate a fowl's or a paddy bird's egg, and
it would assuredly decline to sit upon a c^olf ball. On
the other hand, were the acts of nesting birds altogether
mechanical, the young paddy birds would have been
reared up, and the substitution of two golf balls for two
eggs would not have been detected. There is apparently
a limit to the extent to which intelligence is subservient
to blind instinct.

THE KOEL

jA NGLO-INDI ANS frequently confound the koel
/ ^ with the brain-fever bird. There is certainly

/ ^ some excuse for the mistake, for both are
cuckoos and both exceedingly noisy crea-
tures ; but the cry of the koel {^Eudynamis honorata)
bears to that of the brain-fever bird or hawk-cuckoo
{Hierococcyx variiis) much the same relation as the
melody of the organ-grinder does to that of a full
German band. Most men are willing to offer either the
solitary Italian or the Teutonic gang a penny to go into
the next street, but, if forced to choose between them,
select the organ-grinder as the lesser of the two evils.
In the same way, most people jfind the fluty note of the
koel less obnoxious than the shriek of the hawk-cuckoo.

The latter utters a treble note, which sounds like
" Brain fever." This it is never tired of repeating. It
commences low down the musical scale and then as-
cends higher and higher until you think the bird must
burst. But it never does burst. When the top note
is reached the exercise is repeated.

The koel is a bird of many cries. As it does not, like
the brain-fever bird, talk English, its notes are not easy
to reproduce on paper. Its commonest call is a cres-
cendo kuil, kuil^ kuil, from which the bird derives its
117

ii8 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

popular name. This cry is peculiar to the cock. The
second note is, to use the words of Colonel Cunningham,
"an outrageous torrent of shouts, sounding like k!ik,k2h~i,
kihi, kiiu, kiiu, kiifi, repeated at brief intervals in tones
loud enough to rouse the ' Seven Sleepers.' " The koel
is nothing if not impressive. He likes to utter this note
just before dawn, when all the world is still. As the
bird calls chiefly in the hot weather, when it frequently
happens that the hour before sunrise is almost the only
one in the twenty-four in which the jaded European can
sleep, this note is productive of much evil language on
the part of the aforesaid European.

The koel's third cry is well described by Cunningham
as a mere cataract of shrill shrieks — heekaree, karees.
This is heard mostly when the hen is fleeing for dear
life before a pair of outraged crows. So much for the
voice of the koel, now for a description of the singer.
The cock is a jet-black bird with a green bill and a red
eye. The hen is speckled black and white, with the eye
and beak as in the cock. Add to this the fact that the
koel is a little larger than the " merry cuckoo, messenger
of spring " which visits England, and it is impossible not
to recognise the bird.

This cuckoo, like many of its relatives, does not hatch
its own eggs. It cuckolds crows. This is no mean
performance, for the crow is a suspicious creature. It
knoweth full well the evil which is in its own heart, and
so, judging others by itself, watches unceasingly over its
nest from the time the first egg is deposited therein
until the hour when the most backward young one is
able to fly. Now, a koel is no match for a crow in open

THE KOEL 119

fight, hence it is quite useless for the former to attempt
by means of force to introduce its egg into the crow's
nest. It is obliged to resort to guile. The cock
entices away the crows, and while they are absent the
hen deposits her egg.

Crows appear to dislike the cry of the koel quite as
much as men do. But whereas man is usually content
with swearing at the noisy cuckoo, crows attack it with
beak and claw whenever an opportunity offers. This
fact is turned to account by the koel. The cock alights
in a tree near a crow's nest and begins to call. The
owners of the nest, sooner or later, " go for " him. He
then takes to his wings, continuing to call, so as to
induce the crows to prolong the chase. As he is a
more rapid flier than they, he does not run much risk.
While the irate corvi are in pursuit, the hen koel, who
has been lurking around, slips into the nest and there
lays her egg. If she is given time she destroys one or
more of those already in the nest. She does this, not
because the crows would detect the presence of an
additional egg, but in order that her young, when
hatched, will not be starved owing to the large number
of mouths to feed.

Crows, although such clever birds, are, as we have seen,
remarkably stupid at the nesting season. They are
unable to distinguish the koel's egg from their own,
although the former is considerably smaller, with an
olive-green background instead of a bluish one ; and
when the young koel emerges from the egg, they are
unable to differentiate between it and their own off-
spring, although baby koels are black and baby crows

120 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

pink, when first hatched out. The koel nesthng has
one point in common with young crows, and that is a
large mouth of which the inside is red. This is opened
wide whenever a parent approaches, so that the latter
sees nothing but a number of yawning caverns ; thus
there is some excuse for its failure to distinguish between
the true and the spurious nestlings.

To return to the koel who is laying her egg in the
momentarily deserted nest. She does not carry her egg
thither in her beak as the common cuckoo is said to do,
but sits in the nest and lays it there. Sometimes the
crows return before she is ready and, of course, attack
her, but as she can fly faster than they, they do not
often succeed in harming her, although there are
instances on record of crows mobbing female koels to
death. It will thus be seen that cuckolding crows is
dangerous work. The life of the cuckoo is not all beer
and skittles, and the birds seem to feel the danger of
their existence, for at the breeding season they
appear to be in a most excited state, and are manifestly
afraid of the crows. This being so, I am inclined to
think that the latter are responsible for the parasitic
habit of the koel. It is not improbably a case of the
biter bit. Crows are such aggressive birds that they are
quite capable of evicting any other bird from its nest if
this be large enough to suit their purpose. Now
suppose a koel to be thus evicted by force when ready
to lay; it is quite conceivable that she might make
frantic efforts to lay in her rightful nest, and if she
succeeded, and the crows failed to detect her egg, they
would hatch out her offspring. If the koels which acted

THE KOEL 121

thus managed to have their offspring reared for them,
while those that attempted to build fresh nests dropped
their eggs before the new nurseries were ready, natural
selection would tend to weed out the latter and thus
the parasitic habit might arise, until eventually the koel
came to forget how to build a nest.

In this connection it is important to bear in mind
that the nearest relatives of the koel are non-parasitic.
It is therefore not improbable that in the koel the para-
sitic habit has an independent origin.

This instinct has undoubtedly been evolved more
than once. It does not necessarily follow that similar
causes have led to its origin in each case.

The suggestion I have made is made only with
reference to the koel, which differs from other cuckoos
in that it dupes a bird stronger and bigger than itself.
But this is a digression.

If the koel have time, she destroys one or more of the
existing eggs, and will sometimes return later and
destroy others. Although the crow cannot distinguish
between her own and koel's eggs, the koel can, I have
come across several crows' nests which each contained
only two koel's eggs.

The young koel is a better-behaved bird than some
of its relations, for it ejects neither the eggs still in the
nest when it is hatched nor its foster-brethren. But
the incubating period of the koel is shorter than that of
the crow, so that the koel's egg is always the first to
hatch out. The koel seems never to make the mistake
of depositing its egg among nearly incubated ones.
Thus the young koel commences life with a useful start

122 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

on its foster-brethren. It soon increases this start,

as it grows very fast, and is ready to fly before the

earliest feathers of its foster-brothers are out of their

sheaths.

It does not, however, leave its foster-parents when
able to fly. It sits on the edge of the nest and makes
laudable, if ludicrous, efibrts at cawing. The crows
continue feeding it long after it has left the nest, looking
after it with the utmost solicitude. A young koel is
somewhat lacking in intelligence ; it seems unable to
distinguish its foster-parents from any other crow, for it
opens its mouth at the approach of every crow, evidently
expecting to be fed.

The natives of the Punjab assert that the hen koel
keeps her eye on the crow's nest in which she has laid her
egg or eggs during the whole of the time that the young
cuckoo is in it, and takes charge of her babe after it
leaves the nest. This assertion appears to be incorrect.
I have never seen a koel feeding anything but itself.
Moreover, the koel lays four or five eggs, and these are
not usually all deposited in one nest. It would therefore
be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for the hen to
keep an eye on each of her eggs.

In view of the hatred which crows display towards
koels in general, naturalists have expressed surprise
that the young koels are not mobbed directly they
leave the nest. Their plumage differs in no way from
that of the adult. It has been suggested that young
koels retain the crow smell for a considerable time after
they are fledged. This I cannot accept. The olfactory
organ of birds is but slightly developed. Indeed, I am

THE KOEL 123

inclined to wonder whether birds have any sense of
smell. The truth of the matter is that crows look after
their foster-children most carefully for several weeks
after they have left the nest, and see that no strange
crow harms them.

THE COMMON DOVES OF INDIA

THE dove family ought to have become
extinct ages ago, if all that orthodox
zoologists tell us about the fierce struggle
for existence be true. They form a
regular " Thirteen Society." They do everything they
should not do, they disobey every rule of animal
warfare, they fall asleep when sitting exposed on a
telegraph wire, they build nests in all manner of foolish
places, their nests are about as unsafe as a nursery
can possibly be, and they flatly decline to lay pro-
tectively coloured eggs — their white eggs are a standing
invitation to bird robbers to indulge, like the Cambridge
crew of 1906, in an egg diet; yet, in spite all of these
foolhardy acts, doves flourish like the green bay tree.
This is a fact of which I require an explanation before
I can accept all the doctrines of the Neo-Darwinian
school.

There are so many species of dove in India that
when speaking of them one must perforce, unless one
be writing a great monograph, confine oneself to two
or three of the common species. I propose to-day to
talk about our three commonest Indian doves, that
is to say, the spotted dove {Turtur suratensis), the
Indian ring-dove {Turtur risorius), and the little brown
124

THE COMMON DOVES OF INDIA 125
dove {Turtur cmnbayensis). I make no apology for
discoursing upon these common species. I contend
that we in India know so very little about even our
everyday birds that it is a needless expenditure of
energy to seek out the rarer species and study their
habits ; we have plenty to learn about those that come
into our verandahs and coo to us.

The curious distribution of our common Indian
doves has not, so far as I know, been explained. In
very few places are all three common. One or other of
them is usually far more abundant than the others, and
this one is usually the spotted dove. It is the com-
monest dove of Calcutta, of Madras, of Travancore, of
Tirhoot, of Lucknow, but not of Lahore or Bombay or
the Deccan. Why is this .? Why is it that, whereas
the Deccan is literally overrun by the ring- and the
little brown dove, one can go from Bombay to Mala-
bar without meeting one of these species, but seeing
thousands of the spotted dove ?

The only explanation that I can offer of this pheno-
menon is that the spotted dove is the most pugnacious
and the most pushing ; that where he chooses to settle
down he ousts the other species of dove more or less
completely; but he, fortunately for the other species,
does not choose to settle down in all parts of India.
He objects to dry places. Hence he is not seen at
Lahore or in the Deccan, or in the drier parts of the
United Provinces, such as Agra, Muttra, Etawah, and
Cawnpore.

This is only a theory of mine, and a theory in favour
of which I am not able to adduce very much evidence.

126 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

since my personal knowledge of India is confined to
some half-a-dozen widely separated places. Moreover,
this theory does not explain the absence of the spotted
dove from Bombay. I should be very glad to know if
there are any other moist parts of India where the
spotted dove is not the most abundant of the cooing
family.

The nest of the dove is a subject over which most
ornithologists have waxed sarcastic. A more ram-
shackle structure does not exist ; yet the absurd thing
is that doves are most particular about the materials
they use.

The other day I watched, with much amusement, a
little brown dove at work nest building. It was con-
structing a shake-down in a small Lonicera bush. Now,
obviously, since the nest is just a few twigs and stalks
thrown together, any kind of short twig or stem will
serve for building material. This, however, was not the
view of the dove. If that creature had been construct-
ing the Forth Bridge it could not have been more
particular as regards the materials it picked up. It
strutted about the ground, taking into its bill all man-
ner of material only to reject it, until at last it picked
up a dead grass stalk and flew off with it in triumph !

Presumably doves take the same trouble in selecting
a site for their nest, nevertheless they sometimes event-
ually choose the most impossible spot. Thus Mr. A.
Anderson has recorded the existence of a nest of a
pair of little brown doves that " was placed close to
the fringe of the kunnaut of his tent on one of the
corner ropes, where it is double for some six inches

THE COMMON DOVES OF INDIA 127
and there knotted. The double portion was just broad
enough, being three inches apart, to support the nest
with careful balancing ; the knot acted as a sort of
buffer and prevented the twigs from sliding off, which
most assuredly would otherwise have been the case, for
the rope just there was at an angle of 45°."

Those foolish birds were not permitted to bring up
their young, because the tent had to be struck before
the eggs were laid.

In Lahore a favourite nesting site for the little
brown dove is on the top of the rolled-up portion of
the verandah chik. As the cJiik is composed of stout
material, the rolled-up portion forms an excellent plat-
form some four inches broad. But as the doves nest
just as the weather is beginning to grow warm, the
little home is apt to be somewhat rudely broken up.
One pair, however, has this year successfully reared up
two young hopefuls in a nest on this somewhat pre-
carious site. The doings of these form the subject of
the next article.

I once came across a nest of this little dove in a
low, prickly bush beside a small canal distributory, three
miles outside Lahore. The dove appeared to have used
as the foundation for its nest an old one of the striated
bush babbler {Argya caudata). (I object to calling this
bird the common babbler, since, like common sense, it
is not very common.) In the same bush, at the same
level, that is to say, about a yard from the ground and
only a couple of feet from the dove's nest, was that of a
striated bush babbler containing three dark blue eggs.
This is a case upon which those who believe that eggs

128 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

laid in open nests are protectively coloured would do

well to ponder.

There, side by side, in precisely the same environment,
were two nests — one containing white and the other dark
blue eggs. Obviously both sets of eggs could not be
protectively coloured ; as a matter of fact, both clutches
of eggs were conspicuous objects. It not infrequently
happens that the Indian robin {Thainnobia cambayensis),
which lays white eggs thickly spotted with reddish
brown, brings up a family in a disused nest of a striated
bush babbler's. The eggs of this latter are dark blue.
It is surely time that zoologists gave up throwing at us
their everlasting theory of protective colouring. If this
were a si7ie qua non of the safety of birds' eggs, then the
whole dove tribe would, long ago, have ceased to exist.

This family presents the ornithologist with yet
another problem in colouration. In every species,
except the red turtle-dove {Oenopopelia tranqiiebaiicd),
both sexes are coloured alike. In this latter, however,
there is very pronounced sexual dimorphism. The
ruddy wing feathers of the cock enable one to dis-
tinguish him at once from his mate and from every
other dove. Now the habits of this dove appear to be
exactly like those of all other species. It constructs
the same kind of nest and in similar situations ; why
then the sexual dimorphism in this species and in no
other species? If the lady rufous turtle-dove likes nice
ruddy wings, and thus the red wing has been evolved in
the cock bird, why has she too not inherited it? I
presume that even the most audacious Neo-Darwinian
will not talk about her greater need of protection when

THE COMMON DOVES OF INDIA 129
sitting on the nest, for if she needs protection, how much
more so do her white eggs ? Further, it is my belief
that the cock bird takes his turn in the incubation.

It must not be thought that I am needlessly poking
fun at modern biologists. I merely desire to call atten-
tion to the unsolved problems that confront us on all
sides, and to protest against the dogmatism of biology
which declares that the Darwinian theory explains the
whole of organic nature. As a matter of fact, it seems
to me that the field naturalist cannot but feel that
natural selection is turning out rather a failure.

In conclusion, one more word regarding the red
turtle-dove. Its distribution has not been carefully
worked out, and what we do know of it is not easy
to explain. Hume says that it breeds in all parts of
India, but is very capriciously distributed, and he is
unable to say what kind of country it prefers, and why
it is common in one district and rare in a neigh-
bouring one in which all physical conditions appear
identical.

It is very common in the bare, arid, treeless region
that surrounds the Sambhur Lake. It is common in
some dry, well-cultivated districts, like Etawah, where
there are plenty of old mango groves. It is very com-
mon in some of the comparatively humid tracts, like
Bareilly, and again in the sal jungles of the Kumaun
Bhabar and the Nepal Terai. On the other hand, over
wide extents of similar country it is scarcely to be seen.
Doubtless there is something in its food or manner of
life that limits its distribution, but no one has yet been
able to make out what this something is.

DOVES IN A VERANDAH

THE office building in which for some time
past I have rendered service to a paternal
government was once a tomb. That it is
now an office is evidence of the strict
economy practised by the Indian Administration.
Since the living require more light than the dead,
skylights have been let into the domed roof. In these
the brown rock-chat {Cei-comela ficscd) loves to sit
and pour forth his exceedingly sweet little lay, while
his spouse sits on four pale blue eggs in a nest on a
ledge in a neighbouring sepulchre. But it is not of this
bird that I write to-day ; I hope to give him an innings
at some future date.

Two little brown doves {Turtur cambaiensis) first
demand our attention, since these for a time appro-
priated my skylights. This species is smaller than the
spotted dove so common in Madras, and, to my way
of thinking, is a much more beautiful bird. Its head,
neck, and breast are pale lilac washed with red. On
each side of the neck the bird carries a miniature chess-
board. The remainder of its plumage is brown, passing
into grey and white. The legs are lake-red.

It has a very distinctive note — a soft, subdued musical
cuk-cuk-coo-coo-coo. There is no bird better pleased with
130

DOVES IN A VERANDAH 131

itself than the little brown dove. In the month of
March the two doves in question were " carrying on " in
my office skylight to such an extent as to leave no
doubt that they had a nest somewhere. I discovered it
on the rolled-up end of one of the bamboo verandah
chiks. These are not let down in the cold weather, so
that the doves had been permitted to build undisturbed.

" Eha " has humorously described a dove's nest as
composed of two short sticks and a long one ; that of
the little brown dove is a little more compact than the
typical nest, a little less sketchy, and composed of grass
and fine twigs. There was plenty of room for it on
the top of the rolled-up portion of the chik.

When I found the nest there were two white eggs in
it. Every species of dove lays but two eggs. I do not
know whether the smallness of the clutch has anything
to do with the helplessness of the young birds when first
hatched. Young doves and pigeons have not, like other
baby birds, great mouths which open to an alarming
extent. They feed by putting their beaks in the mouth
of the parent and there they obtain " pigeon's milk,"
which is a secretion from the crop of the old birds.

Being at that time less versed in the ways of the
little brown dove than I now am, I was under the im-
pression that this nest was in rather a curious situation,
so I determined to obtain a photograph of it with the
young birds. I may here say that I dislike photo-
graphy, and not without cause. Some years ago I
visited the Himalayan snows, and dragged up a great
camera and a number of plates to an altitude of 12,000
feet. Having no portable dark room, I endured untold

132 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

agonies while changing the plates under the bedclothes.
Being anxious lest the light should reach the exposed
negatives, I wrapped them up very carefully, using
newspaper, which was the only wrapping available.
When I returned from the expedition I developed the
plates, but lo and behold ! instead of snowy peaks
and sunny valleys, advertisements of soaps and pills
appeared on the plates. Why do not books on the
camera tell one not to wrap up plates in newspaper?
I made a vow to leave photography to others, and I
kept the vow until I saw those young doves perched so
temptingly on the chik.

Having risked both life and limb in mounting a chair
placed upon a table, I obtained a " snap " at the nest.
On developing the plate everything appeared with
admirable clearness except the nest. There was nothing
but a blur where this should have been ; the rest of the
chik came out splendidly. The only explanation of this
phenomenon that I can offer is the natural " cussed-
ness " of the camera. I have now renewed my vow to
eschew photography.

The first young doves were successfully reared. No
sooner had they been driven forth into the world than
the parents set about repairing the nest, for doves are
not content with one brood ; when once a pair com-
mence nesting there is no knowing when they will stop.
As it was then April and the sun was growing uncom-
fortably hot, the letting down of the cJiik became a matter
of necessity, and this, of course, wrecked the nest. I
expected to see no more of the doves. In this I was mis-
taken. Before long they were billing and cooing as merrily

DOVES IN A VERANDAH 133

as before. A little search showed that this time they had
built a nest on the top of the same chik — a feat which I
should have thought impossible had I not seen the
nest with my own eyes. Some sacking was attached to
the chik, and this, together with the bamboo, presented
a surface of about half an inch. On this precarious
foundation the nest rested ; the twigs, of course, reached
over to the wall from which the chik was hung. Thus
the nest received some additional support. Needless to
say, the young birds had to remain very still or they
would have fallen out of the nest.

The second and the third broods were raised without
mishap. One of the birds of the fourth family was more
restless than his brethren had been ; consequently he
fell off the nest on to the floor of the verandah. He was
picked up and brought to me. Although not strong
enough to walk, or even stand, he showed unmistakable
signs of that evil temper which characterises all doves, by
opening his wings and pecking savagely at my hand.
In spite of this behaviour I set natural selection at
naught by putting him back into the nest. He fell out
again next day and was again replaced. This time he
stayed there, and is now probably at large.

When the fifth clutch of eggs was in the nest my
chaprassi, who, since I have shown him how to play
cuckoo, has been upsetting the domestic affairs of any
number of birds, asked whether he might substitute two
pigeon's eggs for those laid by the dove. The substitu-
tion was duly effected without rousing any suspicions
on the part of the doves. The young pigeons soon
hatched out and were industriously fed by their foster-

134 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

parents, nor did these latter appear to notice anything
unusual when the white plumage of the pigeons ap-
peared. Two days before the changelings were ready
to fly a terrific storm arose and so shook the chiks that
the poor pigeons were thrown off and killed. Nothing
daunted, the doves have since successfully reared a sixth
family ! Can we wonder that doves are numerous in
India?

THE GOLDEN ORIOLE

DAME Nature must have been in a very
generous mood when she manufactured
golden orioles, or she would never have
expended so much of her colour-box upon
them. Orioles are birds which compel our attention,
so brilliant are they ; yet the poets who profess to be
the high-priests of Nature give us no songs about these
beautiful creatures ; at least I know of no maker of
verse, with the exception of Sir Edwin Arnold, who
does more than mention the oriole. Here then is a fine
opening for some twentieth-century bard !

Two orioles, or mango birds as they are sometimes
called, are common in India, They are the Indian
oriole {Oriolus kundod) and the black-headed oriole
{O. melanocephalus). The Indian oriole is a bird about
the size of a starling. The plumage of the cock is a
splendid rich yellow. There is a black patch over and
behind the eye. There is some black on the tail, and
the large wing feathers are also of this colour. The bill
is pink and the eyes red. In the hen the yellow of the
back is deeply tinged with green.

The black-headed oriole may be distinguished by
his black head, throat, and upper breast. The habits
of both species are similar in every respect. The
135

136 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

Indian oriole seems to be merely a winter visitor to
Madras, and it is seen in the Punjab only during
the hot weather. In the intervening parts it may be
observed all the year round ; hence the species would
appear to perform a small annual migration, leaving
the South in the hot weather. In those parts where
orioles are found all the year round it is not improb-
able that the birds one sees in the winter are not
those that are observed during the summer.

The oriole is essentially a bird of the greenwood tree ;
if you would see him you should betake yourself to
some well-irrigated orchard. I have never seen an
oriole on the ground ; its habits are strictly arboreal,
but it does not seem to be at all particular about taking
cover. It perches by preference on the topmost bough
of a tree, and if this bough be devoid of leaves, so much
the better, for the bird enjoys a more extensive view of
the surrounding country. Very beautiful does such
a bird look, sitting outlined against the sky, as the first
rays of the morning sun fall upon and add fresh lustre
to its golden plumage. Orioles feed upon both fruit
and insects, and so cannot be regarded as unmixed
blessings to the agriculturalist.

As I have already said, Dame Nature has been
exceedingly kind to this bird ; not content with deck-
ing him out in brilliantly coloured raiment, she has
endowed him with a voice of which any bird might
well be proud. It is a clear, mellow whistle, which
is usually syllabised as peeho, peeho, or lorio, lorio ;
indeed, the name oriole is probably onomatopoetic.
In addition to this the bird has several other notes.

THE GOLDEN ORIOLE 137

These are not pleasant to the ear and may be described
as blends, in varying proportions, of the harsh call of
the king-crow and the miau of a cat. The hen almost
invariably utters such a note when a human being
approaches the nest ; but the cry apparently does not
always denote alarm, for I have heard an oriole uttering
it when sitting placidly in a tree, seemingly at peace
with all the world ; but perhaps that particular bird
may have been indulging in unpleasant day dreams ;
who knows?

We hear much of the marvellous nests of tailor- and
weaver-birds, but never of that of the oriole. Natural-
ists, equally with poets, have neglected this beautiful
species. An oriole's nest is in its way quite as wonder-
ful as that of the tailor-bird. If a man were ordered to
erect a cradle up in a tree, he would, I imagine, con-
struct it precisely as the oriole does its nest. This last
is a cup-shaped structure slung on to two or three
branches of a tree by means of fibres which are wound
first round one branch, then passed under the nest, and
finally wound round another bough. The nest is
therefore, as Hume pointed out, secured to its support-
ing branches in much the same way as a prawn net is
to its wooden framework.

In places where there are mulberry trees the oriole
shaves off narrow strips of the thin, pliable bark and
uses these to support the nest. Jerdon describes one
wonderful nest, taken by him at Saugor, that was
suspended by a long roll of cloth about three-quarters
of an inch wide, which the bird must have pilfered from
some neighbouring verandah. " This strip," he states,

138 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

" was wound round each limb of the fork, then passed
round the nest beneath, fixed to the other limb, and
again brought round the nest to the opposite side ; there
were four or five of these supports on either side." The
nest was so securely fixed that it could not have been
removed till the supporting bands had been cut or had
rotted away. Here then is an example of workman-
ship which the modern jerry-builder might well
emulate.

I have made repeated attempts to see orioles at
work on the supports of the nest, but so far have only
managed to observe them lining it. Upon one occasion
I came upon a nest some fifteen feet from the ground
from which hung two strips of fibre about sixteen inches
long that had been wound round one branch. I waited
for some time, hoping the birds would return and allow
me to see them finish the adjustment of these fibres ;
but unfortunately there was no cover available, and the
oriole is an exceedingly shy bird ; it will not do any-
thing to the nest if it knows it is being watched.

The completed nursery, viewed from below, looks like
a ball of dried grass wedged into the fork of a branch,
and may easily be mistaken for that of a king-crow, but
this last is, of course, not bound to the branches like
that of the oriole.

A very curious thing that I have noticed about the
Indian oriole's nest is that it is always situated either
in the same tree as a king-crow's nest or in an adjacent
tree. I have seen some thirteen or fourteen orioles'
nests since I first noticed this phenomenon, and have,
in every case, found a king-crow's nest within ten yards.

THE GOLDEN ORIOLE 139

The drongo builds earlier, for it is usually feeding its
young while the oriole is incubating. It would therefore
appear that it is the oriole which elects to build near the
king-crow. I imagine that it does so for the sake of
protection ; it must be a great thing for a timid bird to
have a vigorous policeman all to itself, a policeman who
will not allow a big creature to approach under any
pretext whatever.

The oriole lays from two to four white eggs spotted
with reddish brown. These spots readily wash off, and
sometimes the colour " runs " and gives the whole egg a
pink hue. Although both sexes take part in the con-
struction of the nursery, the work of incubation appears
to fall entirely upon the hen. I have never seen a cock
oriole sitting on the nest.

THE BARN OWL

THE barn owl is a cosmopolitan bird. It
is an adaptive species, and so has been able
to make itself at home all the world over.
Like every widely distributed species, in-
cluding man, it has its local peculiarities. The barn
owls of India are somewhat different from those of
Africa, and these latter, again, may be readily distin-
guished from those that dwell in Europe. This any
one may see for himself by paying a visit to the
Zoological Gardens at Regent's Park, where barn owls
from all parts of the world blink out their lives in
neighbouring cages. Needless to say, species-mongers
have tried to magnify these local peculiarities into
specific differences. The European bird is known as
Strix flammea. An attempt was made to differentiate
the Indian barn owl. If you look up the bird in
Jerdon's classical work you will see that it is called
Strix javaiiica. Jerdon's justification for making a new
species of it was its larger size, more robust feet and
toes, and the presence of spots on the lower plumage.
If such were specific differences we ought to divide up
man, Homo sapiens, into quite a large number of
species : Homo major, H. minor, H. longirostris, H.
brevirostris, etc.

140

THE BARN OWL 141

However, neither with the barn owl nor with man
has the species-maker had his own way. Ornithologists
recognise but one barn owl. This bird, which is fre-
quently called the screech owl, is delightfully easy to
describe. Everybody knows an owl when he sees one ;
but stay, I forgot the German Professor, mentioned by
Mr. Bosworth Smith, who held up in triumph the owl
which he had shot, saying : " Zee, I have shot von
schnipe mit einem face Push cat." Let me therefore
say it is easy enough for the average man to recognise
an owl, but it is quite another matter when it comes
to "spotting" the species to which an individual happens
to belong. As a rule the family likeness is so strong
as to overshadow specific differences. The barn owl,
however, differs from all others in that it has a long,
thin face. Take any common or garden owl, and you
will observe that it has a round, plum-pudding-like head.
Place that owl before one of those mirrors which make
everything look long and thin, and you will see in the
glass a very fair representation of the barn owl. The
face of this owl, when it is awake, is heart-shaped ;
when the bird is asleep it is as long as that of a junior
Madras Civil Servant as he looks over the Civil List.
Whether awake or asleep, the bird has an uncanny,
half-human look. It is innocent of the "ears" or
" horns " which form so conspicuous a feature of some
owls. In passing, I may say that those horn-like
tufts of feathers have no connection with the well-
developed auditory organ of the owl.

The barn owl's face is white, as is its lower plumage,
hence it is popularly known in England as the white

142 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

owl. The back and upper plumage are pale grey.
The tail is buff, and there is a good deal of buff scat-
tered about the rest of the plumage ; it is on this
account that the bird is called flavimea.

The barn owl is, I believe, common in all parts of
India, but it is not often seen owing to its strictly
nocturnal habits. It ventures not forth into the dazzling
light of day as does that noisy little clown, the spotted
owlet {Athene brama). Should it happen to be abroad
in daylight the crows make its life a burden. Friend
Corvus is a very conservative individual. He sets his
face steadfastly against any addition to the local fauna.
As he seldom or never sees the barn owl, he does not
include it among the birds of his locality ; so that when
one does show its face, the crows proceed to mob it.
Their efforts are well seconded by the small fry among
birds, who seem instinctively to dislike the whole owl
tribe.

During the day the barn owl sleeps placidly in the
interior of a decayed tree, or in a tomb, mosque, temple,
or ruin, or even in the secluded verandah of a bungalow.
The last place of abode is unsatisfactory from the point
of view of the owl, for Indian servants display an
antipathy towards it quite as great as that shown by the
crows. They believe that the owls bring bad luck, and
are in this respect not one whit more foolish than
ignorant folk in other parts of the world. This useful
and amusing bird is everywhere regarded with super-
stitious dread by the uneducated.

It lives almost exclusively on rats, mice, shrews, and
other enemies of the farmer. And as an exceptional

THE BARN OWL 143

case it will take a young bird, which is usually a
sparrow. Most people will agree that we can spare a
few sparrows ; nevertheless, that cruel idiot, the game-
keeper, classes the barn owl as vermin and shoots it
whenever he has the chance. This is fairly often,
owing to the confiding habits of the creature. It will
enter a bungalow after rats or moths, and will sometimes
terrify the timid sleeper by sitting on the end of his bed
and screaming at him 1

The owl is blessed with an appetite that would do
credit to an alderman. Lord Lilford states that he saw
" a young half-grown barn owl take down nine full-
grown mice, one after another, until the tail of the
ninth stuck out of his mouth, and in three hours' time
was crying for more." Let me anticipate the captious
critic by saying that it was the owl and not the tail of
the ninth mouse that, like Oliver Twist, called for more.
Moreover, the tail did not, as might be supposed, stick
out because the bird was " full up inside." The barn owl
invariably swallows a mouse head first ; it makes a mighty
gulp, with the result that the whole of the mouse, except
the tail, disappears. Thus the victim remains for a
short time in order that the owl may enjoy the bomie
bouche. Then the tail disappears suddenly, and the
curtain is rung down on the first act of the tragedy.
The second and third acts are like unto the first. The
last act is not very polite, but it must be described in
the interests of science. After an interval of a few
hours the owl throws up, in the form of a pellet, the
bones, fur, and other undigestible portions of his victims.
This is, of course, very bad manners, but it is the inevit-

144 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

able result of bolting a victim whole. One vice, alas !

leads to another.

Kingfishers, which swallow whole fish, likewise eject
the bones. This habit of the owl has enabled zoologists
to disprove the contention of the gamekeeper that the
barn owl lives chiefly upon young pheasants. The
bones found in these pellets are nearly all those of
small rodents.

The screech owl, as its name implies, is not a great
songster. It hisses, snores, and utters, during flight,
blood-curdling screams, which doubtless account for
its evil reputation. It lays roundish white eggs in a
hole in a tree or other convenient cavity. Three, four,
or six are laid, according to taste. I have never found
the eggs in India, but they are, in England at any rate,
laid, not in rapid succession, but at considerable intervals,
so that one may find, side by side in a nest, eggs and
young birds of various ages. I do not know whether
the owl derives any benefit from this curious habit.
It has been suggested that the wily creature makes the
first nestling which hatches out do some of the incu-
bating. Pranks of this kind are all very well when the
nest is hidden away in a hole ; they would not do in
an open nest to which crows and other birds of that
feather have access.

THE COMMON KINGFISHER. (ALCEDO ISTIDA)
(One of the British I'irds /oniui in India)

A TREE TOP TRAGEDY

IF I were a bird I would give the Indian crow a
very wide berth, and, whenever I did come into
unavoidable contact with him, I should behave
towards him with the most marked civility. A
clannishness prevails among crows which makes them
nasty enemies to tackle. If you insult one of the
" treble-dated " birds you find that the whole of the
corvi of the neighbourhood resent that insult as if it had
been addressed to each and every one individually, and
if you get back nothing more than your insult plus very
liberal interest, you are indeed lucky. In the same
way, crows will revenge an injury tenfold. The eye-for-
an-eye doctrine does not satisfy them ; for an eye they
want at least a pair of eyes, to say nothing of a com-
plete set of teeth. I recently witnessed an example of
what crows are capable of doing by way of revenge.

A couple of kites built high up in a lofty tree the
clumsy platform of sticks which we dignify by the
name " nest." This was furnished, soon after its com-
pletion, by a clutch of three straw-coloured eggs, hand-
somely blotched with red.

The uglist birds seem to lay the most beautiful eggs ;
this is perhaps the compensation which Dame Nature
gives them for their own lack of comeliness.
L 145

146 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

The kite is a very close sitter. Like the crow, she
knoweth the wickedness of her own heart, and as she
judges others by herself, deems it necessary to con-
tinually mount guard over her eggs. Patience eventually
meets with its reward. Three weeks of steady sitting
result in the appearance of the young kites.

This long and patient sitting on the part of parent
oirds is, when one comes to think of it, a most remark-
able phenomenon. No sooner do the eggs appear in
the nest than the most active little bird seems to lose
all its activity and become quite sedentary in its habits.
Take, for example, the sprightly white-browed fantail fly-
catcher {Rhipidtira albifrontata), a bird which ordinarily
seems to have St. Vitus's dance in every organ and
appendage. This species will, when it has eggs, sit as
closely or more closely than a barndoor hen, and will
sometimes allow you to stroke it. I often wonder what
are the feelings of such a bird when incubating. One
is tempted to think that it must find the process in-
tensely boring. But this cannot be so, or it would
refuse to sit. The fowls of the air are not hampered
by the Ten Commandments ; they are free to do that
to which the spirit moveth them, without let or hindrance,
without fear of arrest or prosecution for breach of the
law. Hence birds must positively enjoy sitting on their
eggs. At the brooding season avine nature undergoes
a complete change. Ordinarily a bird delights to ex-
pend its ebullient energy in vigorous motion, just as a
strong man delights to run a race ; but at the nesting
season its inclinations change ; then its greatest joy is
to sit upon its nest. Even as human beings are suddenly

A TREE-TOP TRAGEDY 147

seized with the Bridge craze and are then perfectly con-
tent to sit for hours at the card table, so at certain
seasons are birds overcome by the incubating mania.
If my view of the matter be correct, and I think it
must be, a sitting bird is no more an object for our pity
than is a Bridge maniac. But this is a digression.

Let us hie back to our kite and her family of young
ones in their lofty nursery. For a time all went well
with them. But one day the sun of prosperity which
had hitherto shone upon them became darkened by
great black clouds of adversity. I happened to pass
the nest at this time and saw about twenty excited
crows squatting on branches near the nest and cawing
angrily. The mother kite was flying round and round
in circles, and was evidently sorely troubled in spirit.
She had done something to offend the crows. Ere long
she returned to her nest, whereupon the crows took to
their wings, cawing more vociferously than ever. As
soon as the kite had settled on the nest they again
alighted on branches of the tree, and, each from a re-
spectful distance, gave what the natives of Upper India
call gali galoj. She tolerated for a time their vulgar
abuse, then left the nest. This was the signal for all
the crows to take to their wings. Some of them tried
to attack her in the air. For a few minutes I watched
them chasing her. After a little the attack began to
flag, I, therefore, came to the conclusion that the corvi
were recovering their mental equilibrium, and that the
whole affair would quickly fizzle out, as such incidents
usually do. Accordingly, I went on my way. Return-
ing an hour later, I was surprised to find the crows still

148 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

engaged in the attack. Moreover, the kite was not
visible and the crows had grown bokler, for whereas
previously they had abused the kite from a safe dis-
tance, some of them were now quite close to the nest.
Being pressed for time, I was not able to stay and await
developments. In the afternoon when I again passed
the nest I saw no kite, but the tree was alive with crows,
and part of the nest appeared to have been pulled down.
The nestlings had probably been destroyed. Of this I
was not able to make certain, for I was on my way to
fulfil a social engagement. I was, I admit, sorely tempted
to " cut " this, and nothing but the want of a good
excuse prevented my doing so. " Dear Mrs. Burra
Mem, I much regret that I was prevented from coming to
your tennis party this afternoon by a domestic bereave-
ment— of a kite," seemed rather unconvincing, so I went
to the lawn-tennis party.

When I saw the nest the following morning it was a
total wreck. There were still one or two crows hanging
around, and while I was inspecting the ground beneath
the scene of the tragedy they amused themselves by
dropping sticks on my head. The crow is an ill-
conditioned bird. I found, lying about on the ground,
the debris of the nest, a number of kite's feathers, in-
cluding six or seven of the large tail ones, and two
crow's wings. These last furnished the clue to the be-
haviour of the crows. The kite must have attacked
and killed a sickly crow, in order to provide breakfast
for her young. This was, of course, an outrage on
corvine society — an outrage which demanded speedy
vengeance. Hence the gathering of the clans which I

HE INDIAN KITE. (MILVUS GOV

A TREE-TOP TRAGEDY 149

had witnessed the previous day. At first the crows
were half afraid of the kite, and were content to call
her names ; but as they warmed up to their work they
gained courage, and so eventually killed the kite,
destroyed her nest, and devoured her young. Thus did
they avenge the murder.

TWO LITTLE BIRDS

THERE is, hidden away in a corner of North-
ern India, a tiny orchard which may be
Hkened to an oasis in the desert, because the
trees which compose it are always fresh and
green, even when the surrounding country is dry and
parched. Last April two or three of the paradise fly-
catchers who were on their annual journey northward
were tempted to tarry awhile in this orchard to enjoy
the cool shade afforded by the trees. They found the
place very pleasant, and insect life was so abundant that
they determined to remain there during the summer.
Thus it chanced that one morning, early in May, a cock
flycatcher was perched on one of the trees, preening his
feathers. A magnificent object was he amid the green
foliage. The glossy black of his crested head formed a
striking contrast to the whiteness of the remainder of
his plumage. His two long median tail feathers, that
hung down like satin streamers, formed an ornament
more beautiful than the train of a peacock. He was so
handsome that a hen flycatcher, who was sitting in a tree
near by, resolved to make him wed her ; but there was
another hen living in the same orchard who was equally
determined to secure the handsome cock as her mate.
Even while the first hen was admiring him, her rival
150

TWO LITTLE BIRDS 151

came up and made as if to show off her dainty chestnut
plumage. This so angered the first hen that she attacked
her rival. A duel then took place between the two little
birds. It was not of long duration, for the second hen
soon discovered that she was no match for the first,
and deeming discretion to be the better part of
valour, she flew away and left the orchard before she
sustained any injury. Then the triumphant hen, flushed
with victory, went up to the cock and said, " See what I
have done for love of thee. I have driven away my rival.
Wed me, I pray, for I am worthy of thee. Behold how
beautiful I am." The cock looked at her as she stood
there spreading her chestnut wings and saw that she
was fair to gaze upon. He then fluttered his snowy
pinions and sang a sweet little warble, which is the way
a cock bird tells the lady of his choice that he loves her.

For the next few days these little birds led an idyllic
existence. Free from care and anxiety, they disported
themselves in that shady grove, now playing hide-and-
seek among the foliage, now making graceful sweeps
after their insect quarry, now pouring out the fulness of
their love — the cock in sweet song and mellow warble,
the hen in her peculiar twittering note. Their happiness
was complete ; never did the shadow of a cloud mar the
sunshine of their springtime.

One day they were simultaneously seized by the im-
pulse to build a nest. First a suitable site had to be
chosen. After much searching and anxious consultation,
mingled with love-making, they agreed upon the branch
of a pear tree, some eight feet above the ground. During
the whole of the following week they were busy seeking

152 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

for grass stems, which they fastened to the branch of
the tree by means of strands of cobweb. They did not
hunt for material in company, as some birds do. The
cock would go in one direction and the hen in another.
Each, as it found a suitable piece of dried grass, or moss,
or cobweb, or whatever it happened to be seeking, would
dash back joyfully to the nest with it and weave it into
the structure. Sometimes one bird would return while
the other was at work on the nursery; the former would
then sit near by and wait until the latter had finished.

At the end of the first day the nest appeared to the
uninitiated eye merely a tangle of grass stems stuck on to
the tree, but owing to the united efforts of the energetic
little builders, it soon took definite shape. By the third
day it was obvious that the nest was to have the form
of an inverted cone firmly bound to the branch of the
tree. The birds took the utmost care to make the nest
circular. In order to ensure a smooth, round cavity they
would sit in it and, with wings spread over the edge, turn
their bodies round and round. At the end of about five
days' steady work the nursery had assumed its final
shape. But even then much remained to be done. The
whole of the exterior had to be thickly covered with
cobweb and little silky cocoons. This was two full days'
work.

Great was the delight of the little birds when the last
delicate filament had been added. Their joy knew no
bounds. They would sit in the nest and cry out in pure
delight. The whole orchard rang with their notes of
jubilation. Then a little pinkish egg, spotted with red,
appeared in the nest. This was followed, next day, by

TWO LITTLE BIRDS 153

another. On the fifth day after its completion the
nursery contained the full clutch of four eggs.

Most carefully did the birds watch over their priceless
treasures. Never for a moment did they leave them
unguarded ; one of the pair invariably remained sitting
on the nest, while the other went to look for food and
dissipate its exuberant energy in song or motion. Dur-
ing the day the cock and hen shared equally the duties
of incubation, but the hen sat throughout the night
while the cock roosted in a tree hard by. So healthy
were the little birds and so comfortably weary with the
labours of the day that they slept uninterruptedly all the
night through ; nor did they wake up when a human
being came with a lantern and inspected the nest. Thus
some ten days passed. But these were not days of
weariness,because the hearts of the little flycatchers were
full of joy.

Then a young bird emerged from one of the eggs. It
was an unlovely, naked creature — all mouth and stomach.
But its parents did not think it ugly. Its advent only
served to increase their happiness. They were now able
to spend their large surplus of energy in seeking food
for it.

Ere long its brethen came out of their shells, and there
were then four mouths to feed ; so that the father and
mother had plenty to do, but they still found time in
which to sing.

Thus far everything had gone as merrily as a marriage
bell. The happiness of those lovely little airy fairy
creatures was without alloy. It is true that they some-
times had their worries and anxieties, as when a human

154 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

being chanced to approach the nest ; but these were
as fleeting as the tints in a sunset sky, and were half
forgotten ere they had passed away. This idyllic exist-
ence was, alas, not destined to endure.

One day, when the man who kept guard over the
orchard slumbered, a native boy entered it with the
intention of stealing fruit. But the pears were yet green,
and this angered the urchin. As he was about to leave
the grove he espied the beautiful cock flycatcher sitting
on the nest. The boy had no soul for beauty ; he was
not spell-bound by the beautiful sight that met his eyes.
He went to the tree, drove away the sitting bird, tore
down the branch on which the nest was placed and bore
it off with its occupants in triumph, amid the distressed
cries of the cock bird. These soon brought back the
hen, and great was her lamentation when she found that
that which she valued most in the world had gone. Her
sorrow and rage knew no bounds. Poignant, too, was
the grief of the cock bird, for he had been an eye-witness
of the dastardly act. For a few hours all the joy seemed
to have left the lives of those little birds. But they
were too active, too healthy, too full of life to be miserable
long. Soon the pleasantness of their surroundings
began to manifest itself to them and soothe their
sorrow, for the sun was still shining, the air was sweet
and cool, the insects hummed their soft chorus, and their
fellow-birds poured forth their joy. So the cock began
to sing and said to his mate, " Be not cast down, the year
is yet young, many suns shall come and go before the
cold will drive us from this northern clime ; there is
time for us to build another nest. Let us leave this

TWO LITTLE BIRDS 155

treacherous grove and seek some other place." The
hen found that these words were good. Thus did these
little birds forget their sorrow and grow as blithe and
gay as they had been before. But that orchard knew
them no more.

THE PARADISE FLYCATCHER

THE cock paradise flycatcher {Terpsiphone
paradisi), when in full adult plumage, is a
bird of startling beauty. I shall never
forget the first occasion upon which I saw
him. It was in the Himalayas when night was falling
that I caught sight o^ some white, diaphanous-looking
creature flitting about among the trees. In the dim
twilight it looked ghostly in its beauty.

It is the two elongated, middle tail feathers which
render the bird so striking. They look like white satin
streamers and are responsible for the bird's many
popular names, such as cotton - thief, ribbon - bird,
rocket-bird. But this flycatcher has more than striking
beauty to commend it to the naturalist ; it is of sur-
passing interest from the point of view of biological
theory. The cock is one of the few birds that undergo
metamorphosis during adult life, and the species furnishes
an excellent example of sexual dimorphism.

Since the day, some years back, when I first set eyes
upon the bird, I determined to learn something of its
habits ; but I had to wait long before I was able to
carry out my determination. It was not until I came
to Lahore that I saw much of the species. Here let me
say that the capital of the Punjab, unpromising as
iS6

THE PARADISE FLYCATCHER 157
it looks at first sight, is, when one gets to know it, a
veritable gold mine for the ornithologist.

I'aradise flycatchers migrate there in great numbers
in order to breed. They arrive at the end of April and
at once commence nesting operations. Before de-
scribing these, let me, in order to enable non-ornith-
ological readers to appreciate what follows, say a few
words regarding the plumage of the bird. The young
of both sexes are chestnut in colour, with the exception
of a black head and crest and whitish under parts.
This plumage is retained by the hen throughout life.
After the autumn moult of the second year the two
median tail feathers of the cock grow to a length of six-
teen inches, that is to say, four times the length of the
other tail feathers, and are retained till the following May
or June, when they are cast. After the third autumn
moult they again grow, and the plumage now begins to
become gradually white, the wings and tail being the
first portions to be affected by the change; thus the cock
is for a time partly chestnut and partly white, and it is
not until he emerges from the moult of his fourth
autumn that all his feathers are white, with, of course,
the exception of those of his head and crest. The bird
retains this plumage until death. Cock birds breed in
either chestnut or white plumage ; this proves that the
metamorphosis from chestnut to white takes place after
the bird has attained maturity.

In Lahore this species nests in considerable numbers
along the well-wooded banks of the Ravi. Since the
birds keep to forest country it is not easy to follow their
courting operations for any length of time ; the birds

158 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

engaged in courtship appear for a moment and then
are lost to view among the foliage, but the species is
certainly monogamous, and 1 think there can be but
little doubt that the hen courts the cock quite as much
as he courts her. On 28th April I was out with Mr.
G. A. Pinto, and he saw a couple of hens chasing a cock
in white plumage. Presently one of the hens drove
away the other, then the cock showed off to the triumph-
ant hen, expanding his wings and uttering a sweet little
song, like the opening bars of that of the white-browed
fantail flycatcher {Rhipidnra albifrontatd). I myself
was not a witness of that incident, the birds not being
visible from where I was standing at the time ; but on
3rd June I saw a cock bird in chestnut plumage and a
hen fighting ; before long the birds disengaged them-
selves and the male flew off; then a cock in white
plumage came up to the hen and gave her a bit of his
mind. After this they both disappeared among the
foliage. Presently I saw two hens chasing a chestnut-
coloured cock. I do not understand the full significance
of these incidents, but they tend to refute Charles
Darwin's contention that there is competition among
cocks for hens but none among hens for cocks, and to
show that the hen takes an active part in courtship.
To this I shall return.

It does not seem to be generally known that the cock
paradise flycatcher is capable of emitting anything
approaching a song. Thus Oates writes in The Fauna
of British India of these flycatchers, " their notes are
very harsh." This is true of the usual call, which is
short, sharp, and harsh, something like the twitter of an

THE PARADISE FLYCATCHER 159
angry sparrow. But in addition to this the cock has two
tuneful calls. One resembles the commencement of
the song of the white-browed fantail flycatcher, and the
other is a sweet little warble of about four notes. I
have repeatedly been quite close to the cock when thus
singing and have seen his throat swell when he sang,
so there can be no question as to the notes being his.
He thus furnishes one of the many exceptions to the
rule that brilliantly plumaged birds have no song.

The nest is a deepish cup, firmly attached to two or
more slender branches ; it is in shape like an inverted
cone with the point prolonged as a stalk. It is com-
posed chiefly of vegetable fibres and fine grass ; these
being coated outwardly by a thick layer of cobweb and
small white cocoons. Let me take this opportunity of
remarking that cobweb affords a most important building
material to bird masons ; it is their cement, and many
species, such as sunbirds and flycatchers, use it most
unsparingly.

The paradise flycatcher seems to delight to build in
exposed situations, hence a great many of their nests
come to grief, especially in the Punjab, where, if there
be anything in phrenology, the bumps of destructive-
ness and cruelty must be enormously developed in
every small boy.

The nesting habits of the paradise flycatcher have
been described in detail in the preceding article. They
are of considerable biological importance. I would lay
especial stress on the active part in courtship played
by the hen, the large share in incubation taken by the
cock, and the change in the plumage of the cock bird

i6o BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

from chestnut to white in the third year of his
existence.

Darwin, as I have aheady pointed out, devoted much
time and energy in trying to prove that there is in most
species competition among males for females, and that
these latter are in consequence able to exercise a selec-
tion. They choose the most brilliant and beautiful of
their numerous suitors. Thus we have what he calls
sexual selection, or, as I should prefer to call it, feminine
selection. On this theory the poor cock exercises no
selection ; any decrepit old hen is good enough for
him ! He is all eagerness, while the hen is blase and
indifferent. This theory is, I submit, improbable on
a priori grounds. It is certainly opposed to human
experience, and is, I believe, not borne out by animal
behaviour.

I have paid some attention to the subject lately, and
am convinced that in most cases the desire of the hen
for the cock is as great as the desire of the latter for the
hen. It was only this morning that I watched two hen
orioles trying to drive each other away, while the cock
was in a tree near by.

To repeat what I have already said, the hen courts
the cock quite as much as he courts her. When a
pair of birds mate they are mutually attracted to one
another. That there is such a thing as sexual selection
I am convinced, but I do not believe that this selection
is confined to the hens. The hen selects the best cock
she can get to pair with her, while the cock selects the
best hen available.

I speak here of monogamous species ; among poly-

THE PARADISE FLYCATCHER i6i

gamous ones there must of necessity be considerable
competition for hens.

The second point upon which I desire to lay stress
is the active part taken by the cock paradise flycatcher
in incubation. This, again, is, I believe, nothing very
uncommon, even in sexually dimorphic species, for
I have myself put a cock minvet {Pericrocotus peregrinus)
off the nest. Yet this fact seems to dispose of Wallace's
theory that the more sombre hues of the hen are due
to her greater need of protection, since she alone is
supposed to incubate.

As a matter of fact, a bird sitting on a nest is not, in
my opinion, exposed to any special danger, for it seems
that birds of prey as a rule only attack flying objects.

Finally, there is the extraordinary metamorphosis
undergone by the cock in his fourth year. It is
difficult to see how this can have been caused by the
preference of the hen for white cock birds, since a great
many chestnut ones are observed to breed ; the di-
morphism must, therefore, have originated late in the life
history of the species, and although a hen bird might
prefer a white to a chestnut husband, it is difficult to
believe that she would prefer a skewbald one, and this
skewbald state must have been an ancestral stage if we
believe that the transition is due to feminine selection
of white birds. I may be asked, "If you decline to
believe that the hen has greater need of protection
than the cock, how do you account for the phenomena
of sexual dimorphism, and if it is not sexual selection
which has caused the white plumage of the cock
paradise flycatcher to arise, what is it ? "

M

i62 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

This article has already attained such a length that
even had I complete explanations to offer I could not
set them forth in this place. I must content myself
with giving what I believe to be the key to the solution
of the problem. I think that there is little doubt that
what a bird looks for in its mate is, 7iot beauty or brilliance
of plumage^ but vigour and strength. If beauty is a
correlative character to strength, then the hen selects
the most beautiful of the cocks willing to mate with
her, not because of his beauty, but on account of his
strength ; likewise the cock. Now there is a very
intimate connection between the generative cells and
the body cells, and the male element tends to dissipate
energy and the female element to conserve it. Thus it is
that the general tendency of the cock is to become gaily
coloured and to grow plumes and other ornaments,
while the tendency of the hen is to remain of com-
paratively sombre hue.

BUTCHER BIRDS

BUTCHER birds are so called because they
are reputed to have a habit of impaling on
thorns their larger victims, or as much of
them as they, owing to want of accommo-
dation, are incapable of eating at the time of the murder,
A bush which displays a number of impaled victims —
young birds, lizards, locusts, and the like — is supposed,
by a stretch of the ornithological imagination, to look like
a butcher's shop. All that is wanted to perfect the illu-
sion is a sign-board, bearing the legend " Lanius vittatus,
Purveyor of Meat." I must here admit, with charac-
teristic honesty, that I have never set eyes upon such a
butcher's shop, or larder, as it should be called, for the
shrike does not sell his wares — he merely stores them for
personal consumption. Nor have I even seen a shrike
impale a victim. My failure cannot, I think, be attri-
buted to lack of observation ; for I never espy one of
these miniature birds of prey without watching it atten-
tively, in the hope that it will oblige me by acting as all
books on ornithology tell me shrikes do. Every butcher
bird I have witnessed engaged in shikar has pounced
down upon its insect quarry from a suitable perch,
seized the luckless victim upon the ground, imme-
diately carried it back to its perch and devoured it then
163

i64 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

and there. I have seen this operation repeated scores
of times. I, therefore, think I am justified in suggesting
that the habit of keeping a larder is probably restricted
to the larger species of shrike, and that these only im-
pale their victim when there is still something of it left
over, after they have eaten so much that for the time
being they cannot possibly stow away any more.
Jerdon, I notice, makes no mention of ever having seen
a butcher bird behave in the orthodox manner. Colonel
Cunningham, who is a very close observer of bird life,
says, as the result of a long sojourn in India, that
shrikes " 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 upon a stout thorn so as to have a point of
resistance whilst working at the hard, tough skin." If
any who read these lines have seen a shrike's larder,
either in India or in England, I should esteem it a great
favour if they would furnish me with some account of it.
Let me not be mistaken. I do not say that butcher
birds never keep larders, for they undoubtedly do ; of
this I am satisfied. Thus Mr. E. H. Aitken says of the
shrike : " It sits upright on the top of a bush or low
tree, commanding a good expanse of open, grassy land,
and watches for anything which it may be able to sur-
prise and murder — a large grasshopper, a small lizard, or
a creeping field mouse. Sometimes it sees a possible
chance in a flock of small birds absorbed in searching
for grass seeds. Then it slips from its watch-tower and,
gliding softly down, pops into the midst of them with-
out warning, and forgetting all about the true nature of

BUTCHER BIRDS 165

its deep plantar tendons, strikes its talons into the
nearest. No other bird I know of makes its attack in
this way except the birds of prey. The little bird shrieks
and struggles, but the cruel shrike holds fasts and ham-
mers at the victim's head with its strong beak until it is
dead, then flies away with it to some thorn bush which
is its larder. There it hangs it up on a thorn and
leaves it to get tender. . . . This is no fable, I have
seen the bird do it." Again, the Rev. C. D. Cullen,
with whom I have enjoyed many an ornithological
ramble in England and on the continent of Europe,
informs me that once in Surrey he came upon a shrike's
larder, and on that occasion the " shop " consisted of the
legs of a young green finch.

The usual food, then, of the butcher bird appears to be
small insects. When a suitable opportunity offers, the
larger species will attack a lizard or a young or sickly
bird, especially a bird in a cage. Of the rufous-backed
shrike Mr. Benjamin Aitken writes : " It will come
down at once to a cage of small birds exposed at a
window, and I once had an amadavat killed and partly
eaten through the wires by one of these shrikes, which I
saw in the act with my own eyes. The next day I
caught the shrike in a large basket which I set over the
cage of amadavats." But, of course, it is one thing to
catch a bird in a cage and another to capture it in the
open. Shrikes are savage enough for any murder, but
most little birds are too sharp for them.

Fifteen species of shrike occur in India. The com-
monest are, perhaps, the Indian grey shrike {Lanius
lahtord) and the bay-backed shrike {Lanius vittatus).

i66 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

The latter is the one that frequents our gardens. He
is not a large bird, being about the size of a bulbul.
The head and back of the neck are a pretty grey. The
back is chestnut-maroon, shading off to whitish near the
tail. There is a broad black streak running across the
forehead and through the eye, giving the bird a grim,
sinister aspect. The breast and lower parts are white ;
the wings and tail black, or rather appear black when
the bird is at rest. During flight the pinions display a
conspicuous white bar, and the white outer tail feathers
also come into view. The stout beak is black, and the
upper mandible projects downwards over the lower one.
This further adds to the ferocity of the bird's mien. It
is impossible to mistake a butcher bird ; look out for
its grey head, broad, black eyebrow, and white breast.

The usual note of the shrike is a harsh cry, but during
the breeding season, that is to say, from March to July,
the cock is able to produce quite a musical song.

At all times the butcher bird is a great mimic. I am
indebted to a correspondent for the following graphic
account of his histrionic performances : " Of late one of
these birds has daily perched himself on a neeui tree in my
compound and treated me to much music. His hours of
practice are early in the morning and at sunset. He
begins with his natural harsh notes, and then launches
out into mimicry. I gave him a patient hearing this
morning, and he treated me to the following : the lap-
wing, the sparrow-hawk, the partridge, the Brahminy
minah, the kite, the honeysucker, the hornbill (of these
parts), the scream of the green parrot, and the cry of
a chicken when being carried off by a kite."

BUTCHER BIRDS 167

The nests of the various species of shrike resemble
one another very closely. Speaking generally, the nest
is a neatly made, thick-walled, somewhat deep cup.
All manner of material is pressed into service — grass,
roots, wool, hair, leaves, feathers, pieces of rag, paper,
fine twigs, and straw. The whole forms a compact
structure firmly held together by cobweb, which is the
cement ordinarily utilised by bird masons.

The nursery is usually situated in a small tree, a
thorny one for preference, in the fork of a branch, or
the angle that a branch makes with the main stem.
Seen from below it looks likes a little mass of rubbish.
As a rule one or two pieces of rag hang down from
it and betray its presence to the egg-collector.

The normal clutch of eggs is four. The ground
colour of these is cream, pale greenish, or grey, and
there is towards the large end a zone of brown or pur-
plish blotches.

The shrike is not a shy bird. I have sat within eight
feet of a nest and watched the parents feeding their
young. No notice was taken of me, but a large lizard
that appeared on the branch on which the nest was
placed was savagely attacked. The young seem to be
fed chiefly on large green caterpillars.

Newly fledged butcher birds difier considerably from
the adults, and while in the transition stage are some-
times rather puzzling to the ornithologist.

DUCKS

"^ ■ '^HE duck," says a writer in the Spectator,

■ "is a person who seldom gets his deserts."

I As regards myself I cannot but admit the

"^^ truth of this assertion. I mean, not that I

am a duck, but that I have returned that bird evil for

good. He has given me much pleasure, and I have either

eaten or shot him as a quid pro quo.

One of the greatest delights of my early youth was
to feed the ducks that lived on the Serpentine. How
vividly do I remember the joy that the operation
gave me ! In the first place, I was allowed to enter the
kitchen — that Forbidden Land of childhood's days,
presided over by a fearsome tyrant, yclept the cook —
and witness dry bread being cut up into pieces of a size
supposed to be suited to the mastication of ducks. The
bread thus cut up would be placed in a paper bag and
borne off by me in triumph to the upper regions. Then
my sister and I, accompanied by the governess, would
toddle up Sloane Street, through Lowndes Square, past
the great French Embassy, into Hyde Park, along
Rotten Row, and thus up to that corner of the Serpentine
where the ducks were wont to congregate. There, amid
a chorus of quacks, the bread would be thrown, piece by
piece, to the ever-hungry ducks. The writer in the
i68

DUCKS 169

Spectator states that "the domestic duck, unlike his wild
brother, is a materialist, and where dinner is concerned
is decidedly greedy." The avidity with which the ducks
used to make for those pieces of dry bread certainly
bears out this statement. Every time a crust was thrown
on to the water there would be a wild scramble for it.
One individual, more fortunate than the others, would
secure it, and, sprinting away from his comrades, would
endeavour to swallow it whole. I have said that the
pieces of bread were cut up into portions of a size
supposed to be convenient for the mastication of a duck;
but, if the truth must be told, the cook invariably over-
estimated the size of the bird's gullet ; hence the frantic
muscular efforts to induce them to descend " red lane."
It is a miracle that not one of those ducks shared the
sad fate of Earl Godwin.

Some of them must certainly have lost the epithelial
lining of the oesophagus in their desperate efforts to
dispose of those pieces of dry bread. An exceptionally
unmanageable morsel would be dropped again into the
water, and there would be a second scramble for it. By
this time, however, it would have become so much softened
as to be comparatively easy to swallow. How we used
to enjoy watching the efforts of those ducks to negotiate
the pieces of bread ! We were, of course, blissfully ig-
norant of the unnaturalnessof the process. Ourgoverness
used to read, in preference to natural history, fiction of
the class in which the fortunate scullery-maid always
marries a Duke. Thus it was that my sister and I knew
nothing of the wonderful structure of the duck's
beak. We were not aware that the mandibles were

170 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

lamellated or toothed to form a most efficient sieve.
We were not acquainted with the fact that the natural
food of the duck is composed of small, soft substances,
that as the bird puts its head under water it catches up
its breath to suck in the soft substances that may be
floating by, that these become broken up as they pass
through the duck's patent filter, only those that are
approved being retained and swallowed. But the want
of this knowledge did not diminish by one jot or tittle
our enjoyment. When all the bread was disposed of,
we would inflate and " pop " the paper bag — a perform-
ance which gave us nearly as much pleasure as feeding
the ducks.

As I grew older I came to regard the feeding of
ducks as a childish amusement, and in no way suited
to one who had attained the dignity of stand-up collars.
So, for some years, I took but little interest in the birds,
except on the occasions when one confronted me at
table.

It has again become a pleasure to feed ducks, but I
fear that, in spite of this, I shoot them more often than
I feed them. I must confess that, when I see a great
company of the quacking community, the sportsman in
me gets the upper hand of the naturalist, the lust of
killing prevails over the love of observation. I know
of few greater pleasures than to spend a morning at a
well-stocked y/^// on a superb winter's day in Northern
India, accompanied, of course, by a number of fellow-
sportsmen ; for duck shooting is poor sport for a single
gun. With but one man after them it is the ducks
rather than the human being who enjoy the sport. But,

DUCKS 171

given three or four companions, what better sport is
there than that afforded by a day on a well-stocked y////?
At a preconcerted signal the various shooters, each in
his boat, put off from different parts of the bank of the
lake and make for the middle, which is black with a
great company of quack-quacks, composed chiefly
of white-eyed pochards, gadvvalls, and spotted-bills.
Suddenly a number of duck take alarm and get up ;
then the fun begins. For half an hour or more one
enjoys a succession of good sporting shots ; the firing is
so constant that one's gun grows almost too hot to hold.
Soon, however, all the duck that are not shot down
betake themselves to some other jhil, and only the
coots remain.

Excellent sport though duck shooting be, I am thankful
to say that in these latter days my acquaintance with
the duck tribe is not confined to shooting and eating
members of it. I occasionally have the opportunity of
coming into more friendly relations with it.

The duck is a bird worth knowing. He is a fowl of
character, a creature that commands not only our respect,
but our affection. He makes an excellent pet, as any one
may find out by purchasing some bazaar ducks.

Some years ago the cook of the Superintendent of
Police of a certain district in the United Provinces pur-
chased a couple of these birds. When bought they were
in an emaciated condition, and it was the intention of
the cook to fatten them up and then set them before his
master. But before the fattening process was completed
the small sons of the policeman took a great fancy to
the birds, and the birds reciprocated the fancy. The

172 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

result was that their lives were spared, and they became
friends of the family. They went everywhere with
the children, and used even to accompany them when
on tour with their father. They were allowed to enter
the tents as though they were dogs, and in return used
to permit the children to do anything they pleased with
them. They even submitted to being carried about like
dolls. Most amusing was it to see the good-natured
boredom on a duck's face as a small boy staggered along
with it tightly clasped in his arms. Its expression would
say more plainly than words, " I don't altogether relish
this, but I know the child means well."

Nor was this behaviour in any way exceptional. A
better-disposed creature than the duck does not exist.
" I have kept and closely watched hundreds of ducks,"
writes Mr. S. M. Hawkes, " but I never saw them fight
with each other, nor ever knew a duck the aggressor in a
dispute with some other kind of fowl." Yet the duck is
no coward. The drake is a warrior every inch of him,
constant in affection, and violent in love and wrath. If
the adult duck is so lovable, how much more so is the
duckling ! What a source of delight are those golden
fluff balls to a child. On seeing them for the first time
nine out of ten children will cry —

But I want one to play with— Oh I want
A httle yellow duck to take to bed with me !

A DETHRONED MONARCH

THE eagle is a bird that deserves much sym-
pathy, for he has seen better times. Until
a few years ago the pride of place among
the fowls of the air was always given to
the eagle. " Which eagle ? " you ask. I reply, " The
eagle." The poets, who have ever been the bird's
trumpeters, know but one eagle upon which they lavish
such epithets as " the imperial bird," " the royal eagle,"
" the monarch bird," " lord of land and sea," " the wide-
ruling eagle," " the prince of all the feathered kind,"
" the king of birds," " the bird of heaven," " the Olympic
eagle," " the bold imperial bird of Jove," and so on, ad
nauseam.

The eagle of the poets was truly regal. But some-
body discovered, one day, that this bird is, like the
phoenix, a mythical creature. Eagles do exist — many
species of them — but they are very ordinary creatures,
in no way answering to the description of the poet's
pet fowl. This, of course, is not the fault of the eagles.
They are not to blame because the bards have, with
one accord, combined to idealise them. Nevertheless,
men, now that they have found out the truth, seem to
bear a grudge against the eagle. They are not content
with dethroning him, they must needs throw mud at
173

174 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

him. It is the present custom to vilify the eagle, to
speak of him as though he were an opponent at an
election, to dub him a cowardly carrion feeder, little if
anything better than a common vulture. Let us, there-
fore, give the poor out-at-elbows bird an innings to-day
and see what we can do for him.

But how are we to recognise him when we see him ?
This is indeed a problem. There is a feature by which
the true eagles may be distinguished from all other
birds of prey, namely, the feathered tarsus. The true
eagles alone among the raptores decline to go about
with bare legs ; their " understandings " are feathered
right down to the toe. Thus may they be recognised.

This method of identification is on a par with that of
catching a bird by placing a small quantity of salt
upon its tail. Eagles show no readiness to come and
have their legs inspected. There is, I fear, no feature
whereby the tyro can distinguish an eagle as it soars
overhead high in the heavens. Nothing save years of
patient observation can enable the naturalist to identify
any particular bird of prey at sight. Colour is, alas !
no guide. The raptores are continually changing their
plumage. It were as easy to identify a woman by the
colour of her frock as a bird of prey by the hues of
its plumage. We read of one eagle that it is tawny
rufous, of another that it is rufous tawny, of a third
that it is tawny buff. The surest method of dis-
tinguishing the various birds of prey is by their flight ;
but is it possible to describe the peculiar flap of the
wings of one eagle, and the particular angle at which
another carries its pinions as it sails along? The length

A DETHRONED MONARCH 175

of the tail is a guide, but by no means an infallible one.
The shikra, the sparrow-hawk, the kestrel, and the kite
are long-tailed birds, the caudal appendage accounting
for half their total length. In the eagles the tail is
considerably shorter in proportion to the size of the
bird. Thus the female of the golden eagle {Aquila
cJuyscetus) — which, en passant, is not gold in colour, but
dirty whitish brown — is 40 inches long, while the tail is
but 14 inches. The vultures have yet shorter tails in
proportion to their size. If, therefore, you see soaring
overhead a big bird of prey, looking like a large kite,
with a moderate tail and curved rather than straight
wings, that bird is probably an eagle. So much, then,
for the appearance of our dethroned monarch ; it now
behoves us to consider his character and habits. There
are many species of eagle, each of which has its own
peculiar ways, hence it is impossible for the naturalist
to generalise concerning them. In this respect he is
not so fortunate as the poet. Let us briefly consider
two species, one belonging to the finer type of eagle
and the other to the baser sort.

Bonelli's eagle {Hieraetus fasciatus), or the crestless
hawk eagle as Jerdon calls him, is perhaps the nearest
approach of any to the poet's eagle. This fine bird is
common on the Nilgiris, but rare in Madras. It is said
to disdain carrion ; it preys on small mammals and
birds of all sizes. It takes game birds by preference,
but when hungry does not draw the line at the crow. If
it has hunted all day without obtaining the wherewithal
to fill its belly, it repairs to the grove of trees in which
all the crows of the neighbourhood roost. As the sun

176 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

sinks in the heavens the crows arrive in straggling
flocks. Suddenly the eagle dashes into the midst of
them and, before the crows have realised what has
happened, one of them is being carried away in the
eagle's talons. Then the corvi fill the welkin with their
cries of distress. It is very naughty of the eagle to
prey upon crows in this way, because by so doing it
mocks the theory of protective colouration. No one
can maintain that our friend Corvus splendens is pro-
tectively coloured, that is to say, so coloured as to be
inconspicuous. No one but a blind man can fail to see
a crow as he steadily flaps his way through the air. No
one can deny that the bird flourishes, in spite of the fact
that eagles eat him, and that his plumage is as con-
spicuous as the blazer of the Lady Margaret Boat Club
at Cambridge. If, as the theory teaches, it is of para-
mount importance to a bird to be inconspicuous, why
was not the whole clan of corvi swept off the face of the
earth long ago ?

We have, in conclusion, to consider an eagle of the
baser sort. The Indian tawny eagle {Aquila vindhiand),
which is the commonest eagle in India, will serve as an
example. This bird eats anything in the way of flesh
that it can obtain. If the opportunity offers, it will
pounce upon a squirrel, a small bird, a lizard, or a frog ;
but it is a comparatively sluggish creature, and so robs
other raptores in preference to catching its own quarry.
Most birds of prey are robbers. This the falconer
knows, and profits by his knowledge. He first captures
some small bird of prey, such as a white-eyjd buzzard.
Having tied up two or three of its wing feathers so that

A DETHRONED MONARCH 177

it cannot fly far, he attaches to its feet a bundle of
feathers, from which hang a number of fine hair nooses.
He then flies this lure bird. Every bird of prey in the
neighbourhood espies it and, seeing the bundle of
feathers and remarking the laboured flight, jumps to
the conclusion that it is carrying booty, and promptly
gives chase with the object of relieving it of its burden.
The first robber to arrive is caught in one of the nooses.
The tawny eagle is not above feeding upon carrion.
It has not the pluck of Bonelli's eagle, but is apparently
not the contemptible coward it is made out to be by
some writers. A few weeks ago I noticed, high up in a
farash tree, the platform of sticks and branches that
does duty for the nest of this species. I sent my
climber to find out what was in the nest. While he
was handling the two eggs it contained, the mother
eagle swooped down upon him, scratched his head
severely, and flew off with his turban. As she sped
away, her prize attracted the notice of some kites, who
at once attacked her. In the melee which ensued, the
puggaree dropped to the ground, to the joy of its lawful
owner and the disgust of the combatants. I must add
that I was not an eye-witness of the encounter ; I how-
ever saw the marks of the bird's claws on my climber's
scalp.

BIRDS IN THE RAIN

THERE are occasions when one is tempted
to wish that one were a bird, for the fowls
of the air are spared many of the troubles
which we poor terrestrial creatures have
to endure.

Most of us in India have received a telegram ordering
us off to some far-away station ; then, when distracted
by the worry and bustle of packing ; when the hideous
noises of the Indian railway station " get on the
nerves " ; as we sit in the dusty, jolting train, we begin
to envy the birds who are able to annihilate distance,
who have no boxes to pack up, no baggage to go astray,
no bills to pay, no chits to write, no cards to leave, no
time-table to worry through, no trains to lose, no
connections to miss, but have simply to take to their
wings and away.

Most of us, again, have been caught in the rain.
As the watery contents of the clouds slowly but surely
percolated through our clothes, as our boots grew heavier
and heavier until the water oozed out at every step, we
must have envied the birds. They know naught of
rheumatism or ague. Their clothes do not spoil in the
rain. They wear no boots to become waterlogged.
Their wings rarely become heavy or sodden. For them
178

BIRDS IN THE RAIN 179

the rain is a huge joke. They enjoy the falh'ng rain-
drops as keenly as a man enjoys his morning shower-bath.
There is no bath like the rain bath, and if the drops do
fall very heavily there is always shelter to be taken.

It is of course possible for birds to have too much
rain ; but this does not often happen in India, except
occasionally in the monsoon.

As I write this it is pouring " cats and dogs," and
sitting in a tree not five yards away from the window
are a couple of crows thoroughly enjoying the blessings
which Jupiter Pluvius is showering down upon them.
I am high up, seventy or eighty feet above the level of
the ground, and can therefore look down upon the
crows. They are perched on the ends of the highest
branches, determined not to miss a drop of the rain.
One of them is not quite satisfied with his position;
he espies another bough which seems more exposed,
so to this branch he flies, although it is so slender that
it can scarce support him. Nevertheless he hangs on
to his swaying perch and opens out his wings and flaps
his tail — does, in fact, everything in his power to make
the most of the passing tropical shower. The other
crow has caught sight of me, and thinks he will
stare me out, so sits motionless with his eye fixed
on mine, while the rain pours upon him and falls
off" his tail in a little waterfall. Occasionally he gives
his friend an answering "squawk," and then shakes
his feathers, and is altogether enjoying himself; he is as
jolly as the proverbial sandboy. In other trees near by
sit more crows, and, so far as one can judge, each seems
to have taken up a position in which he is likely to

i8o BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

secure the maximum of rain. All round there is ample
shelter ; there are numerous ledges, outhouses, and
verandahs, in any of which the crows could obtain
shelter if they desired it. Shelter? Not a bit of it,
they revel in the rain.

Two pied wagtails fly by, chasing one another glee-
fully in the pouring rain ; they too are regular " wet
bobs."

On the telegraph wires hard by the king-crows sit
with their tails projecting horizontally so as to catch
as much of the downpour as possible. The dragon-flies
are seeking their prey regardless of the rain ; this is
somewhat surprising, when we consider that to them a
drop of rain must bear about the same relation as a
glass of water does to a human being. As they are
hunting, it is obvious that the minute creatures on which
they feed must also be out in the rain, although every
drop contains quite sufficient water in which to drown
them.

The mortality of small insects in a heavy fall of
rain must be enormous. What a strange sight a shower
must look to an insect ! Each drop must seem like a
waterspout.

Are tiny insects aware that the falling drops are
fraught with danger to them ? Do they attempt to
dodge them ? I think not. They can know nothing
of death or of the danger of drowning. They probably
fly about as usual in the rain in blissful ignorance of the
harm that threatens them. Some escape unscathed, but
others less fortunate are overwhelmed as in a flood, and
in a few minutes their little spark of life is extinguished.

BIRDS IN THE RAIN i8i

But to return to the birds. They are all making the
most of the downpour, ruffling their feathers so that
the water shall penetrate to the skin.

But the rain is more to the birds than a very pleasant
form of bath. It is for them a ini-careiiie, a water
carnival, an hour of licence when every bird — even the
oldest and most staid — may throw appearances to the
wind, when it is " quite the thing " to look dishevelled.

What a transformation does a shower of rain effect
in the myna. As a rule the bird looks as smart as a
lifeguardsman ; its uniform is so spick and span that
the veriest martinet could find no fault with it. But
after the rain has been falling for ten minutes the
myna looks as disreputable as a babbler. A shower
is the signal for all the birds to let themselves go and
have a spree. No bird then minds how untidy it is,
for it knows that there is none to point the finger of
scorn at it ; all are in the same boat, or, at any rate,
in the same shower of rain. So each one makes the
most of the period of licence. The most staid birds
splash about in puddles and revel in the experience
in much the same way as a child enjoys paddling
on the seashore.

And when the rain is over, what a shaking and
preening of feathers there is ! What a general brushing
up ! The bird world seems for a time to have turned
itself into a toilet club. Presently, the last arcana of
the toilet being completed, the birds come forth
looking as fresh and sweet as an English meadow
when the sun shines upon it after a summer shower.

Then there are all the good things which the rain

i82 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

brings with it. How luscious and sweet the fruit must
taste when the raindrops have washed away all the
dust and other impurities with defile it. What a
multitude of edible creeping things does a shower
bring forth. In England it causes to emerge all
manner of grubs and worms which before had been
lurking in their burrows. In India is it not the rain
that ushers in the red-letter day for insectivorous
birds — the day that witnesses the swarming of the
" white ants " ? What a feast do these myriads of
termites provide for the feathered things. In addition
to these there is all the multitude of winged and
crawling insects which the rain brings to life as if by
magic. How badly would the birds fare but for the
barsath which brings forth these insects, upon which
they are able to feed their young.

Perhaps the hoopoes most of all appreciate the rain,
for it makes the ground so delightfully soft ; they are
then able with such ease to plunge their long beaks
into the earth and extract all manner of hidden
treasures which are usually most difficult of access.

Is there anything in the world more complete than
the happiness of birds in a shower of rain ?

THE WEAVER BIRD

THE weaver bird has, thanks to its marvel-
lous nest, a world-wide reputation. It is
related to our ubiquitous friend the house
sparrow, and is known to men of science as
Ploceus bay a.

Except at the breeding season, the weaver bird looks
rather like an overgrown sparrow, and frequently passes
as such. But the cock decks himself out in gay attire
when he goes a-courting. The feathers of his head
become golden, while his breast turns bright yellow if
he be an elderly gentleman, or rusty red if he still
possess the fire of youth.

Weaver birds are found all over India. In most
parts they seem to shun the haunts of man, but in
Burma they frequent gardens. Jerdon mentions a
house in Rangoon which had at one time over one
hundred weaver birds' nests suspended from the thatch
of the roof! In India proper the favourite site for a
nest is a tree that overhangs water. Toddy palms are
most commonly chosen, but in Northern India, where
palms are but rarely seen, a babul tree is usually
utilised.

Weaver birds or bayas, as they are invariably called
by Hindustani-speaking people, live almost exclusively
183

i84 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

on grain, hence they are easy birds to keep in captivity.
Given a commodious aviary and plenty of grass, cap-
tive bayas amuse themselves by weaving their wonder-
ful nests. They are, however, not very desirable as
pets if they have to share a cage with other birds, for,
as Colonel Cunningham remarks, " every weaver bird
appears to be possessed by an innate desire to hammer
in the head of his neighbour." To this the neighbour
is apt to take exception, so that unpleasantness ensues.

Natives frequently train bayas to do all manner of
tricks.

The man with performing birds is quite an institution
in India. Parrots, bayas, and pigeons are most fre-
quently trained.

A very effective trick, which is performed alike by
parrots and weaver birds, is the loading and firing of a
miniature cannon. First the bird places some grains of
powder in the muzzle of the cannon, then it rams these
home with a ramrod. It next takes a lighted match
from its master, which it applies to the touch-hole. The
result is a report loud enough to scare every crow in
the neighbourhood, but the little baya will remain
perched on the giin, having apparently thoroughly
enjoyed the performance.

The nest of the baya is one of the most wonderful
things in nature. Description is unnecessary. Every
one who has been in India has seen dozens of the
hanging flask-shaped structures, while those who know
not the Gorgeous East must be acquainted with the
nest from pictures.

On account of its champagne-bottle shaped nest, the

THE WEAVER BIRD 185

weaver is sometimes known as the bottle bird ; I have
also heard it called the hedge sparrow.

It makes no attempt to conceal its exquisitely woven
nest. It relies for protection on inaccessibility, not
concealment. Every animal badmash can see the nest,
but cannot get at it. It hangs sufficiently high to be
out of reach of all four-footed creatures. The ends of
the entrance passage are frayed out so as to baffle all
attempts on the part of squirrels and lizards to reach
the treasures hidden away in it.

Both cock and hen work at the nest, the cock being
the more industrious. The fibres of which it is com-
posed are not found ready-made. The birds manufac-
ture them out of the tall elephant grass which is so
common in India. The weaver alights on one of the
nearly upright blades and seizes with its beak a neigh-
bouring blade near the base and makes a notch in it ; it
next seizes the edge of the blade above the notch and
jerks its head away. By this means it strips off a thin
strand of the leaf; it then proceeds to tear off in a
similar manner a second strand, retaining the first one
in its beak ; in precisely the same way a third and per-
haps a fourth strand are stripped off. The tearing
process is not always continued to the extreme end of
the blade ; the various strands sometimes remain at-
tached to the tip of the blade. The force with which
the bird flies away usually suffices to complete the
severance ; sometimes, however, it is not effected so
easily, and the bird is pulled back and swings in the
air suspended by the strands it holds in its bill.
Nothing daunted, the weaver makes a second attempt

186 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

to fly away, and if this is not successful, continues until

its efforts are crowned with success.

The grass which is used in nest construction is im-
pregnated with silicon to such an extent that I ex-
perienced considerable difficulty in extricating from my
pocket some of the fibres which, on one occasion, I took
home with me. The material is thus eminently suitable
for weaving purposes.

The fibres first collected are securely wound round
the branch or leaf from which the nest will hang.
The fibres added subsequently are plaited together
until a stalk four or five inches long is formed ; this is
then expanded into a bell-shaped structure. The bell
constitutes the roof of the nursery. When the roof is
completed a loop is constructed across its base, so that
the nest at this stage may be likened to an inverted
basket with a handle.

Up to this point the cock and hen do the same kind
of work, both fetch strips of grass or of palm leaves and
weave these into the structure of the nest. But when
once the loop or cross-bar is completed the hen takes
up a position on it and makes the cock do all the
bringing of material. She henceforth works from the
interior of the nest and he from the exterior.

They push the fibres through the walls to one another.
Thus the work progresses very rapidly. On one side of
the loop the bell is closed up so as to form a chamber
in which the eggs are laid, and the other half is pro-
longed into a neck, which becomes the entrance to the
nest. This may be nearly a foot long ; six inches is,
however, a more usual length.

THE WEAVER BIRD 187

The entrance to the nursery is thus from below. The

way the owners shoot vertically upwards into it, with

closed wings, without perceptibly shaking it is really

marvellous.

Nest construction obviously gives the little builders
great pleasure. They frequently build supernumerary
nests, purely from the joy of building. Each time the
cock bird approaches the nest with a beakful of material
he cries out with delight. Every now and again in the
midst of weaving material into the structure of the nest
he bursts into song.

Weaver birds usually build in company ; ten or a
dozen different nests being found in the same tree. As
each little craftsman is in a very excited state, fights
between neighbouring cocks frequently ensue, but these
are never of a serious nature. I was once the witness
of an amusing piece of wickedness on the part of a cock
baya. The bird in question flew to a branch near the
nest belonging to another pair of weaver birds who
were absent. After contemplating it for a little he flew
to the nest, and having deliberately wrenched away a
piece of it with his beak, made off with the stolen
property and worked it into his own nest ! Four times
did he visit his neighbour's nest and commit larceny ;
two of the stolen strands he utilised and the remaining
ones fell to the ground. I am inclined to think that
the thief was actuated by motives of jealousy ; for he
deliberately dropped some of the stolen material on to
the ground and extracted it from the place at which
the nest was attached to its branch, thus weakening
its attachment. The victim of the outrage on his

i88 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

return did not appear to notice that anything was

amiss.

Not the least interesting feature of the nest is the
clay which is studded about it in lumps. In one nest
Jerdon found no fewer than six of these lumps, weigh-
ing in all three ounces. The clay has, I think, three
uses : it helps to balance the nest, it prevents it being
blown about by every gust of wind, and keeps it steady
while the bird is entering it.

A story is abroad, and is repeated in nearly every
popular book on ornithology, to the effect that the
weaver bird sticks fireflies on these lumps of clay, and
thus illuminates the nursery, or renders it terrifying to
predacious creatures. Jerdon scoffs at this firefly story,
and I, too, am unable to accept it. Nevertheless it is so
universally believed by the natives of India that there
must be some foundation for it.

Some time ago a correspondent living on the West
Coast of India informed me that weaver birds are very
abundant in that part of the country, that their nests
are everywhere to be seen, and that he had noticed
fireflies stuck into many of them. He asked if I could
explain their presence. I suggested in reply that he
had made a mistake and requested him to look care-
fully next nesting season, that is to say in August, and,
if he came upon a single nest on to which a firefly was
stuck, to take it down, fireflies and all, and send it to
me at my expense. Since then August has come and
gone thrice, and I have heard nothing from my corres-
pondent ! Thus it is that I am still among those that
disbelieve the firefly story.

THE WEAVER BIRD 189

My theory is that the bird brings the clay to the ne.st
in its bill in a moist condition. Now wet clay retains
moisture for some time and would shine quite brightly
in the moonlight, so might easily be mistaken for a
firefly. Unfortunately the weaver bird is not common
where I am now stationed, so that I have not had an
opportunity of putting this theory to the test. I have,
however, noticed how the nests built by solitary wasps
shine when the clay that composes them is wet.

The natives of Northern India attribute great medi-
cinal value to the nest of the weaver bird. They assert
that a baby will never suffer from boils if it be once
washed in water in which a weaver bird's nest has been
boiled !

A great many half-finished weaver birds' nests are
seen in India. Most of these are the work of the cock,
who thus amuses himself while his wife is incubating.
A few are nests which have gone wrong, nests which do
not balance nicely and so have not been completed.

Two eggs are usually laid ; they are pure white and
without any gloss. On these the hen sits very closely.
On one occasion Hume took home a very fine specimen
of the nest and hung it from one of a pair of antlers on
his dining-room wall. Three days later the inmates of
the bungalow became aware of a very unpleasant odour,
which was traced to the nest. On taking it down it
was found to contain a female baya dead upon two
dead half-hatched chicks.

GREEN PARROTS

GREEN parrots, as the long-tailed paroquets
of India are popularly called, although fairly
abundant during the cold weather, cannot
be said to be common birds in Madras.
This is a small mercy, for which all Madrassis should be
duly thankful. The green parrot is one of those good
things of which it is possible to have too much. Where
the beautiful birds are not too plentiful they are always
greatly admired and considered most pleasing additions
to the landscape ; where they abound most people find
it difficult to speak of them in parliamentary language.

The Punjab is the happy hunting-ground of green
parrots. I am now in a station where these birds prob-
ably outnumber the crows, where we are literally steeped
in green parrots, where we hear nothing else all day long
save their screeches and chuckles.

Green parrots owe their unpopularity to their mis-
chievousness and their noisiness. *' In their malignant
love of destruction and mischief," writes Colonel Cunning-
ham, " 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
190

GREEN PARROTS 191

as the crows work out, but in so far as intent and dis-
interested 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."
While fully endorsing the above, I feel constrained to
remark that the parrot is no fool ; he may not be quite
as 'cute as an Indian crow, but he is gifted with sufficient
brain-power for all practical purposes. If the green
parrot is less harmfully mischievous than the crow he is
far more offensively noisy. He is able to produce an
almost endless variety of sounds, but unfortunately there
is not a single one among them all which by any
stretch of the imagination can be called musical.

All species of green parrots have similar habits. All
are gregarious and feed almost exclusively on fruit and
seeds. They do much damage to the crops, destroying
more than they eat, since they have a way of breaking
off a head of corn, eating a few grains, and then attacking
another head. Where green parrots are plentiful the
long-suffering ryot sets them down among the ills to
which the flesh is heir. When the crops are cut the
parrots feed among the stubble, picking up the fallen
grain.

The exceedingly swift, arrow-like flight of the green
parrot is too familiar to need description. The flocks
usually fly high up, screaming loudly ; at times, however,
they skim along the ground ; occasionally they thread
their way among trees, avoiding the branches in the
most wonderful manner, considering the pace at which
they move.

192 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

Very amusing it is to watch a little company of
parrots in a tree. Sometimes the birds perch on the
topmost branches and there chuckle to one another; at
others they cling to the trunk, looking very comic,
pressed up against the bark with tails outspread.
Not infrequently one sees two of them sitting together
in a tree indulging in a little mild flirtation, which, in
green parrot communities, takes the form of head tick-
ling. These birds are very skilled climbers ; they move
along the branches foot over foot, using the beak when
they have to negotiate a difficult pass. Thus they
clamber about, robbing the tree of its fruit and keeping
up a running conversation. Suddenly the flock will take
to its wings and fly off, screeching boisterously. The
members of each little community seem to live in a
state of rowdy good-fellowship. No one who watches
parrots in a state of nature can doubt that existence
affords them plenty of pleasure.

Green parrots nest in January or February in Southern
India, and somewhat later in the North. The courtship
of the rose-ringed species is thus described by Captain
Hutton : " At the pairing season the female becomes
the most affected creature possible, twisting herself into
all sorts of ridiculous postures, apparently to attract the
notice of her sweetheart, and uttering a low twittering
note the while, in the most approved style of flirtation,
while her wings are half spread and her head kept
rolling from side to side in demi-gyrations ; the male
sitting quietly by her side, looking on with wonder as if
fairly taken aback — and wondering to see her make
such a guy of herself. I have watched them during

GREEN PARROTS 193

these courtships until I have felt humiliated at seeing
how closely the follies of mankind resembled those of
the brute creation. The only return the male made
to these antics was scratching the top of her head with
the point of his beak, and joining his bill to hers in a
loving kiss."

Note that it is the hen that makes the advances.
There can be no mistake about this, for the presence of
the rose-coloured ring round the neck enables us to dis-
tinguish at a glance the cock from the hen.

The more I see of birds the more convinced do I
become that, in the matter of selecting mates, the hens
do not have things all their own way. In monogamous
species the cock frequently chooses his spouse; selection
is mutual.

The nest is a cavity in a tree, and is thus described
by Hume : " The mouth of the hole, which is circular
and very neatly cut and, say, two inches on the average
in diameter, is sometimes in the trunk, sometimes in
some large bough, and not unfrequently in the lower
surface of the latter. It generally goes straight in for
two to four inches, and then turns downwards for from
six inches to three feet. The lower or chamber portion
of the hole is never less than four or five inches in
diameter, and is often a large natural hollow, three or
four times these dimensions, into which the bird has cut
its usual neat passage."

My experience differs from that of Hume, inasmuch
as it tends to show that green parrots do not excavate
their own holes, or even the entrances to them. I sup-
pose I have seen over a hundred green parrots' nests,
o

194 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

and all have been in existing hollows. Green parrots
frequently evict the squirrels which tenant a cavity in a
tree and use it for nesting purposes.

They sometimes nest in holes in buildings. There is
in Lahore an old half-ruined gateway, known as the
Chauburgi. In this dozens of green parrots nest
simultaneously.

The rose-ringed paroquet {Palcsornis torqu xtus) seems
usually to nest in trees, while the larger Alexandrine
paroquet {Palcsornis nepalensis) nests by preference in
holes in buildings.

The nest hole is not lined.

Four white eggs are usually laid. Both parents take
turns at incubation.

Parrots are birds which thrive remarkably well in
captivity. This, I fear, is a doubtful blessing, for it
leads to a vast number of the birds being taken prisoner.
Many of those which are kept by natives, and even
some kept by Europeans, are, I am afraid, cruelly
treated. It is true that the cruelty is in many cases
unintentional, but this does not afford the poor captive
much consolation.

Parrot-catching is a profitable occupation in India ;
since nestlings fetch from four to eight annas each.
Thousands of young birds are dragged out of their
nurseries every year and sold in the bazaars.

Nor are the young birds immune from capture after
they have left the nest. They roost for a few nights in
company before dispersing themselves over the face of
the country. The wily bird-catcher marks down one of
these nesting spots — he has possibly had to pay rent for

GREEN PARROTS 195

it, for parrot-catching is quite a profession, so large is
the demand for captive birds — and then sets in likely
places split pieces of bamboo smeared over with bird-
lime. When daybreak comes the unlucky birds that
have chanced to roost on the limed bamboos find that
they cannot get away, that they are stuck to their
perches !

Natives of India are very fond of taming parrots.
They capture the birds at an age when they are unable
to feed themselves. These young parrots are considered
as members of the family, and are allowed to roam
about at large in the room in which their master lives.
They make a great noise and so are not very desirable
pets.

I am sometimes asked by those who keep parrots
how to make them talk. This is not an easy question
to answer. Some birds are much more ready to learn
than others. I do not consider that the various Indian
species make such good talkers as some other kinds, as,
for example, the West African parrot — the grey one
with the red tail. Nevertheless, what follows applies
indiscriminately to all species of parrot. If you want
to make a bird learn quickly to talk, use plenty of bad
language before it. It is really wonderful how rapidly
a parrot will pick up swear words. There appears to
be an incisiveness about them which appeals to parrot
nature. As a rule it requires much patience to teach a
parrot anything except profanity. Constant repetition
of the same sound before the bird is necessary. The
gramophone is said to make the best teacher. The in-
strument should be made to repeat slowly and steadily

196 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

the phrase it is desired to teach the bird, and placed
quite close to the parrot's cage, which should be covered
up. A word of warning to those who try this up-to-
date method of instruction. Polly's lesson should not
last much longer than ten minutes, and only one a day
be given ; otherwise the poor bird may get brain fever.

THE ROOSTING OF THE SPARROWS

MOST species of birds like to roost in com-
panies, partly because it is safer to do so,
partly for the sake of companioriship, and
sometimes, in England at any rate, be-
cause by crowding together they keep each other warm.
Birds have their favourite roosting places. Certain
trees are patronised while others are not. Perhaps one
clump will be utilised every night for a month or longer,
then a move will be made to another clump. Later on
a return may be made to the original site. I do not
know what determines these changes of locality.

The sunset hour is, I think, the most interesting at
which to watch birds. They seem to be livelier then
than at any other time of the day ; they are certainly
more loquacious. The dormitory of the crows, the
mynas, or the green parrots is a perfect pandemonium.
Whilst listening to the uproar one can only suppose
each member of the colony to be bubbling over with
animal spirits and intent on recounting to his fellows
all the doings of the day.

Most people may be inclined to think that it is im-
possible to derive much pleasure from observing so
common a bird as the sparrow. This is a mistake.
Often and often have I watched with the greatest
197

198 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

pleasure the roosting operations of this despised bird.
I know of a row of bushes that forms the dormitory of
hundreds of sparrows. To enable the reader to appre-
ciate what follows, let me say that the hedge in question
is only some twenty yards long, its height is not much
greater than that of a man, it is nowhere more than
eight feet in breadth, and is within a hundred yards of
an inhabited bungalow. Less than six yards away from
it is a well, fitted with a creaking Persian wheel, at
which coolies are continually working.

If you happen to pass this hedge within an hour of
sunset, you will hear issuing from it the dissonance of
many sparrows' voices. You stop to listen, and, as you
wait, a flock of sparrows dives into the thicket. You
look about to see whether any more are coming and ob-
serve nothing. Suddenly some specks appear in the air,
as if spontaneously generated. In two seconds these are
seen to be sparrows. Within half a minute of the time
you first set eyes upon them they are already in the
bushes. They are followed by another little flock of
six or seven, and another and another. Flight after
flight arrives in quick succession, each of which shoots
into the roosting hedge. I use the word " shoot" ad-
visedly, for no other term describes the speed at which
they enter the bushes. Their flight, although so rapid,
is not direct ; it takes the form of a quavering zigzag.
Some of the flocks do not immediately plunge into the
bushes. They circle once, twice, thrice, or even oftener,
before they betake themselves to their leafy dormitory.
Sometimes part of a flight dive into the hedge imme-
diately upon arrival, while the remainder circle round

THE ROOSTING OF THE SPARROWS 199
and then fling themselves into the bushes as though
they were soldiers performing a well-practised man-
oeuvre ; the first bird to reach the bush entering at the
nearest end, the next a little farther on, the third still
farther, and so on, so that the last sparrow to arrive
enters the hedge at the far end. Sometimes a flock
perches for a time on a tree near by before entering the
hedge. Those who have only noticed sparrows potter-
ing about will scarcely be able to believe their eyes
when they see the speed at which they approach the
roosting place. For the moment they are transformed
into dignified birds.

All this time those individuals already in the hedge
are making a great noise. Their chitter, chitter, chitter
never for a moment ceases or even diminishes in in-
tensity. Once in the hedge, the sparrows do not
readily leave it. There is much motion of the leaves
and branches, and birds are continually popping out of
one part of the bushes into another. It is thus evident
that there is considerable fighting for places. If, while
all this is going on, you walk up to part of the hedge and
shake it, the birds disturbed will only fly a yard or two
and at once settle elsewhere in the thicket.

Meanwhile the sun has nearly set ; the coolies near
by have ceased working and are kindling a fire within a
couple of yards of the bushes. But the sparrows appear
to ignore both them and their fire. Settling down for
the night engrosses their whole attention.

As the sun touches the horizon the incoming flights of
sparrows become fewer and fewer; and after the golden
orb has disappeared only one or two belated stragglers

200 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

arrive. Sparrows are early roosters. Something ap-
proaching three thousand of them are now perched in
that small hedge, yet none are visible except those that
pop in and out, when jockeyed out of positions they
have taken up. But although only a few sparrows come
in after the sun has set, it is not until fully fifteen minutes
later that there is any appreciable abatement of the din.
It then becomes more spasmodic ; it ceases for half a
second, to burst forth again with undiminished intensity.

Twenty minutes or so after sunset the clamour be-
comes suddenly less. It is now possible to discern in-
dividual voices. The noise grows rapidly feebler. It
almost ceases, but again becomes louder. It then nearly
stops a second time. Perhaps not more than twenty
voices are heard. There is yet another outburst, but the
twitterers are by now very sleepy. Suddenly there is
perfect silence for a few seconds, then more feeble twit-
tering, then another silence longer than the last.

It is not yet dark, there is still a bright glow in the
western sky. The periods of silence grow more pro-
longed and the outbursts of twittering become more
faint and of shorter duration.

It is now thirty-nine minutes after the sun has set and
perfect stillness reigns. The birds must have all fallen
asleep. But no ! one wakeful fellow commences again.
He soon subsides. It has grown so dark that you can
no longer see the sparrow-hawk perched on a tree hard
by. He took up his position there early in the evening,
and will probably breakfast first thing to-morrow morn-
ing off sparrow !

You now softly approach the bushes until your face

THE ROOSTING OF THE SPARROWS 201

touches the branches. There are twenty or thirty spar-
rows roosting within fifteen inches of you. You cannot
see any of them, but if you were to stretch forth your
hand you could as likely as not catch hold of one. You
disturb a branch and there is a rustling of a dozen pairs
of wings, so close to you that your face is fanned by the
wind they cause. You have disturbed some birds, but
they are so sleepy that they move without uttering a
twitter. You leave the bush and return an hour later.
Perfect silence reigns. You may now go right up to the
roosting hedge and talk without disturbing any of the
three thousand birds. You may even strike a match
without arousing one, so soundly do they sleep.

Those who wish to rid a locality of a superabundance
of sparrows might well profit by the fact that the birds
sleep so soundly in companies. Could anything be
easier than to throw a large net over such a hedge and
thus secure, at one fell blow, the whole colony ?

A GAY DECEIVER

THE drongo cuckoo {Surnicuhcs lugubris) is
a bird of which I know practically nothing.
I doubt whether I have ever seen it in the
flesh. It is, of course, quite unnecessary to
apologise for discoursing upon a subject of which one's
knowledge is admittedly nil. In this superficial age the
most successful writers are those most ignorant of their
subject. When you know only one or two facts it is
quite easy to parade them properly, to set them forth to
best advantage. They are so few and far between that
there is no danger of their jostling one another or be-
wildering the reader. Then, if you are conversant only
with one side of a question, you are able to lay down
the law so forcibly, and the public likes having the law
laid down for it, it does not mind how crude, how absurd,
how impossible one's sentiments are so long as one is
cocksure of them and is not afraid to say so.

My lack of knowledge of the habits of the drongo
cuckoo is, however, not my chief reason for desiring to
write about it. I wish to discuss the bird because
natural selectionists frequently cite it as bearing striking
testimony to the truth of their theory, whereas it seems
to me that it does just the opposite. Stcrniculus lugubris
is, so far as I am able to judge, an uncompromising
202

A GAY DECEIVER 203

opponent of those zoologists who pin their faith to the
all-sufficiency of natural selection to account for evolu-
tion in the organic world.

The drongo cuckoo is as like the king-crow as one
pea is to another. This bird, says Blanford, " is remark-
able for its extraordinary resemblance in structure and
colourisation to a drongo or k'lng-crow (Dzcrurus). The
plumage is almost entirely black, and the tail forked
owing to the lateral rectrices being turned outwards."
Blanford further declares that the bird, owing to its
remarkable likeness to the king-crow, is apt to be over-
looked.

This being so, it is quite unnecessary for me to
describe the drongo cuckoo ; it is the image of a king-
crow. But stay, perhaps there are some who do
not know this last bird by sight. Such should make its
acquaintance. They will find it sitting on the next
telegraph wire they pass — a sprightly black bird, much
smaller than the crow (with which it has no connection),
possessing a long, forked tail. Every now and again it
makes little sallies into the air after the " circling gnat,"
or anything else insectivorous that presents itself.
When you see such a bird you may safely bet on its
being a king-crow ; the off-chance of its proving a
drongo cuckoo may be neglected by all but the ultra-
cautious.

Not much is known of the habits of this cuckoo ; but
what we do know shows that, sometimes, at any rate, it
makes the king-crow act as its nursemaid. Mr. Davison
saw two king-crows feeding a young Surnicidus. The
consequence is that every book on natural history trots

204 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

out our friend the drongo cuckoo as an example of

mimicry. The mimicry is, of course, unconscious :

it is said to be the result of the action of natural

selection.

King-crows are, as every one knows, exceedingly pug-
nacious birds ; at the nesting season both cock and hen
are little furies, who guard the nursery most carefully
and will not allow a strange species to so much as perch
in the tree in which it is placed.

It is thus obvious that the cuckoo who elects to victim-
ise a king-crow is undertaking a "big thing," yet this
is what Siirnicidus does. It accomplishes its aim by
trickery ; it becomes a gay deceiver, disguising itself like
its dupe. Now I readily admit that the disguise may be
of the utmost use to the Siirnicidus ; I can well under-
stand that natural selection will seize hold of the dis-
guise when once it has been donned and possibly perfect
it ; but I cannot see how natural selection can have
originated the disguise as such.

The drongo cuckoo may be called an ass in a lion's
skin, or a lion in an ass's skin, whichever way one looks
at things. When once the skin has been assumed
natural selection may modify it so as better to fit the
wearer ; but more than this it cannot do.

I do not pretend to know the colour of the last com-
mon ancestor of all the cuckoos, but I do not believe
that the colour was black. What, then, caused Surni-
culus liigubris to become black and assume a king-crow-
like tail ?

A black feather or two, even if coupled with some
lengthening of the tail, would in no way assist the

A GAY DECEIVER 205

cuckoo in placing its egg in the drongo's nest. Suppose
an ass were to borrow the caudal appendage of the
king of the forest, pin it on behind him, and then
advance among his fellows with loud brays, would any
donkey of average intelligence be misled by the feeble
attempt at disguise ? I think not. Much less would a
king-crow be deceived by a few black feathers in the
plumage of a cuckoo.

I do not believe that natural selection has any direct
connection with the nigritude of the drongo cuckoo. It
is my opinion that, so far as the struggle for existence is
concerned, it matters little to an animal what its colour
be. Every creature has to be some colour : what that
actual colour is must depend upon a great many factors ;
among these we may name the metabolic changes that
go on inside the animal, its hereditary tendencies,
sexual selection, and natural selection. Is it natural
selection that has caused the king-crow to be black ? I
trow not.

The drongo is black because it is built that way ; its
tendency is to produce black feathers. Just as some
men tend to put on flesh, so also some species of birds
tend to grow black plumage. In the case of the king-
crow sexual selection has possibly contributed to the
bird's nigritude. It is possible that black is a colour
that appeals to king-crow ladies. " So neat, you know ;
a bird always looks well in black, and a forked tail gives
him such an air of distinction."

As the hen drongo is a bird capable of looking after
herself, even when incubating, there is no necessity for
her to be protectively coloured. As I have repeatedly

206 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

declared, one ounce of good solid pugnacity is a better
weapon in the struggle for existence than many pounds
of protective colouration.

Again, in the case of king-crows nigritude may be an
expression of vigour, the outward and visible sign of
strength.

Let me make myself clear. Suppose that in a race of
savages those that had fair hair were stronger, bolder,
more prolific, and more pushing than the dark-haired
men. Fair hair, in some inexplicable way, always
accompanied strength and the like. It is obvious that,
under these conditions, the race would in time become
fair-haired : the milder dark men would eventually be
hustled out of existence. Fair hair would then be the
outward expression of vigour : it would not be the cause
of vigour, merely the accompaniment of it ; nor would
it be a direct product of natural selection. In the
same way it is possible that among drongos nigritude is
in some manner correlated with vigour. This idea is
not altogether fanciful. Are there not horses of *' bad
colour " ? Are not white " socks " a sign of weakness ?
Is not roan a colour indicative of strength and en-
durance in a horse?

May not the blackness and the forked tail of the
drongo cuckoo have arisen in the same way as they
arose in the king-crow? In each case it may be an
accompaniment of vigour, or it may be the result of
sexual selection. Mrs. Surniculus may have had similar
tastes to Mrs. Dicrurus, and, since cuckoos seem
to be very plastic birds, her tastes have been grati-
fied. As another example of this plasticity I may cite

A GAY DECEIVER 207

Ce7itropns phasianus — a cuckoo which is a very fair imi-
tation of a pheasant.

On this view the resemblance is a mere chance one.
The cuckoo is not an ass in a lion's skin, but an ass
that looks very like a lion. His lion-like shape was
not forced upon him by natural selection. A variety
of causes probably contributed to it. It was not until
the resemblance had arisen and become very striking
that it was directly affected by natural selection.

I am far from saying that the above is a correct ex-
planation of the nigritude : it is all pure hypothesis.
Even if it be correct, we are really very little further
than we were before towards an explanation of the
colours and shape of either the king-crow or the drongo
cuckoo.

Why did these birds tend to grow black feathers
rather than red, green, or blue ones ?

This is a question which " stumps " us all.

THE EMERALD MEROPS

IF I have a favourite bird it is the little green
bee-eater {Merops viridis). There is no winged
thing more beautiful or more alluring. More
showy birds exist, more striking, more gorgeous,
more magnificent creatures. With such the bee-eater
does not compete. Its beauty is of another order. It
is that of the moon rather than of the sun, of the
violet rather than of the rose. The exquisite shades
of its plumage cannot be fully appreciated unless
minutely inspected. Every feather is a triumph of
colouring. No description can do the bird justice.
To say that its general hue is the fresh, soft green of
grass in England after an April shower, that the head
is covered with burnished gold, that the tail is tinted
with olive, that a black collarette adorns the breast, that
the bill is black, that a streak of that colour runs from
the base of the beak, backwards, through the eye, which
is fiery red, that the feathers below this streak are of
the purest turquoise-blue, as are the feathers of the
throat — to say all this is to convey no idea of the
hundred shades of these colours, or the manner in
which they harmonise and pass one into another. Nor
is it easy for words to do justice to the shape of the
bird ; even a photograph fails to express the elegance
208

THE EMERALD MEROPS • 209
of its carnage and the perfection of its proportions.
Were I to string together all the superlatives that I
know, I should scarcely convey an adequate im-
pression of the grace of its movements. I can but try
to make the bird recognisable, so that the reader may
see its beauties for himself.

He should look out for a little green bird with a
black beak, slender and curved, and a tail of which
the two middle feathers are very attenuated and project
a couple of inches as two black bristles beyond the
other caudal feathers. The bird should be looked for
on a telegraph wire or the bare branch of a tree, for
the habits of bee-eaters are those of fly-catchers. The
larger species prey upon bees, hence the popular name,
but I doubt whether the little Merops viridis tackles
an insect so large as a bee. It feeds upon smaller
flying things, which it captures on the wing. As it
rests on its perch its bright eyes are always on the
look out for passing insects. When one comes into
view, the bird sallies forth. Very beautiful is it as it
sails on outstretched wings. The under surface of
these is reddish bronze, so that their possessor seems
to become alternately green and gold as the sun's rays
fall on the upper or lower surface of its pinions. Its
long mandibles close upon its prey with a snap suffi-
ciently loud to be audible from a distance of five or
six yards. This one may frequently hear, for bee-
eaters are not shy birds. They will permit a human
being to approach quite near to them, as though they
knew that the fulness of their beauty was apparent
only on close inspection.

2IO BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

Tlie little green bee-eater utters what Jerdon calls
" a rather pleasant rolling whistling note," which, if
it cannot be dignified by the name of song, adds con-
siderably to the general attractiveness of the bird.
Bee-eaters are, alas ! not very abundant in Madras, but,
if looked for, may be seen on most days in winter. The
Adyar Club grounds seem to be their favourite resort.
When driving into the club at sunset I have often
surprised a little company of them taking a dust bath
in the middle of the road. The bath over, the little
creatures take to their wings and enjoy a final flight
before retiring for the night.

Bee-eaters are, I think, migratory birds. It is true
that they are found all the year round in many parts
of India, but such places appear to be the winter
quarters of some individuals and the summer resi-
dences of others. There is an exodus of bee-eaters
from Calcutta about March. A similar event occurs
in Madras, although in the latter place the birds are
seen all the year round, a few remaining to breed.
In Lahore, on the other hand, the birds arrive in March,
and, having reared their young, leave in September.

The nest is a circular hole excavated by the bird,
usually in a sandbank, sometimes in a mud partition
between two fields. I saw a nest in Lahore in one
of the artificial bunkers on the golf links. Major
C. T. Bingham states that in 1873, when the musketry
instruction of his regiment was being carried on at
Allahabad, he observed several nest holes of this species
in the face of the butts. The birds seemed utterly
regardless of the bullets that every now and then

THE EMERALD MEROPS 211

buried themselves with a loud thud in the earth close
beside them. Colonel Butler gives an account of a
bee-eater nesting in an artificial mudbank, about a
foot high, that marked the limits of the badminton
court in the Artillery Mess compound at Deesa. One
of the birds invariably sat upon the badminton net
when people were not playing, and at other times on
a tree close by, while its mate was sitting on the eggs.
As I have already said, bee-eaters are not afflicted with
shyness.

Very soon after their arrival at Lahore the birds
begin their courtship. At this period they seem to
spend the major portion of the day in executing
circular flights in the air. They shoot forth from their
perch and rapidly ascend by flapping their wings, then
they sail for a little on outstretched pinions and thus
return to the perch.

Courtship soon gives place to the more serious busi-
ness of nest construction. When a suitable spot has
been found, the birds at once begin excavating, digging
away at the earth with pick-like bill and holding on
to the wall of the bank by their sharp claws until the
hole they are making becomes sufficiently deep to
afford a foothold. As the excavation grows deeper
the bird throws backwards with its feet the sand it
has loosened with its beak, sending it in little clouds
out of the mouth of the hole. While one bird is at
work its mate perches close by and gives vent to its
twittering note. After working for about two minutes
the bird has a rest and its partner takes a turn at
excavation. Thus the work proceeds apace. Bee-

212 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

eaters look spick and span, even when in the midst
of this hard labour. The dry sand that envelops
them, far from soiling their plumage, acts as a dust
bath. When the hole, which is about two inches in
diameter, has reached a length of some four feet, it is
widened out into a circular chamber about twice the
size of a cricket ball. In this three or four white eggs
are laid. These have been well described as " little
polished alabaster balls." They are placed on the bare
ground. Young bee-eaters lack the elongated bristle-
like tail feathers of the adult birds. A very pleasing
sight is that of a number of the youngsters sitting in
a row on a telegraph wire receiving instruction in
flying.

In conclusion, mention must be made of a near
relative of the little bee-eater. I allude to the blue-
tailed species {^Merops philippimis), which also occurs
in Madras. This is a larger and less beautiful edition
of the green bee-eater. It is distinguishable by its size,
the rusty colour of its throat, and its blue tail. It is
usually found near water. He who shoots snipe in the
paddy near Madras comes across numbers of these
birds sitting on the low walls that divide up the fields.
The habits of the blue-tailed bee-eater are those of its
smaller cousin. Although its song is more powerful,
it is a less attractive bird.

DO ANIMALS THINK?

MR. JOHN BURROUGHS contributed
some time ago to Harper's Magazine an
article bearing the above title. The lead-
ing American naturalist is so weighty an
authority that I feel chary about controverting any
statement made by him ; but I cannot believe that he
is right when he boldly asserts that animals never
think at all. I agree with Mr. Burroughs when he says
" we are apt to speak of the lower animals in terms
that we apply to our own kind." There is undoubtedly
a general tendency to give animals credit for much
greater intelligence, far more considerable powers of
reasoning, than they actually possess ; in short, to put
an anthropomorphic interpretation on their actions.

But it seems to me that Mr. Burroughs rushes to the
other extreme. To deny to animals the power of
thought is surely as opposed to facts as to credit them
with almost human powers of reasoning. Says Mr.
Burroughs : " Animals act with a certain grade of
intelligence in the presence of things, but they carry
away no concepts of those things as a man does,
because they have no language. How could a crow
tell his fellows of some future event or of some experi-
ence of the day ? How could he tell them this thing is
213

214 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

dangerous save by his actions in the presence of those
things? Or how tell of a newly found food supply
save by flying eagerly to it ? "

Even if we admit that a crow is not able to recount
the experiences of the day to his companion, it does
not follow that the crow does not remember them, or
cannot picture them in his mind. With regard to the
last question, I have frequently seen a crow, at the
sight of some food thrown out to him, caw loudly, and
his friends, on hearing his cry, at once fly to the food.

Of course it is open to any one to assert that, in this
case, the crow that discovers the food does not con-
sciously call its companions ; at the sight of its food it
instinctively caws, and its companions obey the caw
instinctively, without knowing why they do so. No
one, however, who watches crows for long can help
believing that they think. The fact that they hang
about the kitchen every day at the time the cook
pitches out the leavings seems inconsistent with the
theory that birds cannot think. The crows obtained
food at this place yesterday and the day before at a
certain hour, and the fact that they are all on the look
out for food to-day shows, not only that they possess
a good memory, but that they are endowed with a
certain amount of reasoning power.

Many animals have very good memories. Now, in
order that an animal may remember a thing it must
think. Its thoughts are of course not clothed in lan-
guage as human thoughts are, but they nevertheless
exist as mental pictures.

According to Professor Thorndike, the psychic hfe of

DO ANIMALS THINK? 215

an animal is " most like what we feel when our con-
sciousness contains little thought about anything, when
we feel the sense impressions in their first intention, so
to speak, when we feel our own body and the impulses
we give to it (or that outward objects give to it).
Sometimes one gets this animal consciousness ; while
in swimming, for example. One feels the water, the
sky, the birds above, but with no thoughts about them,
or memories of how they looked at other times, or
aesthetic judgments about their beauty. One feels no
' ideas ' about what movements he will make, but feels
himself make them, feels his body throughout. Self-
consciousness dies away. The meanings and values and
connections of things die away. One feels sense-im-
pressions, has impulses, feels the movements he makes ;
that is all."

This is probably a good description of the state of
mind of a dog when he is basking in the sunlight ; he
is thinking of nothing. But he hears the shrill cry of
a squirrel — this at once recalls to him the image of the
little rodent and past shikar. In a moment the dog is
on the alert ; he is now thinking of the squirrel, and his
instinct and inclinations teach him to give chase to it.
Or he hears a footstep ; he recognises it as that of his
master, sees that the latter is wearing a topi, and at
once pictures up a run in the compound with his
master. But his owner chains him up. The dog looks
wistfully at his master's retreating figure and pulls at
his chain ; it is surely absurd to say that the dog is not
thinking. The picture of a scamper beside his master
rises up before him, and he feels sad because he knows

2i6 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

that the scamper is not likely to become a fait

accompli.

Again, you have been accustomed to throw a stick
for your dog to run after and carry back to you. You
are out walking accompanied by your dog ; he espies
a stick lying on the ground ; at once images of previous
enjoyable runs after the stick rise up in his mind ; he
picks up the stick and brings it to you, drops it at your
feet and looks up at you. You pretend to take no
notice. The dog then picks up the stick and rubs it
against your legs. To believe that the dog while acting
thus does not think, that he is merely obeying an inborn
instinct, is surely a misinterpretation of facts. Animals
have but limited reasoning powers, and their thoughts
are not our thoughts, they are not clothed in language,
they are merely mental pictures, called up either sub-
jectively, as when a dog barks while dreaming, or
objectively by some sight or scent, but nevertheless
such sensations are thoughts.

While maintaining that the higher animals can and
do think, I am ready to admit that a great many of
their actions which are apparently guided by reason are
in reality purely instinctive. Thus the building of a
nest by a bird must, at any rate on the first occasion,
be a purely instinctive action. The creature cannot
know what it is doing. Nor can it have any thoughts
on the matter ; it suddenly becomes an automaton,
a machine, acting thoughtlessly and instinctively.

Some internal force which is irresistible compels it to
seek twigs and weave them into a nest. The bird has
no time to stop and think what it is doing, nor does it

DO ANIMALS THINK? 217

wish to, for it enjoys nest building. It is, of course,
impossible for a human being to understand the frame
of mind of a bird when building its first nest. The only
approach to it that we ever experience is when we are
suddenly seized with an impulse to do something un-
usual, and we obey the impulse and are afterwards
surprised at ourselves.

There is a story told of a wealthy man who had been
out hunting and was returning home tired and thirsty.
He dismounted at a farm-house, went inside and asked
for a drink. While this was being obtained he noticed
a lot of valuable old china on the dresser : seized by a
sudden impulse, he knocked it all down, piece by piece,
with his riding whip. His hostess on her return with
the drink looked surprised. The hunting man smiled,
asked her to name the value she set on the china, sat
down and, there and then, wrote out a cheque for the
amount.

It always seems to me that when a bird begins for the
first time to collect materials for a nest she must act
impulsively, without thinking what she is doing. Just
as the hunting man was seized with a sudden desire to
smash the crockery with his whip, so is she suddenly
impelled to collect twigs and build a nest.

Another instinctive act which is apparently purpose-
ful is the feigning of injury by a parent bird when an
enemy approaches its young. Superficial observation
of this action leads the observer to imagine that the
mother bird behaves thus with deliberate intent to
deceive, that in so doing she consciously endeavours to
distract attention while her young ones are betaking

2i8 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

themselves to cover. As a matter of fact, the bird will
behave in precisely the same way if she have eggs
instead of young ones. This has, of course, the effect of
drawing attention to the eggs, and proves that the
action is instinctive and not the result of reasoning.

Most people have remarked the cautious manner in
which many birds approach the nest when they are
aware that they are being watched. This has the
appearance of a highly intelligent act. It is, however,
nothing of the kind.

I have taken young birds from a nest, handled them
and replaced them in full view of their frantic parents.
Then I have retired a short distance and watched the
parents. These invariably display the same caution in
approaching the nest as they did before I had discovered
its whereabouts.

Birds and beasts think much less than they are
popularly supposed to do. It is absurd to attribute to
them reasoning powers similar to those enjoyed by
man ; it is equally absurd to assert that they do not
think at all.

A COUPLE OF NEGLECTED
CRAFTSMEN

TWO Indian birds have a world-wide repu-
tation. Every one has heard of the weaver
bird {Ploceus bayd) and the tailor-bird
(Orthotomus sutovius). Their wonderful
nests are depicted in every popular treatise on ornith-
ology. They are both master-craftsmen and deserve
their reputation. But there are in India birds who build
similar nests whose very names are unknown to the
great majority of Anglo-Indians. The Indian wren-
warbler {Prinia inornatd) weaves a nest quite as skil-
fully as the famous weaver bird. This neglected crafts-
man is common in nearly all parts of India, and, if you
speak of the weaver bird to domiciled Europeans, they
will think you mean this wren-warbler, for among such
he is universally called the weaver bird ; the famous
weaver, whose portrait appears in every popular bird
book, is known to them as the baya.

As its name implies, Prinia inovnata is a plainly
attired little bird. Its upper parts are earthy brown.
It has the faintest suspicion of a white eyebrow, and
its under plumage is yellowish white, the thighs being
darker than the abdomen. Picture a slenderly built
wren with a tail three inches in length, which looks as
219

220 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

though it were about to fall out and which is constantly
being waggled, and you have a fair idea of the appear-
ance of this little weaver. But this description applies
to dozens of other birds found in India. The various
warblers are so similar to one another in appearance
as to drive ornithologists to despair. The inimitable
" Eha " admits that they baffle him. " There is nothing
about them," he writes, "to catch the imagination of the
historian, and they will never be famous. I have been
perplexed as to how to deal with them. ... To attempt
to describe each species is out of the question, for there
are many, and they are mostly so like each other that
even the title ornithologist does not qualify one to
distinguish them with certainty at a distance. If you
can distinguish them with certainty when you have
them in your hand you will fully deserve the title."

It is, however, possible to recognise the Indian wren-
warbler by its note. When once you have learned this
you are able to identify the bird directly it opens its
mouth. But how shall I describe it ? It is a peculiar,
harsh but plaintive, twee^ twee, twee ; each twee follows
close upon the preceding one, and gives you the idea
that the bird is both excited and worried. If you see a
fussy little bird constantly flitting about in a cornfield
and uttering this note, you may be tolerably certain
that the bird is the Indian wren- warbler. It never rises
high in the air ; it is but an indifferent exponent of the
art of flying. It moves by means of laborious jerks of
its wings. It is a true friend to the husbandman, since
it feeds exclusively on insects. The most remarkable
thing about it is its nest. This is a beautifully woven

A COUPLE OF NEGLECTED CRAFTSMEN 221

structure, composed exclusively of grass or strips of
leaves of monocotyledonous plants which the bird tears
off with its bill. These strands are invariably very
narrow, and are sometimes less than one-twentieth of
an inch in breadth. The nest may be described as an
egg-shaped purse, some five or six inches in depth and
three in width, with an entrance at one side, near the
top. It is devoid of any lining, and its texture puts
one in mind of a loosely made loofah. The nest is
sometimes attached to two or more stalks of corn, or
more commonly it is found among the long grasses
which are so abundant in India. When the nest is
built in a cornfield the birds have to bring up their
family against time. They are unable to begin nest-
building until the corn is fairly high, and must, if the
young are to be safely started in life, have brought them
to the stage when they are able to leave the nest by the
time the crop is cut.

In India nearly every field of ripe corn has its family
of wren-warblers ; the two parents flit about, followed
by a struggling family of four. These little birds do
not by any means always defeat time. Numbers of
their nests containing half-fledged young are mown
down at every harvest by the reaper's sickle. The nest
is woven in a manner similar to that adopted by the
baya ; the cock and hen in each case work in combina-
tion. Its texture is looser than that of the more famous
weaver, but it is not less neatly put together. In it are
deposited four or five pretty little green eggs, marked
with brown blotches and wavy lines.

Our second neglected craftsman is a tailor. It sews

222 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

a nest so like that of the world-famous tailor as to be
almost indistinguishable from it. Some authorities
declare that the two nests are distinguishable. They
assert that the nest of OrtJiotonms is invariably lined with
some soft substance, such as cotton-wool, the silky down
of the cotton tree, soft horse-hair, or even human hair,
while that of the species of which we are speaking is
lined with grass or roots. This distinction does not,
however, invariably hold. I have seen nests of this
species which have been lined with cotton-wool.

This bird is known to ornithologists as the ashy
wren- warbler {Prinia socialis). Anglo-Indian boys call
it the tom-tit. It is a dark ashy-grey bird, with the
sides of the head and neck and the whole of the lower
plumage buff. There is a tinge of rufous in the wings
and tail. It is most easily distinguished by the loud
snapping noise it makes during flight. How this noise
is produced we do not know for certain. Reid was of
opinion that the bird snapped its long tail. What exactly
this means I do not know. Jesse believes that the
sound is produced by the bird's mandibles. I have
spent much time in watching the bird, and am inclined
to think that the noise is caused by the beating of the
wings against the tail. This last is constantly being
wagged and jerked, and it seems to me that the wings
beat against it as the bird flits about. When doves and
pigeons fly, their wings frequently meet, causing a
flapping sound. I am of opinion that something similar
occurs when the ashy wren-warbler takes to its wings.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this bird
is the well-authenticated fact that it builds two types of

A COUPLE OF NEGLECTED CRAFTSMEN 223
nest. Besides this tailor-made nest, the species makes
one of grass, beautifully and closely woven, domed, and
with the entrance near the top, I have never seen this
latter type of nest, but so many ornithologists have
that there can be no doubt of its existence.

The strange thing is that both types of nest have
been found in the same neighbourhood, so that the
difference in the form of nursery is not a local pecu-
liarity.

I am at a loss to account for the existence of these
two types of nest. I have no idea how the habit can
have arisen, nor do I know what, if any, benefit the
species derives from this peculiarity. So far as I am
aware, no one can say what it is that leads to the con-
struction of one type of nest in preference to the other.
The nests of this species present a most interesting
ornithological problem. I hope one day to be in a
position to throw some light on it ; meanwhile I shall
welcome the news that some one has forestalled me.
The ashy wren-warbler is a common bird, so that most
Anglo-Indians have a chance of investigating the
mystery. The same kind of eggs are found in each
type of nest. They are of exceptional beauty, being a
deep mahogany or brick-red, so highly polished as to
look as though they have been varnished.

BIRDS IN THEIR NESTS

JUST as every Englishman is of opinion that his
house is his castle, so does every little bird resent
all attempts at prying into its private affairs in
the nest. For this reason we really know very
little of the home-life of birds. It is not that there are
no seekers after such knowledge. Practical ornithology
is a science that can boast of a very large number of
devotees.

Many men spend the greater part of their life in
endeavouring to wrest from birds some of their secrets,
and such must admit that the results they obtain are as
a rule totally disproportionate to the magnitude of the
efforts. At present we know only the vague generalities
of bird life.

We know that the hen lays eggs ; that she, with or
without the help of the cock, as the case may be, in-
cubates these eggs ; that the young, which are at first
naked, are fed and brooded until they are ready to
leave the nest, when they are coaxed forth by the
parents, who hold out tempting morsels of food to them.
But these are mere generalities. Our ignorance of de-
tails is very great.

The nestsof most passerine birds are scrupulously clean.
Young birds have enormous appetites, and much of the
224

BIRDS IN THEIR NESTS 225

food which they eat is indigestible and must pass out as
droppings, yet in the case of many species no sign of
these droppings is visible, either in the nest, or on the
leaves, branches, or the ground near the nest. What
becomes of these droppings ? Ornithological treatises
are silent upon this subject.

Again, young birds are born naked, and in India are
frequently exposed to very high temperatures, so that
much liquid must pass from their bodies by evaporation.
How is this liquid made good ? Do the parents water
the birds, if so, how ? I have never seen any mention
of this in an ornithological treatise.

Let us to-day consider these two subjects : the sanita-
tion of the nest and the method of assuaging the thirst
of young nestlings.

As regards the first we have some knowledge, thanks
to the patient labours of Mr. F. H. Herrick, an Ameri-
can naturalist, whose book. The Home Life of Birds, I
commend to every lover of the feathered folk. Un-
fortunately, Mr. Herrick's book is to some extent
spoiled for Englishmen, because it deals with birds with
which they are unfamiliar ; nevertheless, its general re-
sults apply to all passerine birds.

Mr. Herrick is a very keen bird photographer. As
every one knows, he who wishes to obtain good photo-
graphs of birds has two great difficulties to overcome.
The first is to get near to his subjects, and the second
is to find them and their nests in situations suitable for
photography.

The former is usually overcome by the photographer
concealing himself and his camera in a tent or other
Q

226 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

structure. At first the birds are afraid of the conceal-
ing object, but soon maternal affection overcomes their
fear.

Mr. Herrick's method of overcoming the second of
these two difficulties is to remove the nest to be photo-
graphed from the concealed situation in which it is
usually built, and place it in a more open place. If the
nest be thus moved when the young are some seven or
eight days old, the parents will almost invariably con-
tinue to feed their young in the new situation, for at that
particular period the parental instinct is at its zenith.
In addition to obtaining a splendid series of photo-
graphs, Mr. Herrick has observed, from a distance of a
few inches, the nesting habits of several American
birds. As the result of these observations he is able
to declare that nest-cleaning follows each feeding with
clock-like regularity. " The excreta of the young," he
writes, " leave the cloaca in the form of white opaque
or transparent mucous sacs. The sac is probably
secreted at the lower end of the alimentary canal, and
is sufficiently consistent to admit of being picked up
without soiling bill or fingers. The parent birds often
leave the nest hurriedly bearing one of these small white
packages in bill, an action full of significance to every
member of the family. . . . Removing the excreta
piecemeal and dropping it at a safe distance is the
common instinctive method, not only of insuring the
sanitary condition of the nest itself, but, what is even
more important, of keeping the grass and leaves below
free from any sign which might betray them to an
enemy." These packets of excrement are quite odour-

BIRDS IN THEIR NESTS 227

less, and they are often devoured by the parent bird
instead of being carried away. The digestion of very
young birds must be feeble, and doubtless much of the
food given them passes undigested through the aliment-
ary canal, so that it is capable of affording nourishment
to the parents. Birds are nothing if not economical.

Of course, all birds are not so careful of the sanitation
of the nest. Every one knows what a filthy spectacle a
heronry is. According to Mr. Herrick, the instinct of
inspecting and cleaning the nest is mainly confined to
the great passerine and picarian orders. It is obviously
not necessary in the case of those birds, such as fowls,
of which the young are able to run about when born ;
nor is it needful in the case of birds of prey, who take
no pains to conceal the whereabouts of the nest. Young
raptores eject their semi-fluid excreta over the edge of
the nursery ; thus the nest is kept clean, but the drop-
pings on the ground betray its presence to all the world.

Coming now to our other question : How do young
birds obtain the water which they require ? we have no
help from Mr. Herrick. He makes no mention of this
in his most interesting book. It is possible that nest-
lings are not given anything to drink, that the juicy,
succulent insects or fruits with which they are supplied
contain sufficient moisture for their requirements. We
must remember that the skin of birds is very different
from that of man. It contains no sweat glands, so that
a bird, like a dog, can only perspire through its mouth.

The breath of mammals is so surcharged with mois-
ture that when it is suddenly cooled the water vapour
in it condenses ; the result is we can " see the breath "

228 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

of a mammal on a cold day. I have never succeeded
in seeing a bird's breath, so am of opinion that the fowls
of the air do not exhale so much moisture as mammals
do. But even allowing for this, a considerable amount
of moisture must be given out in expiration, so that
it seems probable that young birds require more mois-
ture than they obtain in their food. Drops of water have
to be administered to hand-reared birds. Many birds
fill up the crop with food and then discharge the contents
into the gaping mouths of their young. In this con-
dition the food must be mixed with a considerable
quantity of saliva and possibly with water. The crop
of a bird is a receptacle into which the food passes
and remains until actually utilised. There seems no
reason why water should not be stored for a short
time in this receptacle just as food is. Perhaps birds
" bring up " water as they do solid food, and thus assuage
the thirst of their young. Such a process would be very
difficult to detect ; it would be indistinguishable from
ordinary feeding to the casual observer. I hope that
some physiologist will take up the matter. A quantita-
tive analysis of the air exhaled by a bird should not be
very difficult to make.

BULBULS

MORE than fifty species of bulbul are
found in India — bulbuls of all sorts and
conditions, of all shapes and sizes, from
the brilliant green bulbuls (which, by the
way, strictly speaking, are not bulbuls at all) to the dull-
plumaged but blithe white-browed member of the com-
munity, so common in Madras ; from the rowdy black
bulbuls of the Himalayas to the highly respectable and
well-behaved red-vented bulbuls. He who would write
of them is thus confronted with an embarras de richesses.
The problem that he has to solve is, which of the many
species to take as his theme.

The polity of birds is said to be a republic. The
problem may, therefore, well be elucidated on demo-
cratic principles. The first and foremost of these — the
main plank of every demagogue's platform — is, of
course, " one bulbul, one vote." The second is like
unto the first, " every bulbul for itself." Therefore, on
being asked to elect a representative to be the subject-
matter of this paper, each will vote for his own species,
and the result of the poll will be : Bulbuls of the genus
Molpastes first, those of the genus Otocompsa a good
second, and the rest a long way behind. Let us then
conform to the will of the majority and consider for
229

230 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

a little these two species of bulbul, which resemble one
another very closely in their habits.

Molpastcs is a bird about half as big again as the
sparrow, but with a longer tail. The whole head is
black and marked by a short crest. There is a con-
spicuous crimson patch of feathers under the tail. The
remainder of the plumage is brown, but each feather on
the body is margined with creamy white, so that the
bird is marked by a pattern that is, as " Eha " points
out, not unlike the scales on a fish. Both ends of the
tail feathers are whitish.

Otocompsa is a more showy bird. The crest is long
and projects forward over the forehead. The crimson
patch, so characteristic of bulbuls, also exists in this
species. There is a similar patch on each side of
the head — whence the bird's name, the red-whiskered
bulbul. There is also a white patch on each cheek.
The white throat is separated from the whitish abdo-
men by a conspicuous dark brown necklace. This
bird must be familiar to every one who has visited
Coonoor or any other southern hill station. The less
showy variety — the red-vented bulbul, as it is called —
is common in and about Madras.

It will be noticed that I have refrained from giving
any specific name to either of these two genera. This
is due to the fact that these bulbuls are widely dis-
tributed and fall into a number of local races, each
of which has some little peculiarity in colouring. For
this reason, bulbuls are birds after the heart of the
museum ornithologist. They afford him ample scope
for species-making.

THE BRNGAl. RED-WHISKKUEI) Bri.BlM,. (OTOCOMPSA EMERIA)

BULBULS 231

If you go from Madras to the Punjab you will there
meet with a bulbul which you will take for the same
species as the bulbul you left behind in Madras. But
if you look up the birds in an ornithological text-book
you will find that they belong to different species.
The Punjab bulbul is known as Molpastes intermedius,
while the Madras bird is called M. hcemorrhous. The
only difference in appearance between the two species
is that in the Madras bird the black of the head does
not extend to the neck, whereas in the Punjab bird
it does. Similarly, there is a Burmese, a Tenasserim,
a Chinese, and a Bengal red-vented bulbul.

Now, I regard all these different bulbuls as local
races of one species, which might perhaps be called
Molpastes indicus ; and I think that I am justified in
holding this view by the fact that the bulbuls you come
across at Lucknow do not fit in with the description of
any of these so-called species. The reason is that the
Bengal and the Madras races meet at Lucknow, and of
course interbreed. The result is a cross between the
two races.

In addition to the above there are some Molpastes
which have white cheeks and a yellow patch under the
tail. In all, nine or ten Indian "species" of Molpastes
have been described.

The same applies in a lesser degree to Otocompsa.
This is a widely distributed species, but is not so plastic
as Molpastes, There is the Bengal red-whiskered bulbul
{Otocompsa enteria), which is distinguishable from the
southern variety {O. fuscicaudatd) by having white tips
to the tail feathers, and the dark necklace interrupted

232 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

in the middle. There is also an Otocompsa with a

yellow patch under the tail.

This division of a species or genus into a nun:iber
of races or nearly allied species is interesting as
showing one of the ways in which new species arise
in Nature quite independently of natural selection.
It is unreasonable to suppose that the extension
into the neck of the black of the head in the Punjab
bulbul and its non-extension in the Madras bulbul
are due to the action of natural selection in each
locality, that a bulbul with black in its neck is unfitted
for existence in Madras.

Whenever a group of animals becomes isolated from
its fellows, it almost invariably develops peculiarities
which are of no help to it in the struggle for existence.
Thus isolation is the cause of the origin of dialects
and languages. A dialect is an incipient language,
even as a race is a potential species.

But let us return to our bulbuls. The habits of both
Otocompsa and Molpastes are so similar that we can
speak of them together. They are what Mr. Finn
calls thoroughly nice birds. They are, none of them,
great songsters, but all continually give forth exceed-
ingly cheery notes. The twittering of the red-whiskered
bulbuls is not the least of the charms of our southern
hill stations.

Bulbuls feed on insects and berries, so are apt to be
destructive in gardens. They built nests of the ortho-
dox type — cups of the description always depicted on
Christmas cards. These are built anywhere, without
much attempt at concealment. Rose bushes are a

BULBULS 233

favourite site, so are crotons, especially if they be in
a verandah. A pair of bulbuls once built a nest in my
greenhouse at Gonda. Among the fronds of a fern
growing in a hanging basket did those unsophisticated
birds construct that nest. Every time the fern was
watered the sitting bird, nest, and eggs received a
shower-bath !

Sometimes bulbuls do by chance construct their nest
in a well-concealed spot, but then they invariably " give
the show away" by setting up a tremendous cackling
whenever a human being happens to pass by.

I have had the opportunity of watching closely the
nesting operations of seven pairs of bulbuls ; of these
only one couple succeeded in raising their brood. The
first of these nests was built in a croton plant in a
verandah at Fyzabad. One day a lizard passed by and
sucked the eggs. The next was the nest at Gonda
already mentioned. In spite of the numerous water-
ings they received, the eggs actually yielded young
bulbuls ; but these disappeared when about four days
old. The mali probably caused them to be gathered
unto their fathers. The third nest was situated in a
bush outside the drawing-room window of the house
in which I spent a month's leave at Coonoor. This
little nursery was so well concealed that I expected the
parents would succeed in rearing their young. But one
morning I saw on the gravel path near the nest a
number of tell-tale feathers. Puss had eaten mamma
bulbul for breakfast ! The fourth nest — but why should
I detail these tragedies? Notwithstanding all their
nesting disasters, bulbuls flourish so greatly as to

234 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

severely shake one's faith in the doctrine of natural

selection.

In conclusion, a word or two must be said concerning
bulbuls in captivity. These birds make charming pets,
but as their diet is largely insectivorous, they cannot
be fed on seed. They become delightfully tame. One
I kept used to fly on to my shoulder whenever it saw
me, and open its mouth, flutter its wings, and twitter,
which was its way of asking to be fed. It would insist
on using my pen as a perch, and as one's handwriting
is not improved by an excitable bulbul hopping up and
down the penholder, I was obliged to shut the bird up
in a cage when I wanted to write. The bulbul used to
resent this, and did not hesitate to tell me so. In
young birds the tail is very short, and the patch of
feathers under it is pale red instead of being bright
crimson.

Natives of India keep bulbuls for fighting purposes.
These birds are not caged, but are tied to a cloth-
covered perch by a long piece of fine twine attached
to the leg. Bulbuls, although full of pluck, are not by
nature quarrelsome. In order to make them fight
they are kept without food for some time. Then two
ravenous birds are shown the same piece of food. This,
of course, leads to a fight, for a hungry bulbul is an
angry bulbul.

THE INDIAN CORBY

I HAVE never been able to discover why the
great black crow {Corvus macrorhynchus), so
common in India, is called the jungle-crow. It
is, indeed, true that the corby is found in the
jungle, but it is found everywhere else in most parts of
India, and is certainly abundant in villages and towns,
being in some places quite as much a house bird as its
smaller cousin, the grey-necked crow.

Considering the character of the larger species and
its extensive distribution, one hears remarkably little
about it. The explanation is, of course, that the house-
crow absorbs all the attention that man has to bestow
upon the sable-plumaged tribe. The prevailing opinion
seems to be that the black crow is merely a mild edition,
a feeble imitation of, a scoundrel of lesser calibre than,
its smaller cousin, Corvus splendens, and, therefore, every-
thing that applies to the house-crow applies in a lesser
degree to the big-billed bird. This is, I submit, a mis-
taken view, the result of imperfect observation. Corvus
macrorhynchus has an individuality of his own, and we
do him scant justice in dismissing him with a short
paragraph at the foot of a lengthy description of Corvus
splendens.

In saying this, I feel that I am speaking as one having
235

236 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

authority, and not as the Scribes and Pharisees, whose
zoological horizon coincides with the limits of the
museum. For a period of eighteen months I lived in
a station which should be renamed and called Crow-
borough. To assert that the place in question swarms
with crows is, of course, to assert nothing, for it shares
this feature with every other place in India. The point
I desire to bring out clearly is that in this particular
place the black crows are nearly as numerous as the
grey-necked birds. The former are certainly in a
minority, but their minority is, like Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman's in the previous House of Commons, a
large one, and what they lack in numbers they make up
in weight and beak-force. It was truly delightful to
watch them lord it over the grey-necked birds. Gram-
marians will observe that I here use the past tense.
This is a point of some importance. Just as it is
impossible to properly estimate the character of an
eminent man during his lifetime, so is it to form a
proper opinion of the personality and behaviour of
a species of crow while one is in the midst of that
species, while one is subjected to the persecutions, the
annoyances, and the insults to which it thinks fit to
treat one.

But I am now far away from Crowborough, and I may
never again return thither. As I sit upon the Irish
shore and see the blue waters of the North Atlantic roll
softly up against the black rocks of Antrim, I feel that
I am in a position to form a true estimate of the
character of Corvus viacrorJiyncJms.

Until I went to Crowborough I laboured under the

THE INDIAN CORBY 237

delusion that the grey-necked crow knew not the mean-
ing of the word " respect." The deference with which
the big-beaked species is treated by his smaller cousin
came as a complete surprise to me.

Most Anglo-Indians are so embittered against the
whole tribe of the corvi that they will on no account
feed them. I do not share this prejudice. I am able to
see things from the corvine point of view. Were I a
crow I should most certainly consider man fair game.

While in Crowborough I invariably gave the surplus
of my tiffin to the crows. Those in the locality of my
office window did not take long to find this out. The
grey-necked crows were the first to make the discovery.
It takes these less time to put two and two together
than it does the more sluggish-brained black crows. At
the end of a few days quite half-a-dozen grey-necked
fellows had learned to hang about my windows at the
luncheon hour. They used to sit in a row along each
window-ledge. One day a corby appeared upon the
scene. His arrival was the signal for the departure of
his grey-necked brethren. From that day onwards he
regarded that ledge as his special preserve, and whenever
a house-crow ventured on to the ledge he "went for" it
savagely with his great beak. The intruder never waited
long enough to enable him to get a blow home. Thus
the hunting-ground of the grey-necked crows became
restricted to one of the window-ledges.

In order to tease the black fellow I used sometimes
to throw all the food to the window in which the grey
crows were perched. He would fly round and drive
them off that ledge and then give me a bit of his mind !

238 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS

Later on he introduced his wife. She took possession
of one window and he of the other; so that the poor
house-crows no longer had " a look in," Some of the
bolder spirits among them used certainly to settle on
the shutters in hopes of catching a stray crumb, but
none durst venture on to the ledge while a black crow
was there.

Upon one occasion I put a whole milk pudding upon
the ledge ; the corbies would not allow the house-crows
so much as a peck at the dainty dish until they them-
selves had had their fill.

Every one knows that the grey-necked crows, when
harassing a creature more powerful than themselves,
work in concert. It is my belief that two of these
birds acting together are more than a match for any
other creature. The way in which a pair of them will,
by alternate feint and attack, take food away from a
great kite or a dog is truly admirable. But so great is
the respect of the grey-necked crows for the corby that
I have never seen them attack him in this way. This
says volumes for the force of character of Corvus
macrorhynchus. He is quite an Oliver Cromwell among
birds. He is a dour, austere, masterful, selfish bird —
a bird which it is impossible to like or to despise.

When he has once made up his mind to do anything
there is no deterring him from the accomplishment
thereof. Early in the year one of these birds spent at
least the greater part of a day in trying to secure for
its nest one of the twigs in a little circular fence erected
for the protection of a young tree. The fence in ques-
tion was composed of leafless branches, interlaced and

THE INDIAN CORBY 239

tied together. One of these twigs, being loose at one
end, was pounced upon by a black crow who intended
to carry it to his or her nest. But the other end was
securely fastened. I watched that crow at intervals for
several hours. Whenever I looked it was grappling in
vain with the refractory twig. The work was, it is true,
frequently interrupted, for natives kept passing by. But
immediately the human being had gone, the crow re-
sumed the attack. Every now and again it would fly
to a dust-bin hard by and alight on the rim in order to
take a breather. Occasionally it would dive into that
bin in order to secure the wherewithal to feed the inner
crow. It would then return to work like a giant
refreshed.

I am of opinion that that dust-bin was to the crow
what the public-house is to the British working man.

APPENDIX

A LIST OF THE BIRDS WHICH HAVE BEEN RECORDED
BOTH IN THE BRITISH ISLES AND IN INDIA

Corvus corax. The Raven.
Corvus corone. The Carrion Crow.
Corvus frugilegus. The Rook.
Corvus comix. The Hooded Crow.
Corvus monedula. The Jackdaw.
Graailus eremita. The Red-billed Chough.
Pyrrhocorax alpimis. The Yellow-billed Chough.
Pica rustica. The Magpie.
Regulus cristatus. The Goldcrest.
Lanius collurio. The Red-backed Shrike.
Ampelis garruhis. The Waxwing.
Oriolus galbula. The Golden Oriole.
Pastor roseus. The Rose-coloured Starling.
Siphia parva. The European Red-breasted Flycatcher.
Muscicapa grisola. The Spotted Flycatcher.
Geocichla sibirica. The Siberian Ground Thrush.
Motiticola saxatilis. The Rock Thrush.
Saxicola aenanthe. The Wheatear.
Cyanecula wolfi. The White spotted Bluethroat.
Turdus viscivorus. The Missel Thrush.
Turdus pilaris. The Fieldfare.
Turdus iliacus. The Redwing.
Linota cayinabina. The Linnet.
R 241

242 APPENDIX

24. Passer montanus. The Tree Sparrow.

25. Passer domesticus. The House Sparrow.

26. Emberiza schoenidus. The Reed Bunting.

27. E7nberiza pnsilla. The Dwarf Bunting.

28. Emberiza hortulana. The Ortolan Bunting.

29. Emberiza melanocephala. The Black-headed Bunting

30. Erttjgilla moniifri?igilla. The Brambling.

31. Alazida an>ensis. The Skylark.

32. Calandrella brachydactyla. The Short-toed Lark.

33. Galerita cristata. The Crested Lark.

34. Anthus trivialis. The Tree Pipit.

35. Anthus richardi. Richard's Pipit.

36. Anthus campestris. The Tawny Pipit.

37. Atithiis spinoktta. The Water Pipit.

38. Anthus prafensis. The Meadow Pipit.

39. Hirundo rustica. The Swallow.

40. Cotile riparia. The Sand Martin.

41. Chelidon urbica. The Martin.

42. Motacilla alba. The White Wagtail.

43. Motacilla melanope. The Grey Wagtail.

44. Motacilla borealis. The Grey-headed Wagtail.

45. Motacilla flava. The Blue-headed Wagtail.

46. lynx torquilla. The Wryneck.

47. Merops phillippinus. The Blue-tailed Bee-eater.

48. Merops apiaster. The European Bee-eater.

49. Upupa epops. The Hoopoe.

50. Coracias garrula. The European Roller.

51. Cypselus alpinus. The Alpine Swift.

52. Cypselus apus. The European Swift.

53. Caprimulgus europaeus. The European Nightjar.

54. Strix fiammea. The Barn Owl.

55. Scops giu. The Scops Owl.

56. Asio otus. The Long-eared Owl.

APPENDIX 243

57. Asio accipttrinus. The Short-eared Owl.

58. Bubo ignavus. The Eagle Owl.

59. Nyctea scandiaca. The Snowy Owl.

60. Alcedo ispida. The Common Kingfisher.

61. Cuculus canorus. The Cuckoo.

62. Gyps fulvus. The Griffon Vulture.

63. Neophron percnopterus . The Egyptian Vulture.

64. Milvus migrans. The Black Kite.

65. Haliaetus albidlla. The White-tailed Sea Eagle.

66. Pandion haliaetus. The Osprey.

67. Accipiter nisus. The Sparrow Hawk.

68. Astur palumbaritis. The Goshawk.

69. Aquila chrysaeUis. The Golden Eagle.

70. Aquila maculata. The Large Spotted Eagle.

71. Buteo deseriorum. The Common Buzzard.

72. Circus cineraceus. Montagu's Harrier.

73. Circus cyaneus. The Hen Harrier.

74. Circus aeruginosus. The Marsh Harrier.

75. Elanus cae?-uleus. The Black-winged Kite.

76. Falco peregrinus. The Peregrine Falcon.

77. Falco subbuteo. The Hobby.

78. Aesalon regulus. The Merlin.

79. Tinnunculus alaudaris. The Kestrel.

80. Tinnunculus cenchris. The Lesser Kestrel.

81. Columbia livia. The Blue Rock Pigeon.

82. Turtur communis. The Turtle Dove.

83. Coturnix communis. The Quail.

84. Rallus aquaticus. The Water-Rail.

85. Crex pratensis. The Corn Crake.

86. Porzana parva. The Little Crake.

87. Porzana maruetta. The Spotted Crake.

88. Fulica atra. The Coot.

89. Gallinula chloropus. The Moorhen.

244 APPENDIX

90. Grus communis. The Crane.

91. Atithropoides virgo. The Demoiselle Crane.

92. Otis tarda. The Great Bustard.

93. Otis teirax. The Little Bustard.

94. Oedicnemus scolopa. The Stone Curlew.

95. Glareola pratincola. The Pratincole.

96. Ciirsorius gallicus. The Cream-coloured Courser.

97. Strepsilas interpres. The Turnstone.

98. Charadriiis fulviis. The Eastern Golden Plover.

99. Charadrius pluvialis. The Golden Plover.

100. Vanellus vulgaris. The Lapwing.

1 01. Squatarola helvitica. The Grey Plover.

102. Aegialitis alexandrina. The Kentish Plover.

103. Aegialitis dubia. The Little Ringed Plover.

104. Aegialitis hiaticula. The Ringed Plover.

105. Haematopus ostralegus. The Oystercatcher.

106. Hima7itopus candidus. The Black-winged Stilt.

107. Ltmosa belgica. The Black-tailed Godwit.

108. Limosa lapponica. The Bar-tailed Godwit.

109. Numenius arquata. The Curlew,
no. Numenius phaeopiis. The Whimbrel.

111. Recurvirostra avocetta. The Avocet.

112. Totanus hypoleuais. The Common Sandpiper.
113 Totanus glareola. The Wood Sandpiper.

114. Totanus ochropus. The Green Sandpiper.

115. Totanus callidus. The Redshank.

116. Totanus fuscus. The Spotted Redshank.

117. Totanus glottis. The Greenshank.

118. Tringa minuta. The Little Stint.

119. Tringa temmincki. Temminck's Stint.

120. Tringa subarqtiaia. The Curlew Stint.

121. Tringa alpina. The Dunlin.

122. Tringa platyrhyncha. The Broad-billed Stint.

APPENDIX 245

123. Calidris arenana. The Sanderling.

124. Pavoncella pugnax. The Ruff.

125. Phalaropus hyperborms. The Red-necked Phalarope.

126. Phalaropus fulicarius. The Grey Phalarope.

127. Scolopax nisticula. The Woodcock.

128. Gallinago coelestis. The Common Snipe.

129. Gallinago gallinula. The Jack Snipe.

130. Larus ichthyaetus. The Great Black-billed Gull.

131. Larus ridilnmdus. The Laughing Gull.

132. Larus affinis. The Dark-backed Herring Gull.

133. LLydrochelidon hybrida. The Whiskered Tern.

134. Hydrochelidon leucoptera. The White-winged Black

Tern.

135. Sterna angelica. The Gull-billed Tern.

136. Sterfia cantiaca. The Sandwich Tern.

137. Sterna fluviatilis. The Common Tern.

138. Sterna dougalli. The Roseate Tern.

139. Sterna nmiuta. The Little Tern.

140. Sterna fuliginosa. The Sooty Tern,

141. Hydroprogne caspia. The Caspian Tern.

142. Stercorarius crepidatus. Richardson's Skua.

143. Stercorarius pomatorhinus. The Pomatorhine Skua.

144. Oceanites oceanicus. Wilson's Petrel.

145. Anous stolidus. The Noddy.

146. Phalacrocorax carbo. The Cormorant.

147. Platalea leucorodia. The Spoonbill.

148. Nycticorax griseus. The Night Heron.

149. Ardea manillensis. The Purple Heron.

150. Ardea cinerea. The Common Heron.

151. Herodias alba. The Large Egret.

152. Herodias garzetta. The Little Egret.

153. Bulbulcus coromandus. The Cattle Egret.

154. Ardetta minuta. The Little Bittern.

246 APPENDIX

1 55. Ciconia alba. The White Stork.

156. Ciconia nigra. The Black Stork.

157. Plegadis falcinellus. The Glossy Ibis.

158. Phoenicoptenis roseus. The Flamingo.

159. Cygnus olor. The Mute Swan.

160. Cygmis musicus. The Whooper.

161. A?tser ferns. The Grey-lag Goose.

162. Anser albifrons. The White-fronted Goose.

163. Anser erythroptis. The Lesser White-fronted Goose.

164. Anser brachyrhytichus. The Pink-footed Goose.

165. Tadorna cornuia. The Sheld-Duck.

166. Casarca riitila. The Brahminy Duck.

167. Mareca penelope. The Widgeon.

168. Anas boscas. The Mallard.

169. Chaulelasmus streperus. The Gadwall.

170. Nyroca ferruginea. The White-eyed Duck.

171. Nyroca ferina. The Pochard.

172. Nyroca marila. The Scaup.

173. Nyroca fuligula. The Tufted Duck.

174. Netta rufina. The Red-crested Pochard.

175. Dafila acuta. The Pintail.

176. Clangula glaucion. The Golden-Eye.

177. Spatula clypeata. The Shoveller.

178. Querquedula urcia. The Garganey Teal.

179. Nettium crecca. The Common Teal.

180. Podiceps cristatus. The Great Crested Grebe.

181. Podiceps nigricollis. The Eared Grebe.

182. Mergus albellus. The Smew.

183. Merganser castor. The Goosander.

184. Merganser serrator. The Red- breasted Merganser.

GLOSSARY

Babul. Acacia arabica. A thorny tree.

Badmash. A bad character, a ruffian.

Barsath. Rain.

Bhabar. The waterless tract of forest-clad land between the
Himalayas and the Terai. It is from ten to fifteen miles
in breadth and higher than the general level of the
plains.

Chaprassi. Lit. a badgeman. A servant who runs messages,
an orderly.

Chik. A number of thin pieces of bamboo strung together
to form a curtain. Thin chiks are usually hung in front
of doors in India with the object of keeping out flies but
not air. Chiks of stouter make are hung from the ver-
andah in order to keep out the sun.

CM^. Short for Chitti^ a letter or testimonial.

Coolie. An unskilled labourer.

Dhak. Buiea frondosa. A common tree in low jungle.

Dhobi. Washerman.

Dirzie. Tailor.

Farash. Tamarix indica.

Gali galoj. Abuse.

Jhil. A lake, broad tank, or any natural depression which is
filled with rain water at certain seasons or permanently.

Kankar, or Kunkar. Lumps of limestone with which roads
are metalled in Northern India.

Kannaut. The sides of a tent.
247

248 GLOSSARY

Khansamah. Cook.

Khud. A deep valley.

Mali. Gardener.

Murghi. Barndoor Fowl.

Neem. Azadirachta melia, a common tree in India.

Faddy. Growing rice.

Fuggarree. A turban.

J?yof. A cultivator, small farmer.

Sa/. The iron-wood tree {Shorea robusta).

Sahib. Master, sir, gentleman; a term used to denote a

European.
Shikar. Hunting or shooting.
Shikari, (i) The man who goes hunting or shooting.

(2) The native who accompanies him and directs
the beat.
Terai. Lit. " Moist land." A marshy tract of land about

twelve miles broad, between the Bhabar and the plains

proper. It is low-lying.
Tiffin. Lunch.
Topi. A sun-helmet.

With the exception of British Birds in the Plains
of India, which appeared in The Civil and Military
Gazette, and The htdian Corby, Birds in the Rain, and
Do Anijuals Think? which came out in The Times of
India, the articles which compose this book made their
debUt in one or other of the following papers : The
Madras Mail, The hidian Field, The Englishman.

The author takes this opportunity of thanking the
editors of the above-named newspapers for permission
to reproduce these essays.

R 2

INDEX

INDEX

Acridotheres tristis, 94
Adjutant, 29-35
Aitken, Mr. Benjamin, 165
Aitken, Mr. E. H., 100, 164
Alauda arvensis, 5
Alauda gulgida, 5
Alcedo ispida, 5

Amadavat, 17, 20, 46-51, 52, 165
Anderson, Mr. A., 126
Aquila chrysaetus, 1 75
Aquila vindhiana, 175
Arachnechthra asiatica, 79, So
Arachneckthra lotenta, 79
Arachnechthra zeylonica, 80
Ardea ctnerea, 6
Ardeola grayii, 115
Argya caudata, 127
Athene brama, 24, 142
Automata, birds as, 104-110
Avicultural Society's Magazine,
74

Babbler, 181
Babbler, common, 127
Babbler, striated bush-, 127
Barnes, 74

Baya, 183-189, 219, 221
Bee-eater, blue-tailed, 212
Bee-eater, little green, 208-212
Bingham, Major C.T., 210
Biology, dogmatism of, 129
Blackbird, i, 107
Blackwell, Mr., no
Blanford, 203

"Blue Jay," 10-15, 84
Blyth, 30

Bonelli's eagle, 175
Bottle bird, 185
Brachypternus aurantmSf 86
Brain-fever bird, 117
Bulbul, I, 166, 229-234
Bulbul, black, 229
Bulbul, green, 229
Bulbul, red-vented, 229-234
Bulbul, red-whiskered, 228-234
Bulbul, white-browed, 229
Burroughs, Mr. John, 213
Butcher bird, 163-167
Butler, Colonel, 211
Buzzard, 6
Buzzard, white-eyed, 176

Caccabis chucar, 89

Centropus phasianus, 207

Cercomela fusca, 130

Chaffinch, i

Chambers'' s Jotirnal, 30

Character, bird of, 94-98

Chick, 113

Chicken, 113, 116

Chukor, 89, 90

Cobbler, 62

Colouration, protective, 59, 128

Coluviba intermedia, 6

Colutnba livia, 6
\ Coot, 14

j Coracias indica, 12, 54
I Corby, Indian, 235-239

53

254

INDEX

Corvus, 112, 142, 145, 147, 176,

237
Corvus corax, 4
Corvus lawrencti, 4
Corvus macrorhynchus, 235, 236,

238
Corvus splendenSy 5, in, 176, 235
Coturnix cantmunis, 7
Cowper, 92
Craftsmen, a couple of neglected,

219-223
Cranes, 35-37
Crow, 5, 24-26, 30, 40, 68, 95,

106, 111-115, 118-123, 142,

144, 145-149. 175. 176, 179,

180, 184, 190, 191, 197, 213,

214, 235-239
Cuckoo, 9, 24, 107, 108, 117, 118,

120
Cuckoo, drongo-, 202-207
Cuckoo, playing, 111-116, 133
Cullen, Rev. C. D., 165
Cunningham, Colonel, 31, 32, 1 18,

164, 184, 190
Cypselus affinis, lOI
Cypselus batassiensis, 10 1

Darwin, Charles, 158, 160

Darwinian theory, 23, 129

Davison, 74, 203

Deceiver, gay, 202-207

Dendrocita rufa, 68

Dicrurus, 203

Did-he-do-it, 56-61

Difficulties of bird photography,

225
Dimorphism, sexual, 80, 81, 128^

156
Dog, 215, 216
Dogmatism of biology, 129
Don Quixote, 31
Dove, 12, 124-129
Dove, little brown, 124-134
Dove, red turtle, 128, 129

Dove, ring-, 124-129
Dove, spotted, 134-129
Dragon-fly, 181
Drongo, 139

Drongo-cuckoo, 202-207
Duck, 8, 168, 169

Eagle, 54, 173-177

Eagle, Bonelli's, 175, 177

Eagle, golden, 175

Eagle, tawny, 176, 177

Edible birds' nests, 102

" Eha," 29, 48, 57, 131, 220, 230

Endynaviis honorata. III, 1 17

Falcon, 6, 54

Fauna of British India, 158

Feminine selection, 160

Finn, Mr. Frank, 75, 232

Firefly, 188, 189

Flycatcher, paradise, 13, 81, 150-

162
Flycatcher, white-browed fantailed,

146, 158
Fowl's egg, 113, 114
Fox, 54

Francolinus pondicerianus , 90
Fulica atra, 5

Gadwall, 8, 171
Galerita cristata, 7
Gallinago coelestis, 8
Gallinago gallinula, 8
Godwin, Earl, 169
Goose, grey-lag, 8 *
Crackle, 98
Grahame, 92

Green parrot, 88, 190-196, 197
Grey partridge, 90-93
Grouse, 93
Grouse, red, i
Guinea-fowl, 93

Halcyon stnyrnensis, 4

INDEX

Harpei^s Magazine, 213

Harrier, hen, 6

Harrier, marsh, 6

Hawk-cuckoo, 117

Hawkes, Mr. S. M., 172

Hawk, sparrow-, 6

Headley, Mr. F. W., 54

Heron, 6

Herrick, Mr. F. H., 225, 226, 227

Hewer of wood, 84

Hieraetus fasciaius, 1 75

Hierococcyx varius, 117

Hill-myna, 98

Home Life of Birds, 225

Homer, 57

Homo sapiens, 140

Honeysucker, 78-83, 166

Hoopoe, 14, 84, 182

Hornbill, 166

House martin, 1 10

Hudson, Mr, W. H., 107, 108

Hume, 18, 74, 129, 137, 189, 193

Humming-bird, 78

Hutton, Captain, 192

Instinct, 27, 107, 109, 121

— maternal, no

— parasitic, 120, 121

— parental, 27, 104
Isolation, 232

Jackdaw, 4, 5

Jay, blue, 10-15, 84

Jerdon, 38, 69, 70, 74, 137, 140,

164, 175, 183, 188, 210
Jesse, 222
Jungle crow, 235-239

Kearton, Mr. R., 105, 106

Kestrel, 6, 175

King-crow, 12,40, 138, 139, 203-207

Kingfisher, 3, 144

Kingfisher, white-breasted, 4, 86

Kipling, Lockwood, 31, 91

106, 144-149, 166, 175,

Kite,
177
Koel, ni-115

Lai munia, 46
Laniiis lahtora, 165
Lanius vittatus, 163, 165
Lapwing, 166

Lapwing, red-wattled, 56-61
Lapwing, yellow-wattled, 57
Larder, shrike's, 163-165
Lark, crested, 7
Legge, 74

Leptoptilus dubius, 29
Leptoptilus javanicns, 34
Lilford, Lord, 143
Lobivanellus goensis, 56
Lockwood Kipling, 31, 91

Magpie, 68-72
Magpie-robin, 84
Mallard, 8
Malvolio, 31
Martin, 100, 1 10
Merlin, 6

Merops, emerald, 208-212
Merops philippinus, 212
Merops viridis, 208-212
Milk, pigeon's, 131
Minah, brahminy, 166
Minivet, 161
Molpastes, 229-234
Molpastes hcemorrhoits, 231
Molpastes indictis, 231
Molpastes intermedins, 231
Monarch, dethroned, 173-177
Motacilla maderaspatensis, 26
Munia, red, 45-51
Munia, spotted, 52-55
Myna, I, 40, 84, 86, 94-98, 181,
197

Natural Selection, 23, 24, 42, 105,
109, 129, 202-207, 232, 234

256

Neo-Darwinian School, 124,
Nest, sanitation of, 224
Nests, birds in their, 224-228
Nests, edible birds', 102
Newman, Mr. T. H., 75
Nutmeg bird, 52-55

Gates, 158

CEiiopopclia tranquebarica, 128

Oriole, black-headed, 135

Oriole, Indian, 13, 134-139

Oriolus kundoo, 135

Oriolus melanocephabis, 135

Orthotonus, 222

Orthotomus siitorius, 62-67, 219

Otocompsa, 229-34

Otocompsa emeria, 231

Otocompsa fuscicaudata, 23 1
Owl, barn, 3, 140-144
Owl, screech, 144
Owl, white, 141, 142
Owlet, spotted, 94, 142

Paddy bird, 115, 116
PalcEornis nepalensis, 194

INDEX

28

194

PalcEornis torquatus.

Palm swift, loi

Paradise flycatcher, 13, 81, 150-

162
Parakeet, i

Parental instinct, 27, 104
Paroquet, Alexandrine, 194
Paroquet, rose-ringed, 194
Parrot, 95, 184
Parrot catching, 194
Parrot, green, 88,166, 190-196, 197
Parrot, West African, 195
Partridge, grey, 90-93, 166
Passer domesticus, 2, 75, 76
Peacock, 42-44
Peafowl, 93

Pearson, Professor, 42, 44
Peregrine falcon, 6
Pericrocotus peregrinus , 1 6 1

Pheasant, 92, 144

Photography, difficulties of bird,

225
Pica rustica, 68
Pie, tree, 68-72
Pigeon, 6, 133, 134, 184
Pintail, 8

Pinto, Mr. G. A., 63, 64, 66, 158
Pipit, 7

Playing cuckoo, III-I16
Ploceus bay a, 183, 219
Plover, Kentish, 9
Plover, ringed, 9
Pochard, white-eyed, 171
Prinia iitontata, 219
Prima socia/is, 222
Protective colouration, 59, 93, 128

Quail, 7, 93

Rain, birds in the, 178-182

Raven, 3, 4

Red munia, 46-51, 52-54

Redshank, 9

Reid, 74, 222

Rhipidura albifrontata, 146, 158

Robin, Indian, 128

Robin redbreast, i, 107

Rock chat, brown, 130

Roller, 12

Rook, 4, 5

Salvadori, 74
Sandpiper, 9
Sanyal, Babu, 38, 39
Sarciophoriis malabariciis, 57
Sarcograiiitmis indicus^ 56
Sarus, 35-39

Selection, feminine, 160, 161
Selection, natural, 23, 24, 42, 105,

109, 129, 202-207, 232, 234
Selection, sexual, 42, 160, 161, 205-

207
"Seven sisters," i

i

INDEX

257

Sexual dimorphism, 80, 81, 128,
156

Sexual selection, 42, 160, 161, 205-

207
Shikra, 175
Shrike, 164-167
Shrike, bay-backed, 165
Shrike, Indian grey-backed, 165
Shrike, rufous-backed, 165
Shoveller, 8
Sisters, seven, i
Skylark, 5
Skylark, Indian, 5
Smell, sense of, in birds, 123
Smith, Mr. Bosworth, 141
Snipe, full, 8
Snipe, Jack, 8
Sparrow, 2, 3, 16-22, 75, 76, 143,

197-201
Sparrow, hedge, 1S5
Sparrow-hawk, 6, 166, 175, 200
Spectator, 168, 169
Spice bird, 52-55
Sporaginthus a^nandava, 46
Spotted-bill duck, 171
Spotted owlet, 94
Sprinter, feathered, 89-94
Stability of species, 40-45
Starling, 88, 106
Stint, 9
Stork, 35, 36
Strix Jlatnmea, 3, 141
Strix j'avaiiica, 141
Sunbird, 78-83
Surntailtis higiibris, 202-207
Swallow, 84, 99, 100
Swift, 84, 99-103

Tailor-bird, 62-67, 137, 219

Teal, 8

Terminology, ornithological, 73

Terpsiphone paradisi, 81, 156

Tetrao scoticits, i

Thavmobia cambaycnsis, 128, 130

Think, Do animals? 213-218

Thirst of young birds, assuaging of,

225-228
Thorndike, Professor, 214
Thrush, I, 105, 106
Tit, blue, I

Tragedy, tree-top, 145-149
Tree creeper, 84
Turkey, 93
Turtle dove, red, 128
Tjtrtur cambayensis, 125
Turtur decaocta, 74, 75
Turtur risorius, 74, 75, 124
Ttirttir stiratensis, 124

Uroloncha piinctulata, 52

Vidal, 74
Vulture, 175

Wagtail, 7

Wagtail, pied, 26, 27, 180

Wallace, 161

Warbler, 219, 220

Weaver-bird, 137, 183-189, 219

"White ant," 182

White-breasted kingfisher, 4, 86

Widgeon, 8

Woodpecker, golden-backed, 84-88

Wren, i, 219

Wren-warbler, ashy, 222, 223

Wren-warbler, Indian, 219-222

Wryneck, 84

THE WORKS OF
ANATOLE FRANCE

T has long been a reproach to

England that only one volume
by AlvfATOLE FRANCE
has been adequately rendered
into English ; yet outside this
country he shares with
TOLSTOI the distinction
of being the greatest and most daring
student of humanity now living.

^ There have been many difficulties to
encounter in completing arrangements for a
uniform edition, though perhaps the chief bar-
rier to publication here has been the fact that
his writings are not for babes — but for men
and the mothers of men. Indeed, some of his
Eastern romances are written with biblical can-
dour. " I have sought truth strenuously," he
tells us, " I have met her boldly. I have never
turned from her even when she wore an

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

unexpected aspect." Still, it is believed that the day has
come for giving English versions of all his imaginative
works, and of his monumental study JOAN OF ARC,
which is undoubtedly the most discussed book in the world
of letters to-day.

H MR. JOHN LANE has pleasure in announcing that
he will commence publication of the works of M.
ANATOLE FRANCE in English, under the general
editorship of MR. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, with the
following volumes :

THE RED LILY

MOTHER OF PEARL

THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS

THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD

THE WELL OF ST. CLARE

THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD

JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT

BALTHASAR

THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN

THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL

MY FRIEND'S BOOK

THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN

THAIS

AT THE SIGN OF THE QUEEN P^DAUQUE

JOAN OF ARC (2 vols.)

H All the books will be published at 6/- each with the
exception of JOAN OF ARC, which will be 25/- net
the two volumes, with eight Illustrations.

H The format of the volumes leaves little to be desired.
The size is Demy 8vo (9 X 5f in.), that of this Prospectus, and
they will be printed from Caslon type upon a paper light in
weight and strong in texture, with a cover design in crimson
and gold, a gilt top, end-papers from designs by Aubrey
Beardsley and initials by Henry Ospovat. In short, these are
volumes for the bibliophile as well as the lover of fiction,
and form perhaps the cheapest library edition of copyright
novels ever published, for the price is only that of an
ordinary novel.

^ The translation of these books has been entrusted to
such competent French scholars as MR. Alfred allinson,

HON. MAURICE BARING, MR. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, MR.

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

ROBERT B. DOUGLAS, MR. A. W. EVANS, MRS. FARLEY,
MRS. JOHN LANE, MRS. NEWMARCH, MR. C. E. ROCHE, MISS
WINIFRED STEPHENS, and MISS M. P. WILLCOCKS.

II As Anatole Thibault, dit Anatole France, is to most
English readers merely a name, it will be well to state that
he was born in 1844 in the picturesque and inspiring
surroundings of an old bookshop on the Quai Voltaire,
Paris, kept by his father. Monsieur Thibault, an authority on
eighteenth-century history, from whom the boy caught the
passion for the principles of the Revolution, while from his
mother he was learning to love the ascetic ideals chronicled
in the Lives of the Saints. He was schooled with the lovers
of old books, missals and manuscripts ; he matriculated on
the Quais with the old Jewish dealers of curios and o^y^^^i'ar/ ;
he graduated in the great university of life and experience.
It will be recognised that all his work is permeated by his
youthful impressions ; he is, in fact, a virtuoso at large.

H He has written about thirty volumes of fiction. His
first novel was JOCASTA ^ THE FAMISHED CAT
(1879). THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD
appeared in 1881, and had the distinction of being crowned
by the French Academy, into which he was received in 1896.

f His work is illuminated with style, scholarship, and
psychology ; but its outstanding features are the lambent wit,
the gay mockery, the genial irony with which he touches every
subject he treats. But the wit is never malicious, the mockery
never derisive, the irony never barbed. To quote from his own
GARDEN OF EPICURUS : "Irony and Pity are both of
good counsel ; the first with her smiles makes life agreeable,
the other sanctifies it to us with her tears. The Irony I
invoke is no cruel deity. She mocks neither love nor
beauty. She is gentle and kindly disposed. Her mirth
disarms anger and it is she teaches us to laugh at rogues and
fools whom but for her we might be so weak as to hate."

H Often he shows how divine humanity triumphs ovei
mere ascetism, and with entire reverence ; indeed, he
might be described as an ascetic overflowing with humanity,
just as he has been termed a "pagan, but a pagan
constantly haunted by the pre-occupation of Christ."
He is ii? turn — like his own Choulette in THE RED
LILY — saintly and Rabelaisian, yet without incongruity.

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

At all times he is the unrelenting foe of superstition and
hypocrisy. Of himself he once modestly said : " You will find
in my writings perfect sincerity (lying demands a talent I do
not possess), much indulgence, and some natural affection for
the beautiful and good."

IF The mere extent of an author's popularity is perhaps a
poor argument, yet it is significant that two books by this
author are in their HUNDRED AND TENTH THOU-
SAND,and numbers of them well into their SEVENTIETH
THOUSAND, whilst the one which a Frenchman recently
described as " Monsieur France's most arid book " is in its
FIFTY-EIGHTH THOUSAND.

^ Inasmuch as M. FRANCE'S ONLY contribution to
an English periodical appeared in THE YELLOW BOOK,
vol. v., April 1895, together with the first important English
appreciation of his work from the pen of the Hon. Maurice
Baring, it is peculiarly appropriate that the English edition
of his works should be issued from the Bodley Head.

ORDER FORM

„ 1 90

To Mr..

*Please send me the following works of <Anatole France

to be issued in June and July :
THE RED LILY
MOTHER OF PEARL
THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS
THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD

for which I enclose

O^me „

tAddress

JOHN LANE.PuBLisHKR, The Bodley Head, Vigo St. London, W,

BOMBAY DUCKS

AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE EVERYDAY BIRDS
(&^ BEASTS FOUND IN A NATURALIST'S EL DORADO

By DOUGLAS DEWAR, F.Z.S., I.C.S.

With Numerous Illustrations from Photographs of
Living Birds by Captain F. D. S. Fayrer, I. M.S.

PRESS OPINIONS.

spectator. — " Mr. Douglas Dewar's book is excellent. ... A feature of the
book is the photographs of birds by Captain Fayrer. They are most remark-
able, and quite unlike the usual wretched snapshot and blurred reproductions
with which too many naturalists' books are nowadays illustrated."

Standard. — " The East has ever been a place of wonderment, but the writer
of ' Bombay Ducks ' brings before Western eyes a new set of pictures. . . .
The book is entertaining, even to the reader who is not a naturalist first and a
reader afterwards. . . . The illustrations cannot be too highly praised."

Daily News. — " This new and sumptuous book. . . . Mr. Dewar gives us a
charming introduction to a great many interesting birds."

Pall Mall Gazette. — " 'Mo?,\. entertaining dissertations on the tricks and
manners of many birds and beasts in India."

Graphic. — "The book is written in a most readable style, light and easy, yet
full of information, and not overburdened with scientific words and phrases.
. . . The habits of the different birds are fully described, often in a very amus-
ing and interesting manner."

Outlook. — " Pleasant reading, with pretty touches of the author's own fancy ;
a good deal of information agreeably conveyed. . . . The illustrations are of
an extremely high order, constituting not only a beautiful, but a really valuable
series of portraits."

County Gentleman. — "Thoroughly entertaining to all who can appreciate
either animal life as seen through practised eyes, or witty and humorous writing
in any form. . . . The book is handsomely produced, and is altogether an
attractive acquisition."

Illustrated Lotidon News.— "'^i.'Dcviar . . . has collected a series of essays
on bird life which for sprightliness and charm are equal to anything written
since that classic, ' The Tribes on my Frontier,' was published."

Indian Daily News. — " Mr. Dewar's excellent book. . . . We sincerely
hope that our readers will derive the same lively pleasure from the reading of
this book as we have done."

Yfrkshirt Daily ObserTier. — "This handsome and charming book . . . the
author has many interesting observations to record, and he does so in a very
racy manner."

Dublin Express. — " Mr. Dewar's account of the ' Naturalist's El Dorado ' is
particularly captivating, and is rendered not the less so by the splendidly
produced photographs of living birds."

Manchester Guardian.—" . . . A series of clever and accurate essays on Indian
natural history written by a man who really knows the birds and beasts. . . ."

Shootings Times.—" ... a more delightful work than ' Bombay Ducks ' has
not passed through our handsfor many a long day, and the way the themes are
written are so much to the point. There is not a dull line in the book, which is
beautifully illustrated. . . ."

Truth. — " ... A naturalist with a happy gift for writing in a bright and
entertaining way, yet without any sacrifice of scientific accuracy. . . ."

Western Daily Press. — " . . . The descriptions of the habits and character-
istics of these ' Bombay Ducks ' is a solid and welcome contribution to science,
quite as valuable as the dry-as-dust descriptions of new species. . . ."

INDIAN BOOKS

KASHMIR : The Land of Streams and Solitudes. By
P. PiRiE. With Twenty-five Full-page Plates in Colour,
and upwards of loo other Illustrations by H. R. Pirie.
Crown 4to (iox6i in.). 2is.net.

*»* This book is the result of three years' wandering on the ouifiosts o/
civilization, inhere author and artist proceeded by special perviission of
the Governor of India, thus being enabled to penetrate far into the wilds,
especially along the Gilgit road, where, as a rule, none but a sportsman
or an officer on duty penetrates. The ziolunie has numerous illustrations
reproduced in colour, line, and lialf-tone, and forms a work in which
Kashmir is described by pen, pencil, and brush. In the colour illustra-
tions the artist has caught the atmospht-re as well as the natural fea-
tures of the country she so ably portrays.

RIFLE &- ROMANCE IN THE INDIAN JUNGLE:

Being the Record of Thirteen Years of Indian Jungle Life.
By Captain A. I. R. Glasfurd (Indian Army). With
numerous Illustrations by the Author and Reproductions
from Photographs. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo.
7s. 6d. net.

ORNITHOLOGICAL AND OTHER ODDITIES.

By Frank Finn, b.a. (Oxon.), f.z.s., late Deputy-Super-
intendent of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. With numerous
Illustrations from Photographs. Demy 8vo. lOs. 6d. net.

CEYLON : The Paradise of Adam. The Record of
Seven Years' Residence in the Island. By Caroline
Corner. With Sixteen Full-page Illustrations. Reproduced
from Photographs. Demy 8vo (9 x 5J in.), ios.6d.net.

*i(* A comprehensive account of Life in Ceylon, written in a breezy
and bracing style. A Imost every variety of subject interesting to human
nature one finds within its pages. The domestic life of the .Anglo-
Cingalese, with its attendant 7t<orries in connection with the native ser-
vants, is graphically and humorously portrayed. Many a hint from
this alone may be taken by the unsophisticated European contemplating
residence or ez'en a visit to the Paradise of Adam, a hint that might be of
value in the expenditure of both time and 7~upees. The narrative of the
authoress' s gipsying in the jungle is intensely interesting, instructive, and
funny. In the many CLdventures narrated one gets a keen insight into the
lives and characteristics of peoples beyond the pale and ken of the ordinary
European in Ceylon. The authoress makes it her business to see and
become intimate luith all : hence this original and unique volume. With
the hand of a born artist she depicts scenes never yet brought before
the notice, much less the actual vision, of Europeans, for in this
lovely Island there are wheels rvithin ivheels, forming a complexity
zvhich, though a crazy patchwork, is fascinating as it is picturesque.
Caroline Corner secured the golden key to this unexplored labyrinth,
and by its magic turn opened for others the portals of this wonderful
Paradise of Adam.

JOHN LANE: LONDON AND NEW YORK

AMNH LIBRARY