I
OF INDIAN BIRDS IN GENERAL
Literary critics seem to be agreed that we who write about Indian birds
form a definite school. “Phil Robinson,” they say, “furnished, thirty
years ago, a charming model which all who have followed him in writing
seem compelled to copy more or less closely.” Mr. W. H. Hudson remarks:
“We grow used to look for funny books about animals from India, just as
we look for sentimental natural history books from America.”
In a sense this criticism is well founded. Popular books on Indian
ornithology resemble one another in that a ripple of humour runs through
each. But the critics err when they attempt to explain this similarity by
asserting that Anglo-Indian writers model themselves, consciously or
unconsciously, on Phil Robinson, or that they imitate one another. The
mistake made by the critics is excusable. When each successive writer
discourses in the same peculiar style the obvious inference is that the
later ones are guilty of more or less unconscious plagiarism. The
majority of literary critics in England have not enjoyed the advantage of
meeting our Indian birds in the flesh. To those who do possess this
advantage it is clear that the Indian birds themselves are responsible
for our writings being “funny.” We naturalists merely describe what we
see. The avifauna of every country has a character of its own. Mr. John
Burroughs has remarked that American birds as a whole are more gentle,
more insipid than the feathered folk in the British Isles. Still greater
is the contrast between English and Indian birds. The latter are to the
former as wine is to water.
India is peculiarly rich in birds of character. It is the happy
hunting-ground of that unique fowl, _Corvus splendens_—the splendid
crow—splendid in sagacity, resource, adaptiveness, boldness, cunning, and
depravity; a Machiavelli, a Shakespeare among birds, a super-bird. The
king crow (_Dicrurus ater_) is another superlative. He is the Black
Prince of the bird kingdom. He is the embodiment of pluck. The thing in
feathers of which he is afraid has yet to be evolved. Like the mediæval
knight, he goes about seeking those upon whom he can perform some small
feat of arms.
When we turn to consider the more outward characteristics of birds, the
peacock, the monal pheasant, the “blue jay,” the oriole, the
white-breasted kingfisher, the sunbird, the little green bee-eater, and a
host of others rise up before us. Of these some, showily resplendent,
compel attention and admiration; others of quieter hues possess a beauty
which cannot be appreciated unless they be held in the hand and each
feather minutely examined. At the other extreme stands the superlative of
hideousness, the ugliest bird in the world—_Neophron ginginianus_, the
scavenger vulture. The bill, the naked face, and the legs of this
creature are a sickly yellow. Its plumage is dirty white, with the
exception of the ends of the wing feathers, which are shabby black. Its
shape is displeasing to the eye, and its gait is an ungainly waddle. Yet
even this fowl looks almost beautiful as it sails on outstretched
pinions, high in the heaven. Between the extremely beautiful and the
extremely ugly birds we meet with another class of superlatives—the
extremely grotesque. This class is well represented in India. The great
hornbill—_Dichoceros bicornis_—and the adjutant—_Leptoptilus dubius_—are
birds which would take prizes in any exhibition of oddities. The former
is nearly four and a half feet in length. The body is only fourteen
inches long, being an insignificant part of the bird, a mere connecting
link between the massive beak and the great, loosely inserted tail. The
beak is nearly a foot in length, and is rendered more conspicuous than it
would otherwise be by a structure known as the casque. This is a horny
excrescence, nearly as large as the bill, which causes the bird to look
as though it were wearing a hat which it had placed for a joke on its
beak rather than on its head. The eye is red, and the upper lid is
fringed with eyelashes, which add still further to the oddity of the
bird’s appearance. The creature has an antediluvian air, and one feels
when contemplating it that its proper companions are the monsters that
lived in prehistoric times. The actions of the hornbill are in keeping
with its appearance. It is the clown of the forest.
Even more grotesque is the adjutant. This is a stork with an enormous
bill, a tiny head, and long neck, both innocent of feathers. From the
front of the neck hangs a considerable pouch, which the bird can inflate
at will. Round the base of the neck is a ruff of white feathers that
causes the bird to look as though it had donned a lady’s feather boa. It
is the habit of the adjutant to stand with its head buried in its
shoulders, so that, when looked at from behind, it resembles a
hunch-backed, shrivelled-up old man, wearing a grey swallow-tailed coat.
It looks still more ludicrous when it varies the monotony of life by
kneeling down; its long shanks are then stretched out before it, giving
the idea that they have been mistakenly inserted hind part foremost! Its
movements partake of the nature of a cake-walk. “For grotesque devilry of
dancing,” writes Lockwood Kipling, “the Indian adjutant beats creation.
Don Quixote or Malvolio 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 faint idea might be
conveyed of the peculiar quality of the adjutant’s movements.” If the
hornbill be the clown of the forest, the adjutant is the buffoon of the
open plain.
Consider for a little avine craftsmanship, and you will find no lack of
superlatives among our Indian birds. The weaver-bird (_Ploceus baya_),
the wren-warbler (_Prinia inornata_) are past masters of the art of
weaving. The tailor-bird (_Orthotomus sutorius_), as its name implies,
has brought the sartorial art to a pitch of perfection which is not
likely to be excelled by any creature who has no needle other than its
beak.
If there be any characteristic in which Indian birds are not pre-eminent
it is perhaps the art of singing. A notion is abroad that Indian birds
cannot sing. They are able to scream, croak, and make all manner of weird
noises, but to sing they know not how. This idea perhaps derives its
origin from Charles Kingsley, who wrote: “True melody, it must be
remembered, is unknown, at least at present, in the tropics and peculiar
to the races of those temperate climes into which the song-birds come in
spring.” This is, of course, absurd. Song-birds are numerous in India.
They do not make the same impression upon us as do our English birds
because their song has not those associations which render dear to us the
melody of birds in the homeland. Further, there is nothing in India which
corresponds to the English spring, when the passion of the earth is at
its highest, because there is in that country no sad and dismal
winter-time, when life is sluggish and feeble. The excessive joy, the
rapture, the ecstasy with which we greet the spring in the British Isles
is, to a certain extent, a reaction. There suddenly rushes in upon the
songless winter a mighty chorus, a tumult of birds to which we can
scarcely fail to attach a fictitious value. India possesses some
song-birds which can hold their own in any company. If the shama, the
magpie-robin, the fan-tailed fly-catcher, the white-eye, the purple
sunbird, the orange-headed ground thrush, and the bhimraj visited England
in the summer, they would soon supplant in popular favour some of our
British song-birds.
Another feature of the Indian avifauna is its richness in species. Oates
and Blanford describe over sixteen hundred of these. To the
non-ornithological reader this may not convey much. He will probably
obtain a better idea of the wealth of the Indian avifauna when he hears
that among Indian birds there are numbered 108 different kinds of
warbler, 56 woodpeckers, 30 cuckoos, 28 starlings, 17 butcher-birds, 16
kingfishers, and 8 crows. The wealth of the fauna is partly accounted for
by the fact that India lies in two of the great divisions of the
ornithological world. The Himalayas form part of the Palæarctic region,
while the plains are included in the Oriental region.
Finally, Indian birds generally are characterised by their fearlessness
of man. It is therefore comparatively easy to study their habits. I can
count no fewer than twenty different species which, during past nesting
seasons, have elected to share with me the bungalow that I happened to
occupy. Is it then surprising that an unbounded enthusiasm should pervade
the writings of all Indian naturalists, that these should constantly
bubble over with humour? The materials on which we work are superior to
those vouchsafed to the ornithologists of other countries. Our writings
must, therefore, other things being equal, excel theirs.
II
RESPECTABLE CUCKOOS
The general public derives its ideas regarding the manners and customs of
the cuckoos from those of _Cuculus canorus_, the only species that
patronises the British Isles. “The Man in the Street,” that unfortunate
individual who seems never by any chance to catch hold of the right end
of the stick, is much surprised, or is expected to express great
surprise, when he is informed that some cuckoos are not parasitic, that
not a few of them refuse to commit their eggs and young ones to the
tender mercies of strangers. The non-parasitic cuckoos build nests, lay
eggs and sit on them, as every self-respecting bird should do. All the
American species of cuckoo lead virtuous lives in this respect. But the
Western Hemisphere has its evil-living birds, for many cow-birds—near
relatives of the starlings—lay their eggs in the nests of their
fellow-creatures; some of them go so far as to victimise the more
respectable members of their own brotherhood.
There are several upright cuckoos among our Indian birds, so that there
is no necessity for us to go to America in order to study the ways of the
non-parasitic species of cuckoo.
First and foremost among these is our familiar friend the coucal, or
crow-pheasant (_Centropus sinensis_), known also as the lark-heeled
cuckoo, because the hindmost of its toes has a long straight claw, like
that of the lark. This cuckoo is sometimes dubbed the “Griff’s pheasant,”
because the new arrival in India frequently mistakes the bird for a
pheasant, and thereby becomes the laughing-stock of the “Koi-Hais.”
It always seems to me that it is not quite fair to poke fun at one who
makes this mistake. A man cannot be expected to know by instinct which
birds are pheasants and which are not. The coucal is nearly as large as
some species of pheasant, and rejoices in a tail fully ten inches long;
moreover, the bird is usually seen walking on the ground. Further, Dr.
Blanford states that crow-pheasants are regarded as a great delicacy by
Indian Mohammedans, and by some Hindu castes. I have never partaken of
the flesh of the coucal, and those Europeans who have done so do not seem
anxious to repeat the experiment. Its breast is smaller than that of a
_dak_ bungalow _murghi_, for its wing muscles are very small. As to its
flavour, Col. Cunningham informs us, in his volume _Some Indian Friends
and Acquaintances_, that “a young fellow, who had recently arrived in the
country, complained with good reason of the evil flavour of a ‘pheasant’
that one of his chums had shot near a native village, and had, much to
the astonishment of the servants, brought home to be cooked and partaken
of as a game-bird.” There is an allied species of crow-pheasant, which is
still more like a long-tailed game-bird, so much so that it is known to
zoologists as _Centropus phasianus_. Here, then, we have examples of
cuckoos which resemble other species and suffer in consequence. What have
those naturalists who declare that mimicry is due to natural selection to
say to this?
The crow-pheasant is an easy bird to identify. The wings are chestnut in
colour, while all the remainder of the plumage is black with a green or
purple gloss.
But for the fact that the brown wings do not match well with the rest of
the plumage, I should call the coucal a handsome bird. This, however, is
not “Eha’s” view.
The crow-pheasant is widely distributed in India, being found in gardens,
in cultivated fields, and in the jungle. All the bird demands is a
thicket or hedgerow in which it can take cover when disturbed. It does
not wander far from shelter, for it is a poor flier. Its diet is made up
chiefly of insects, but not infrequently it captures larger quarry in the
shape of scorpions, lizards, small snakes, and the like delicacies.
Probably freshwater mollusca and crustacea do not come amiss to the bird,
for on occasions I have seen it wading in a nearly dried-up pond. It
certainly picks much of its food from off the ground, but, as it is often
seen in trees, and is able to hop from branch to branch with considerable
address, I am inclined to think that it sometimes feeds on the
caterpillars and other creeping things that lurk on the under surface of
leaves. I have never actually observed it pick anything off a leaf, for
the coucal is of a retiring disposition. Like some public personages, it
declines to be interviewed.
Its call is a very distinctive, sonorous _Whoot, whoot, whoot_, and, as
the bird habitually calls a little before dawn in the early part of the
hot weather, its voice is doubtless often attributed to some species of
owl.
The nest is, we are told, globular in shape, considerably larger than a
football, composed of twigs and grass and lined with dried leaves. The
entrance consists of an aperture at one side. I must confess that I have
not yet seen any of the creature’s nests. I have located several, but
each one of these has been placed in the midst of a dense thicket, which,
in its turn, has been situated in the compound of one of my neighbours.
The only way of bringing a nest built in such a position to human view is
by pulling down the greater part of the thicket. This operation is not
feasible when the thicket in question happens to be in the garden of a
neighbour.
Large though the nest is, it is not sufficiently commodious to admit the
whole of the bird, so that the long tail of the sitting crow-pheasant
projects outside the nest. “When in this position,” writes Hume, “the
bird is about as defenceless as the traditional ostrich which hid its
head in the sand.” This remark would certainly be justified were the
crow-pheasant to build its nest in mid-desert, but I fail to see how it
applies when the nest is in the middle of a thicket into which no crow or
other creature with tail-pulling propensities is likely to penetrate. “In
Australia,” continues Hume, “the coucal manages these things far better.
There, we are told, ‘The nest, which is placed in the midst of a tuft of
grass, is of a large size, composed of dried grasses, and is of a domed
form, with two openings, through one of which the head of the female
protrudes while sitting, and her tail through the other.’ On the other
hand, the Southern Chinese coucal, which Swinhoe declares to be identical
with ours, goes a step further, and gets rid of the dome altogether.”
Young crow-pheasants are of exceptional interest. Three distinct
varieties have been described. In some the plumage is barred throughout.
Jerdon supposed that these are all young females. Other young birds are
like dull-coloured adults; these are smaller than the barred forms, and
sometimes progress by a series of hops, instead of adopting the strut so
characteristic of the species. These dull-coloured birds are very wild,
whereas the barred ones are usually easily tamed. This interesting fact
was pointed out by Mr. Frank Finn in his delightful volume
_Ornithological and Other Oddities_. Jerdon regards these as young cocks.
The third variety is coloured exactly like the adult. Finn does not
accept Jerdon’s view, for, as he points out, the three forms differ in
habits, and the barred and dull-coloured forms do not appear to occur in
the same brood; the young in any given nest are either all barred, or all
dull-coloured, or all like the adults in colour. So that if the barred
and dull-plumaged birds represent different sexes, then all the
individuals of a brood must be of the same sex. Instances of this
phenomenon have been recorded, but they appear to be very rare. Finn
therefore thinks that the three varieties of young correspond to three
races. In this connection it is of interest to note that Hume divided
this species into three: _Centropus rufipennis_, found in the Indian
Peninsula and Ceylon; _C. intermedius_, which occurs in Eastern Bengal,
Assam, and Burma; and _C. maximus_, that inhabits Northern India and
Sind. Blanford, while uniting all these into one species, says,
“unquestionably these are all well-marked races.”
Finn had brought to him in Calcutta barred and dull-coloured young birds,
these possibly correspond to the rufipennis and intermedius races. The
matter needs further investigation.
In this connection it should be noted that the young of the Indian koel
(_Eudynamis honorata_)—a cuckoo parasitic on crows—are of three kinds.
Some are all black like the cock, some are barred black and white like
the hen, while others, though nearly altogether black, display a few
white bars. The fact that I have seen specimens of all three kinds of
koel nestling in one garden at Lahore would seem to militate somewhat
against the theory that these correspond to different races or _gentes_.
I have discoursed at such length on the crow-pheasant that our other
respectable cuckoos will not receive adequate treatment. The interesting
malkohas will not get an innings to-day. I trust they will accept my
apologies.
I must content myself in conclusion with a few words regarding the
_sirkeer_ or grey ground-cuckoo. The scientific name of this
species—_Taccocua leschenaulti_—affords an excellent example of the
heights to which our scientific men can rise in their sublimer moments.
This cuckoo always appears to me like a large babbler. It has the untidy
appearance, the sombre plumage, and the laborious flight of the “seven
sisters.” But it does not go about in flocks. It appears to consider that
“two is company, three is none.” Its cherry-red bill is the one bit of
bright colour it displays. From its beak it derives its vernacular name
_jungli tota_ (jungle parrot), the villagers being evidently of opinion
that the beak makes the parrot. This cuckoo seems to feed entirely on the
ground, picking up insects of all sorts and conditions. It is found only
in the vicinity of trees. In the Basti district of the United Provinces,
where it is unusually abundant, I noticed it at almost every
camping-ground I visited. Mango topes appear to be its favourite
feeding-places. When alarmed it used to fly to the nearest cornfield,
where it was quickly lost to view. Its habits are in many ways like those
of the coucal. It builds a rough-and-ready nest, a mere collection of
twigs with a few leaves spread over the surface. The eggs are chalky
white, like those of the crow-pheasant. Both the cock and the hen take
part in incubation.
It is a bird concerning the habits of which there is comparatively little
on record. It therefore offers a fine field for the investigations of
Indian ornithologists.
III
THE BROWN ROCK-CHAT
The standard books on Indian ornithology give inaccurate accounts of the
distribution of some species of birds. In certain cases the mistakes are
due to imperfect knowledge, in others it is probable that the range of
the species in question has undergone change since the text-books were
published. There must of necessity be a tendency for a flourishing
species to extend its boundaries. Growing species, like successful
nations, expand. A correspondent informs me that the Brahminy myna
(_Temenuchus pagodarum_) is now a regular visitor at Abbottabad and Taran
Taran in the Punjab, whereas Jerdon states that the bird is not found to
the west of the United Provinces. Similarly, there is evidence that the
red turtle dove (_Œnopopelia tranquebarica_) is extending its range
westwards. Oates states that the tailor-bird (_Orthotomus sutorius_) does
not occur at elevations over 4000 feet, but I frequently saw it at
Coonoor, 2000 feet higher than the limit set by Oates.
The brown rock-chat (_Cercomela fusca_) is another species regarding the
distribution of which the text-books are in error. Jerdon gives its range
as “Saugor, Bhopal, Bundlekhand, extending towards Gwalior and the United
Provinces.” Oates says, “The western limits of this species appear to be
a line drawn from Cutch through Jodhpur to Hardwar. Thence it extends to
Chunar, near Benares, on the east, and to Jubbulpur on the south, and I
have not been able to trace its distribution more accurately than this.”
Nevertheless, this bird is very abundant at Lahore, some two hundred
miles north-west of the occidental limit laid down by Oates. Brown
rock-chats are so common at Lahore, and the locality seems so well suited
to their mode of life, that I cannot think that the species is a recent
addition to the fauna of the Lahore district. It must have been
overlooked. It is scarcely possible for one individual to have a personal
knowledge of all parts of so extensive a country as India: we cannot,
therefore, expect accuracy in describing the range of birds until an
ornithologist does for each locality what Jesse has done for Lucknow,
that is to say, compiles a list of birds observed in a particular
neighbourhood during a period of observation extending over a number of
years.
Let us now pass on to the subject of this essay. The brown rock-chat is a
dull-reddish-brown bird, slightly larger than a sparrow. There is no
outward difference between the cock and the hen, both being attired with
quaker-like plainness. They are, however, sprightly as to their habits,
being quite robin-like in behaviour. As they hop about looking for food
they make every now and again a neat bow, and by this it is easy to
identify them. They seem invariably to inhabit dry, stony ground. Round
about Lahore numbers of ruined mosques and tombs exist, and each of these
is the home of at least one pair of brown rock-chats. But these birds by
no means confine themselves to old ruins. They are very partial to plots
of building land on which bricks are stacked. When a man determines to
build a bungalow in Lahore he acquires a plot of land, and then has
pitched on to it a quantity of bricks in irregular heaps, each heap being
a cartload. These bricks are then left undisturbed for any period up to
ten years. Among these untidy and unsightly collections of building
material numbers of brown rock-chats take up their abode. But there are
not enough ruins and collections of bricks to accommodate all the
rock-chats of the locality; consequently, many of them haunt inhabited
buildings, and display but little fear of the human possessors of these.
Indeed, an allied species (_Cercomela melanura_) is thought by some to be
the sparrow of the Scriptures.
A cock rock-chat used at the beginning of each hot weather to come into
the skylight of my office at Lahore and sing most sweetly, while his mate
was sitting on her eggs hard by. As I had not then seen a nest of this
species I sent a Mohammedan _chaprassi_ into the Shah Chirag—a tomb in
the office compound—to ascertain whether the nest was inside it or not.
He brought back word that the nest was inside the sepulchre, but that
Christians were not allowed inside, adding, however, that the fakir in
charge thought that an exception might be made in my favour. A rupee
settled the question. Matting was laid down so that the saint’s
burying-place might not be defiled by the dust that fell from the boots
of the infidel, and a ladder was taken inside. Let into the walls of the
tomb were a number of large niches. In one of these, of which the base
was some ten feet above the level of the ground, was the nest of the
brown rock-chats, containing three beautiful pale blue eggs, blotched
with light yellow at the broad end. The ledge on which the nest was built
was covered with dust and pieces of fallen plaster, which had evidently
been accumulating there for generations. The fallen plaster served as a
foundation for the little nursery, which was composed entirely of fine
dried grass. This had the appearance of being woven into a shallow cup,
but I am inclined to think that the material had been merely piled on to
the ledge, and that the cavity had resulted from the sitting of the bird.
The nest was bounded on two sides by the wall, and the part of it next to
the wall was deeper than the remainder. There was no attempt at weaving
or cementing, and the whole was so loosely put together that it could
have been removed only by inserting a piece of cardboard under it, and
thus lifting it bodily away. In other niches were three disused nests,
one of which I appropriated; they had probably been made in previous
years by the same pair of birds. I subsequently came across another nest
inside an inhabited bungalow at Lahore, and another on the inner ledge of
the window of an outhouse. Hume stated that a pair of brown rock-chats
built regularly for years in his house at Etawah. They do not invariably
construct the nest inside buildings. Hume writes: “Deep ravines and
earthy cliffs also attract them, and thousands of pairs build yearly in
that vast network of ravines that fringes the courses of the Jumna and
Chambul from opposite Agra to Calpee. Others nest in quarries, and I got
several nests from those in the neighbourhood of Futtehpoor Sikri.”
During the nesting season the brown rock-chat knows not what fear is. Mr.
R. M. Adam gives an account of a pair which built a nest in a hole in a
bath-room wall. The birds did not appear to be frightened by people
entering and leaving the room. When the first brood had been reared the
hen laid a second clutch of eggs, and, on these being taken, she
immediately laid a third batch. Colonel Butler writes: “During the period
of incubation both birds are extremely pugnacious, and vigorously attack
any small birds, squirrels, rats, lizards, etc., that venture to approach
the nest.” The tameness of the brown rock-chat, together with his
alluring ways and sweet song, make him an exceptionally fascinating
little bird.
IV
THE SCAVENGER-IN-WAITING
The number of kites to be seen in any given place depends almost entirely
upon the state of sanitation in that place. In England conservancy
arrangements are so good that the kite is practically extinct. We have no
use for the bird at home. “_Il faut vive_,” says the kite, “and if you do
not provide me with offal I shall prey upon poultry,” “As to your
living,” replies the farmer, “_Je n’en vois pas la necessité_, and, if
you attack my poultry, I shall attack you.” The kites in the United
Kingdom were as good as their word; so were the farmers. The result is
that the kite is a rara avis at home; a nestling born in the British
Isles is said to be worth £25.
India teems with kites (_Milvus govinda_); we may therefore infer that
sanitation out there is primitive. Unfortunately, we Anglo-Indians do not
require the kites to enable us to appreciate this fact. Kites, however,
are useful in giving us the measure of the insanitariness of a town.
Lahore is a great place for kites. That city contains a greater
proportionate number of these scavenger birds for its size than any other
city or town I have ever visited. They are nearly as abundant as the
crows; further, that beautiful bird, commonly known as Pharaoh’s chicken
(_Neophron percnopterus_), shows his smiling face to one at every turn.
Let me here observe that I am not calling anyone names; I am merely
stating a fact. If the Lahore municipal authorities take my words to
heart, so much the better!
Kites are the assistant sweepers to Government; I was going to say
“honorary sweepers,” but that would not have been strictly accurate, for
in India nothing is done for nothing. The kites receive no money wages,
nothing that comes under the Accountant-General’s audit, but they are
paid in truck. They are allowed to keep the refuse they clear away. This
seems on the face of it to be a _bandobast_ most favourable to the
Government, a very cheap way of securing servants; but, like many another
arrangement which reads well on paper, it is in practice not so
advantageous as it appears. Thus the kite is apt to put a wide, I might
almost say an elastic interpretation on the word “refuse.” To take a
concrete example: the other day one of these birds swooped down and
carried off the chop that was to have formed the _pièce de résistance_ of
my breakfast.
But, notwithstanding his many misdeeds, the kite is a bird with which we
in India could ill afford to dispense, for he subsists chiefly upon
garbage. Fortified with this knowledge, we are able to properly
appreciate the sublime lines of the poet Hurdis:
“Mark but the soaring kite, and she will reade
Brave rules for diet; teach thee how to feede;
She flies aloft; she spreads her ayrie plumes
Above the earth, above the nauseous fumes
Of dang’rous earth; she makes herself a stranger
T’ inferior things, and checks at every danger.”
Now, I like these lines. Not that I altogether approve of the sentiments
therein expressed. I would not advise anyone, not even a German, to learn
table manners from the kite. What I do like about the above is the
splendid manner in which the poet strikes out a new line. [N.B.—The poets
and their friends are strongly advised to omit the forty lines that
follow.] The vulgar herd of poets can best be compared to a flock of
sheep. One of them makes some wild statement about a bird, and all the
rest plagiarise it. Not so Hurdis; he is no slavish imitator. He
obviously knows nothing about the kite, but that is a trifle. If poets
wrote only of things with which they were _au fait_, where would all our
poetry be?
What Hurdis did know was that, as a general rule, when you want to write
about a bird of which you know nothing, you are pretty safe in reading
what the poets say about it, and then saying the very opposite. That in
this particular case the rule does not hold good is Hurdis’s misfortune,
not his fault. The kite happens to be almost the only bird about which
the poets write correctly. This is a phenomenon I am totally unable to
explain.
Cowper sang:
“Kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud.”
Writes Clare:
“Of chick and duck and gosling gone astray,
All falling preys to the sweeping kite.”
King says:
“The kite will to her carrion fly.”
The most captious critic could not take exception to any of these
sentiments. He might certainly pull a long face at Macaulay’s
“The kites know well the long stern swell
That bids the Roman close.”
But he would find it exceedingly difficult to prove that the kites do not
know this.
But let us leave the poets and return to the bird as it is, for common
though he be in the East, the “sailing glead” is a bird that will repay a
little study. His powers of flight, his ability to soar high above the
earth, to sail through the thin air with outstretched and apparently
motionless wings, are equalled by few birds. Watch him as he glides
overhead in great circles until he disappears from sight. He constantly
utters his tremulous, querulous scream—_Chēē-hēē-hēē-hēē-hēē_; his head
is bent so that his beak points downwards, and few things are there which
escape his keen eye. Suddenly he espies a rabble of crows squabbling over
a piece of meat. Quick as thought he is full on his downward career. A
second or two later the fighting, squawking crows hear the swish of his
wings—a sound very familiar to them—and promptly make way for him. None
desires to feel the grip of his powerful talons. He sweeps above the bone
of contention, drops a little, seizes it with his claws, and sails away
to the nearest housetop, where he devours his booty, fixing it with his
talons as he tears it with his beak.
Crows love not the kite. His manner of living resembles theirs so closely
that a certain amount of opposition is inevitable. Then, again, the kite
never makes any bones about carrying off a young crow if the opportunity
presents itself. If the truth be told, the crows are afraid of the kite.
They will, of course, not admit this. You will never get a crow to admit
anything that may be used as evidence against him.
The crows regard kites with much the same feelings that the smaller boys
at school regard the big, bullying boys. Those who know the ways of the
_corvi_ (and who is there in India that does not?) will not be surprised
to hear that they never lose an opportunity of scoring off a kite. There
is no commoner sight than that of a brace of them, as likely as not aided
and abetted by a king crow, chasing the fleeing glead, and endeavouring
to pull a beakful of feathers out of his rump.
But crows prefer to worry the kite upon _terra firma_, for the latter is
a clumsy bird when on the ground. He is so heavy that he can only waddle
along, and, notwithstanding his great pinions, he experiences difficulty
in raising himself off a level plain. Hence it is when a kite is resting,
half asleep, upon the ground, that the “lurking villain crows” usually
worry him. It requires at least two of the “treble-dated birds” to do
this with success. One alights in front of the victim and the other
behind him. This apparently harmless manœuvre is quite sufficient to
excite the suspicions of the kite. He turns his eyes uneasily from crow
to crow, and, although he utters no sound, he is probably cursing his
luck that he has not a visual organ at the back of his head. If he is a
sensible bird he will at once fly off, in hopes that the perditious crows
will not follow him. If he remains, the posteriorly situated crow takes a
peck at his tail. He, of course, turns upon the aggressor, and thus gives
the front bird the opportunity for which it has been waiting. Sooner or
later the kite has to move on.
Kites are very fond of settling on the tops of posts, and on other spiky
places; this feature they share with crows, green parrots, blue jays, and
other birds. I cannot bring myself to believe that such perches are
comfortable; but, just as a small boy will prefer balancing himself upon
a narrow railing to sitting on a proper seat, so do birds seem to enjoy
perching on all sorts of impossible places. Birds are like small boys in
many respects. A kite, of course, enjoys one great advantage when he
elects to rest upon such a perch: it is then impossible for “ribald”
crows to come and squat to right and to left of him.
Kites are not migratory birds in most parts of India. It is said,
however, that the kites leave Calcutta during the rains. I have never
visited the “Queen of Indian cities,” so I cannot say whether or not the
kites act thus. Jerdon, Blanford, and Cunningham all declare that they
do; but Finn writes: “How such an idea could have arisen I do not know. I
have always noticed kites in the rains, and have never heard that they
were ever in the habit of leaving Calcutta then.” The truth of the matter
seems to be that when it rains very heavily the streets of the city on
the Hooghly are washed comparatively clean, and all the food of the
“sailing glead” is swept out into the country, so the kites go after it,
but they return as soon as the rain stops.
The nesting season for the kites is at any time when they feel disposed
to undertake the cares of the family. The books tell us that it begins in
January. This is correct. Where they go wrong is in asserting that it
ends in April. I should rather say that it ends in December. It is true,
however, that in Northern India the greater number of nests are
constructed in the first three months of the calendar year.
The completed nest is about the size of a football, and is an untidy mass
of twigs, rags, mud, brickbats, and such-like things. It is usually
placed high up in a tall tree, not quite at the top, on a forked branch.
It is not a great architectural triumph, but it serves its purpose. Two
eggs are usually laid. These have a white ground blotched with red or
brown. Kites object to having their nest pried into, so that he who
attempts to steal the eggs must not be surprised if the owners attack
him.
V
INDIAN WAGTAILS
“What art thou made of?—air or light or dew?
—I have no time to tell you if I knew.
My tail—ask that—perhaps may solve the matter;
I’ve missed three flies already by this chatter.”
I quite agree with Mr. Warde Fowler that wagtails are everything that
birds should be. They are just the right size; their shape and form are
perfect; they dress most tastefully; they display that sprightliness that
one looks for in birds; their movements are elegant and engaging; their
undulating flight is blithe and gay; their song is sweet and cheery; they
are friendly, and sociable, fond of men and animals, “not too shy, not
too bold.” They are, in short, ideal birds.
I know of nothing more enjoyable than to sit watching a wagtail feeding
at the water’s edge.
“She runs along the shore so quickly,” writes a long-forgotten author,
“that the eye is hardly able to follow her steps, and yet, with a flying
glance, she examines every crevice, every stalk that conceals her
reposing or creeping prey. Now she steps upon a smoothly washed stone;
she bathes and drinks—and how becomingly, and with what an air! The very
nicest _soubrette_ could not raise her dress more coquettishly, the
best-taught dancer not move with more graceful _pas_ than the pretty
bather as she lifts her train and dainty feet. Suddenly she throws
herself, with a jump and a bound, into the air, to catch the circling
gnat; and now should be seen the beating of wings, the darting hither and
thither, the balancing and the shakes and the _allegretto_ that her tail
keeps time to. Nothing can surpass it in lightness. In fine, of all the
little feathered people, none, except the swallow, is more graceful,
fuller of movement, more adroit or insinuating, than the wagtail.”
Wagtails are essentially birds of the temperate zone. They remind us of a
fact that we who dwell in the tropics are apt to forget, namely, that
there are some beautiful birds found outside the torrid zone.
Fourteen species of wagtail occur in India, but the majority of them
leave us to breed. They bring up their families in cool Kashmir, on the
chilly, wind-swept heights of Thibet, or even in glacial Siberia, and
visit India only in the winter when their native land becomes too frigid
even for them.
Many of the migratory wagtails do not show themselves in the southern
portion of the peninsula, being rightly of opinion that the climate of
Upper India is not far from perfect during the winter months.
There is, however, one species—the most lovable of them all—the
pied-wagtail (_Motacilla maderaspatensis_)—which has discovered that it
is possible to live in the plains of India throughout the year; and,
having made this discovery, it has decided that the troubles and trials
of the hot weather are lesser evils than the inconveniences and perils of
the long migratory journey. The head of this species is black, relieved
by a white streak running through the eye; the wings and tail are mostly
black, and a bib—or is “front” a more correct word?—of similar hue is
usually worn. The under parts of the bird are white.
The pied-wagtail is common all over India. It is particularly abundant in
the city of Madras, where it is to be seen everywhere—on the house-top,
in the courtyard, in shady garden, in open field, and on the river bank
in company with the soldiers who solemnly fish in the waters round about
the fort.
When in Madras I used to see almost daily one of these birds perched on
the telegraph wire that runs across the Cooum parallel with the Mount
Road bridge. The bird seemed to spend most of the day in pouring forth
its sweet song. When sitting on the wire its tail used to hang down in a
most unwagtail-like manner, so that the bird looked rather like a pipit.
Pied-wagtails sometimes appropriate suitable parts of the bungalow for
nesting sites; when this happens the human occupant has plenty of
opportunity of studying their ways.
The remaining thirteen species of wagtails are merely winter visitors to
the plains of India. Two or three of these are to be seen feeding, during
the cold weather, on every grass-covered field, and at the edge of every
_jhil_. In the latter place wagtails are nothing short of a nuisance to
the man who is out after snipe, for they have the habit of rising along
with the snipe, and the white outer-tail feathers invariably catch the
eye. Many a snipe owes its life to the wagtail.
The four commonest of the migratory wagtails are, I think, the white
(_Motacilla alba_), the masked (_M. impersonata_), the grey (_M.
melanope_), and the grey-headed wagtail (_M. borealis_). The two latter
are characterised by much bright yellow in the lower plumage, which the
first two lack; but I am not going to attempt to achieve the impossible
by trying to describe the various species of wagtail. Owing to the fact
that these birds, like ladies of fashion, are continually changing their
gowns, it is very difficult to state the species to which an individual
belongs without examining that individual feather by feather. You may see
a dozen wagtails of the same species catching insects on your lawn, each
of which differs markedly from all his companions. Most of us are
satisfied with the knowledge that a given bird is a wagtail, and are able
to enjoy the poetry and grace of its motion without troubling our heads
about its scientific name.
VI
THE TEESA
_Butastur teesa_ used to be called the white-eyed buzzard, but one day a
worthy ornithologist discovered that the bird was not the genuine
article, that its legs and its eggs betrayed the fact that it is not a
true buzzard. Therefore a new name had to be found for the bird. In their
search for this, naturalists have not met with great success. Indeed, the
last state of the bird is worse than the first, for it is now known as
the white-eyed buzzard-eagle. To the adjectival part of the name no one
can take exception, because the white eye and a whitish patch of feathers
on the back of the head are the most remarkable features of a rather
ordinary-looking fowl. The name “buzzard-eagle,” however, is most
misleading. Although, as I have previously had occasion to state, eagles
are not quite the noble creatures the poets have made them out to be, to
suggest that _Butastur teesa_ is one of them is to insult the whole
aquiline community. Eagles, notwithstanding the fact that they sometimes
eat carrion, attack, each according to the size of its talons, quarry of
considerable size, and are, in consequence, the terror of other birds. As
Phil Robinson says of them, “they stand in the sky as the symbol of
calamity. When they stoop to the earth it is a vision of sudden death.”
To speak thus of _Butastur teesa_ would be, as Euclid says, absurd. The
white-eyed buzzard is almost contemptible as a bird of prey; he is a
raptorial degenerate, a mere loafer.
In India one often sees a white-eyed buzzard, some mynas, a pair of
doves, several bee-eaters, one or two king crows, and a roller, sitting,
all in a row, on a telegraph wire within a few yards of one another; the
first and the last, as likely as not, on the tops of the telegraph poles,
looking like pillar saints. Contrast this state of affairs with what
happens when a hawk or a falcon appears on the scene. “Take to woodland,”
writes Phil Robinson, “and fill it with your birds of beauty and of song;
put your ‘blackbird pipers in every tree,’ and have linnets ‘starting all
along the bushes.’ Let melody burthen every bough and every cloud hold a
lark. Have your doves in the pines, and your thrushes in the hawthorn;
spangle your thistle-beds with restless goldfinches, and your furze with
yellowhammers. The sun is shining brightly, and the countryside seems
fairly overflowing with gladness. But with a single touch you can alter
the whole scene; for let one hawk come skimming round that copse yonder,
and the whole woodland is mute in the moment. Here and there shrill
warning cries of alarm, and here and there a bird dipping into the
central covert of the brake. But for the rest there might not be one
winged thing alive in all the landscape. The hawk throws a shadow of
desolation as it goes, its wings scatter fears on either side; silence
precedes it and gloom pursues.”
Small birds fear the hawk and despise the _teesa_, because they know that
the former is as swift and energetic as the latter is slow and lazy. But
it is not easy to understand why the white-eyed buzzard does not prey
upon wild birds, because its wings are, in proportion to its size, longer
than those of most birds of prey. It is not that _Butastur_ considers
birds unfit to eat. On the contrary, says Mr. C. H. Donald, “that he
would love to catch a bird for his dinner is proved by the fact of his
coming down to a bird behind a net as soon as he sees it, but I suppose
experience has taught him that it is no use his trying to catch one in
its wild state, and in full possession of its wings and feathers, and,
consequently, he never tries.” Thus, we have no alternative but to regard
the white-eyed buzzard as a degenerate, a bird that might starve in the
midst of plenty.
When a hungry _Butastur_ sees flitting all around him potential meals in
the shape of small birds, his feelings must be akin to those of the
impecunious man in the comic song who, as he contemplates the insurance
policy on the life of his shrewish wife, cries out: “Stone broke with
fifty quid staring me in the face!” The white-eyed buzzard has perforce
to feed upon very humble quarry, upon the creeping and crawling things,
upon beetles and insects, with an occasional rat or frog. His usual
method of capturing his prey is very similar to that of the shrike, or
butcher-bird, or, to come nearer home, to that of the true buzzards. He
takes up a position on a bare branch of a tree, a telegraph pole, a
fence, or other point of vantage, such as a heap of _kankar_, and there
waits patiently until some small creature wanders by. On to this he
quietly drops, secures it in his feeble talons, and returns to the perch
to devour his quarry and thus bring to a close one of nature’s little
tragedies, of which millions are being daily enacted. After he has
finished his dinner he loves to sit awhile, as the nursery rhyme tells us
we should do, and quietly digest what he has eaten. I once disturbed a
_Butastur_ that had just finished a heavy meal in the shape of a frog,
with the result that the bird “brought up” the frog!
Sometimes the white-eyed buzzard beats over the ground in search of its
quarry, but this is not his usual _modus operandi_. If you would see the
white-eyed buzzard, go into an open place and watch for a brown bird a
little larger than a crow, sitting motionless on some point of vantage,
like Patience on a monument. By its sluggish habits, its small size, its
white eye, and the whitish patch at the back of its head, you may
recognise it. It utters a peculiar plaintive screaming call, which is
heard mostly at the nesting season. “In February and March,” writes Mr.
Donald, “just before the breeding season, these birds may be frequently
seen soaring high up in the heavens, and giving vent to their plaintive
call, and might be taken for falcons if it were not for their much more
rounded wings. When at a height their breasts appear dark and their wings
(lower surface) very light and silvery.”
Needless to say, the nest of this species is not a very skilfully
constructed affair. It is not more beautiful than a _dak_ bungalow, but,
like the latter, serves the purpose for which it is built. It is very
like that of the common crow—a loosely-put-together collection of sticks,
devoid of anything in the form of lining, and placed fairly high up in
the fork of a tree. The tree selected is usually one with rather dense
foliage, and one of a clump or row, in preference to a solitary tree;
nevertheless, I have seen a nest in an isolated tree. The eggs, which are
greyish white, are not laid until some time after the nest has been made
ready. _Teesas_ are very noisy at the nesting season; the sitting hen
utters constantly a mewing cry, which renders the nest easy to locate;
but her vocal efforts pale into insignificance before those of the young
hopefuls. These, to quote Mr. Benjamin Aitken, “keep up an incessant
screaming for days before and after they leave the nest; so that you
cannot pass within two hundred yards of a brood of nearly fledged or
newly fledged birds without being made painfully aware of their existence
and good spirits.”
VII
FALCONRY IN INDIA
Lest the title of this chapter should lead the reader to indulge in
expectations that will not be realised, let me hasten to say that, in my
opinion, hawking is a much overrated pastime. This statement will, of
course, rouse the ire of the keen falconer, who will tell me that hawking
is the sport of kings, and that it has no equal. To such a defence of the
sport the obvious reply is that it has almost entirely died out in
England, and that in India, where there is every facility for it, very
few Europeans care to indulge in it. In Persia and India falconry is
carried on in precisely the same way as it used to be in England. There
can be little doubt that the sport originated in the East, and was
introduced into the British Isles in Anglo-Saxon times. The hoods, the
jesses, the lures, the gauntlets that are used in India to-day are
exactly like those portrayed in old English hawking prints.
Hawks fall into two classes, according to the method of catching their
quarry. These may be compared respectively to sprinters and long-distance
men among human athletes. They are known to falconers as the short-winged
or yellow-eyed hawks and the long-winged or dark-eyed hawks. The former
adopt what I may perhaps call slap-dash methods. A furious rush is made
at the quarry, and if this be not secured at the first onslaught the
chase is given up. The second class adopts the slow but sure method. The
falcon, having sighted its quarry, settles down to a long pursuit, keeps
on and on until it finds itself above its victim, on to which it stoops.
The second class of raptorial birds, which includes all the falcons,
affords the better kind of sport, because the following of the chase
entails some hard riding. For falconry of this kind a stretch of flat,
open country is a _sine qua non_, and, as this is comparatively easy to
find in India, one would naturally expect that the long-winged form of
falconry would be the most popular among Indians. But this is not so. In
Northern India, at any rate, that species of falconry that does not
involve hard riding on the part of the falconer is the most practised.
The goshawk (_Astur palabarius_) is the hawk most commonly used.
Perhaps the best method of conveying an idea of falconry to one who has
not witnessed the sport is to describe a day’s actual experience. The
month is December, and the place Oudh. This means a sunny but perfectly
cool day, so that riding, even when the sun is at its zenith, is
delightful. Our party consists of an Indian gentleman—a Sikh and a large
land-holder—who owns the hawks, and three Europeans all well mounted,
also the chief falconer, indifferently mounted, who carries on his gloved
forearm a goshawk. Then there are two other falconers on foot, one
carrying a goshawk and the other a sparrow-hawk (_Accipiter nisus_). Half
a dozen beaters and three mongrel terriers complete the party. The
sparrow-hawk is hooded, while the goshawk is not, being of a less
excitable nature. The hood is a leather cap, constructed so as to cover
up the wearer’s eyes but not her beak. The hood terminates in a point
like a helmet. In the summit some plumes are stuck, so that the hooded
bird has a fantastic appearance. Sparrow-hawks and peregrines are made to
wear these hoods when taken out, until the falconer espies quarry, when
he unhoods his hawk and lets the ends of the jesses go. The jesses are
short straps made of soft leather, which all trained hawks and falcons
always wear. The goshawks are both females. In all species of the
_raptores_—listen to this, ye suffragettes!—the female is larger and
bolder than the male, and hence is more highly esteemed by the falconer.
The female goshawk is known as a _baz_, and is worth anything up to Rs.
150, while the male, called the _jurra_, will never fetch more than Rs.
80. The goshawks whose exploits I am about to recount cost Rs. 80 and Rs.
60 respectively. They have been trained more especially to take peafowl.
The party sets out in a southerly direction across an uneven plain, much
intersected by dried-up water-courses. There is no cultivation on the
plain, which is to a large extent covered with long _sarpat_ grass and
other xerophilous plants. We move along in an irregular line, the dogs
and beaters doing their best to put up game. Suddenly a quail rises. “Let
loose the sparrow-hawk,” cries the Sirdar. But, alas, the man carrying
that bird has lagged behind, so the quail escapes. I may here say that on
nine occasions out of ten when out hawking the man with the proper hawk
is not where he should be. We continue our course, and presently come to
a narrow river running through a deep _nullah_. Here two or three
cormorants come flying overhead. They are forthwith “spotted” by the
goshawks, which have all the time been eagerly looking about them in all
directions. Having seen the cormorants, they begin tugging excitedly at
their jesses. The falconers liberate the goshawks, and away they go in
pursuit. After flying about eighty yards, first one goshawk, then the
other, gives up the chase, and each repairs to the tree that happens to
be nearest it. Then the falconers go up and show the birds pieces of
meat, in order to entice them back to the fist. One baz immediately flies
to the bait. Not so the other. She sits perched in her tree with an air
of _j’y suis, j’y reste_. In a few seconds some crows catch sight of her
and proceed to mob her by flying around her and squawking loudly.
However, not one of them dares to touch her. Presently she too flies to
her trainer, and the party moves on.
We next ford the river. On the far side the country is still more rugged,
but contains more trees. Presently there is a great commotion in the
thicket, and up gets a great peacock. The goshawks are again released and
give chase. They fly low and make straight for the peacock, upon which
they gain rapidly. We ride hard after them. After a flight of perhaps two
hundred yards the hawks, when close up to the object of their chase, give
up the pursuit, and fly to trees hard by. I ask their owner why they did
not secure the peacock. He replies: “They would have taken it had it been
a hen. They are not used to the male bird. Alas, my best hawk, which
would take the cock, died last week!” Let me here remark that I have
never yet come across a falconer whose best hawk had not recently died.
This is the inevitable excuse for the apparently invariable failure of
the falcon to secure its quarry. To cut a long story short, neither of
those goshawks secured anything that day. Later, the sparrow-hawk was
sent after an unfortunate myna (_Acridotheres tristis_), which it secured
after a chase of perhaps a dozen yards. Its talons struck the myna in the
neck, and it soon killed it, not, however, before the poor little
creature had emitted some heart-rending shrieks. The goshawk must
occasionally catch something, or it would not fetch so large a price, and
would not be so popular a bird with falconers in Northern India, but I
imagine that on most days the hawking party returns without having
secured anything.
Let me now give a brief account of hawking with the Bhairi, or peregrine
falcon (_Falco peregrinus_). The scene, this time, is a huge expanse of
flat plain in the Punjab, near the River Jhelum. The hawks belong to a
European. We have ridden for several hours, not having succeeded in
putting up quarry of any kind. As the falconer seems to have anticipated
this, and as he has with him on trial a new peregrine, which he wants to
see at work, an unfortunate crow, which was captured in the morning and
has been carried round in a bag with us, is let go. He flies in a very
stiff manner. When he has flown some eighty yards the peregrine is
unhooded and let go after him. She at once flies upwards, and in a few
seconds is above the crow, who, seeing her, drops to the ground and lies
there on his back prepared to show fight. The falcon stoops at him, but
seems to be afraid to tackle him on the ground. The falconer then runs up
to him and tries to make him get up; but he refuses, so he is picked up
and thrown into the air. The falcon at once stoops at him, but before she
reaches him the crow has again dropped to the ground, and still the
falcon refuses to close with him. “That bird is of no use,” is the
comment of my host, an assertion which I do not feel inclined to
contradict.
The only other kinds of falconry I have witnessed are those with
hawk-eagles (_Spizaëtus nepalensis_), shikras (_Astur badius_), and
merlins (_Æsalon regulus_). Hodgson’s hawk-eagle is so large a bird that
to watch him dashing after his quarry is a fine sight. It is said that
this species can be trained to capture chinkara (_Gazella bennetti_).
However, I have only seen it in pursuit of a hare that had been
previously caught and then let loose. The hawk-eagle overtook this before
it had gone fifty yards.
Hawking with the shikra is, in my opinion, very poor sport, for this
little bird of prey makes but one dash at its quarry, and at once desists
if this does not enable it to overhaul it. It is usually flown at quails
or mynas. While waiting for its victim it is carried on the hand, but is
not hooded. When one of the kind of bird to which it has been trained is
flushed, the hawker takes the shikra in his hand, holds it between his
thumb and fingers, and then throws it like a javelin in the direction of
its quarry. Thus it enjoys the benefit of a flying start, but,
notwithstanding this, it generally fails to make a catch.
The contest between a merlin and a hoopoe is an exceedingly pretty sight.
The hoopoe is not a very rapid flier, but he is a past master in the art
of jinking and dodging, and the manner in which he times the onslaught of
the merlin, and jerks himself a couple of inches to right or to left, is
a sight for the gods. The merlin, thus cheated of his victim, is carried
on by sheer force of momentum some sixty yards before he can turn for
another dash at the hoopoe. Meanwhile the latter is steadily flapping
towards cover. The merlin is no more successful in his second dash, nor
in his third or his fourth; on each occasion the hoopoe escapes,
apparently by the proverbial hair’s-breadth. A single merlin is usually
not clever enough to capture the wily hoopoe, but when two of them act in
concert they usually succeed in doing so.
Such, then, is falconry as I have seen it. I concede that my experience
has not been great, but I have witnessed enough to enable me to
understand how it is that shooting has almost entirely displaced it as a
pastime.
The training of hawks is, of course, most interesting, and must be a very
fascinating pursuit to those engaged in it. When once the hawk or falcon
has been trained, it appears to me that the best of the fun is over.
The going out in search of quarry seems only an excuse for spending a day
in the open on horseback under very pleasant conditions.
VIII
HAWKS IN MINIATURE
Even as the earth is overrun by dacoits, robbers, and highwaymen in all
places where the arm of the law is not far-reaching and hard-striking, so
is the air infested with bandits. These feathered marauders fall into
three classes, according to the magnitude of their quarry. There are,
first, the eagles, falcons, and hawks, which attack creatures of
considerable size. Then follow the shrikes or butcher-birds—pocket
editions of the raptores—which prey upon the small fry among reptiles,
mammals, and birds, also upon the larger insects. Lastly come the
fly-catchers, which content themselves with microscopic booty, with
trifles that the larger birds of prey do not deem worthy of notice. These
last are able to swallow their victims bodily. Not so the shrikes and
birds of prey, whose quarry has to be devoured piecemeal, to be captured,
killed, then torn to pieces.
Similarity of calling not infrequently engenders similarity of
appearance. Swifts and swallows afford a striking instance of this. Alike
externally, they are widely separated morphologically. So is it with the
shrikes and the raptores. The earlier naturalists were misled by this
outward likeness, and, in consequence, classed the swifts with the
swallows and the shrikes with the falcons.
Many are the points of resemblance between the greater and the lesser
bandits of the air. The ferocity of their mien is apparent to the most
casual observer. Michelet speaks of the eagle as having a “repulsively
ferocious figure, armed with invincible talons, and a beak tipped with
iron, which would kill at the first blow.” Even more sinister is the
aspect of the shrike. The broad black streak that runs from the bill to
the nape of the neck serves to accentuate the fierce expression of the
eye. The American naturalist Burroughs speaks of the shrike as a “bird
with the mark of Cain upon him, . . . the assassin of the small birds,
whom he often destroys in pure wantonness, or to sup upon their brains.”
Much has been written about the cruelty of birds of prey. Their calling
is indeed a barbarous one; they undoubtedly inflict much pain; but these
are not reasons why they should be spoken of as villains of the deepest
dye, as criminals worthy of the noose. The bird of prey kills his quarry
because it is his nature to do so. He regards his victims as so many
elusive loaves of bread, made for his consumption, to be obtained for the
catching. The fly-catcher holds similar views regarding his quarry. We
should bear in mind that the average insectivorous bird kills in the
course of his life a vastly greater number of living things than does the
eagle. The robin, for example, has been known to devour two and a half
times its weight in earthworms in a single day. Were the daily tale of
its victims placed end to end they would form a wriggling line fourteen
feet in length. Yet writers abuse the fierce and vicious eagle, while
they belaud the gentle and good robin. Thus Michelet writes with typical
romantic fervour: “These birds of prey, with their small brains, offer a
striking contrast to the numerous amiable and plainly intelligent species
which we find among the smaller birds. The head of the former is only a
beak; that of the latter has a face. What comparison can be made between
these giant brutes and the intelligent, all-human bird, the robin
redbreast, which at this moment hovers about me, perches on my shoulder
or my paper, examines my writing, warms himself at the fire, or curiously
peers through the window to see if the spring-time will not soon return?”
Writing of this description is possibly very magnificent, but it is not
natural history. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If
it is wicked of the falcon to devour a duck, I fail to see that it is
virtuous of the robin to gobble up a worm.
But to return to the shrike. His beak is very falcon-like. The short,
arched, upper mandible, with its pointed, downwardly-directed tip and
strong projecting tooth, is a weapon admittedly adapted to the tearing-up
of raw flesh. The butcher-bird waits for his quarry much as the buzzard
does, sitting immobile on the highest branch of a bush or low tree,
whence he scans the surface of the earth. Something moving on the ground
arrests his attention. In an instant he has swooped and seized a
grasshopper. A second later he is back on his perch, grasping his victim.
I have already stated that shrikes feed upon small mammals, birds and
reptiles, and large insects. These last make up by far the greater
portion of his menu. Often have I watched the smaller species of Indian
shrike obtaining a meal, but never have I seen any of these capture
anything larger than an insect. Mr. W. Jesse says of the Indian grey
shrike (_Lanius lahtora_)—the largest of our species: “It feeds on
crickets, locusts, lizards, and the like. It may occasionally seize a
sickly or a young bird, but I have never actually seen it do so.” Other
observers have been more fortunate. Thus “Eha” says: “Sometimes it sees a
possible chance in a flock of little birds absorbed in searching for
grass seeds. Then it slips from its watch-tower and, gliding softly down,
pops into the midst of them without warning, and strikes its talons into
the nearest.” Similarly Benjamin Aitken writes: “The rufous-backed
shrike, though not so large as the grey shrike, is a much bolder and
fiercer bird. 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 had set
over the cage of amadavats. On another occasion I exposed a rat in a cage
for the purpose of attracting a hawk, and in a few minutes found a
_Lanius erythronotus_ fiercely attacking the cage on all sides.”
I am disposed to regard such cases as the exceptions which prove the rule
that the food of, at any rate, the smaller species of shrike, consists
mainly of insects. This would explain why so few shrikes’ “larders” are
discovered in India. Every popular book on natural history describes how
the butcher-bird, having killed his victim, impales it upon a thorn, and
leaves it there to grow tender preparatory to devouring it. I have not
been lucky enough to come across one of these larders. Other naturalists
have been more fortunate, and we may take it as an established fact that
even the smaller Indian species of butcher-birds sometimes impale their
victims on thorns. The existence of such larders is easily accounted for.
When the little butcher captures a victim so large that it has to be torn
to pieces before consumption, he has to find some method of fixing it
while tearing it up. He is not heavy enough to pin it to the ground with
his talons, as a raptorial bird does, so must perforce utilise the fork
of a tree or a large thorn. Having taken his fill, he flies away, leaving
the remains of his dinner impaled on the thorn, where it is discovered by
some enterprising ornithologist.
Fifteen species of _Lanius_ are described as existing in India. Of these
the three most commonly seen are the rufous-backed, the bay-backed, and
the grey species.
The rufous-backed shrike (_Lanius erythronotus_) is the only butcher-bird
that is abundant on the Bombay side. It is about the size of a bulbul. It
sits bolt upright, with tail pointing to the ground, and in this attitude
watches for its quarry. It has a grey head, with a conspicuous broad
black band—the mark of the butcher-bird community—running through the
eye. Its back is reddish brown. It has a white shirt-front, which makes
it easy to see; moreover, it always sits on an exposed perch. To mistake
a shrike is impossible. There is no other fowl like unto it.
The bay-backed species (_L. vittatus_) is a somewhat smaller bird, but is
very like _erythronotus_ in appearance. It may, however, be distinguished
at a glance when on the wing by the white in the wings and tail.
The third common species—the Indian grey shrike (_L. lahtora_)—has the
whole of the back grey, and thus is recognisable without difficulty.
The nest of the butcher-bird is an untidy, cup-shaped structure, from
which pieces of rag frequently hang down. As often as not it is built in
a thorny tree, and, by preference, pressed up close against the trunk.
Baby shrikes make their _début_ into the world during the hot weather.
IX
THE ROOSTING OF THE BEE-EATERS
One evening in August I was “on the prowl” with a pair of field-glasses,
when I came across a tree from which emanated the twittering of many
green bee-eaters (_Merops viridis_). As the sun was about to set, it was
evident that these alluring little birds were getting ready to go to
sleep. Most birds seem to roost in company. They do so presumably for the
sake of companionship, warmth, and, perhaps, protection. To my mind there
is no sight more amusing than that of a number of little birds going to
bed, so I turned aside to watch these emerald bee-eaters. The tree in
question was an isolated one, growing at the side of a field. I do not
know its name, but it was about twenty feet high, with fairly dense
foliage, the leaves being in colouring and shape not unlike those of the
rose. The bee-eaters in the tree were making a great noise; all were
twittering at the top of their musical little voices, and, as there were
certainly more than forty of them, to say nothing of some other birds,
the clamour may be imagined. From a little distance it sounded like the
calling of many cicadas. The birds were evidently busy selecting perches
on which to pass the night, and there was, as there seems always to be on
such occasions, a certain amount of squabbling. I was going to say
“fighting,” but perhaps that would be too strong a word to use for this
scramble for places. At times, indeed, the scramble would develop into a
fight, and two birds emerge snapping at one another. Once outside they
would desist from fighting and return to the tree. Occasionally a
bee-eater would dart out of the tree, and make a sally after some flying
insect, and, having caught it with a loud snap of its mandibles, return
to the tree and disappear into the “leafy bower.” While this was going on
amid the foliage, fresh bee-eaters kept coming in from a distance, mostly
in pairs. These all made direct for the tree, evidently knowing it well.
I crept up to within about six yards of the dormitory, so as to witness
as much as possible of what was going on amongst the leaves.
Some of the birds looked as though they had settled down for the night,
since they were quite quiet. Two, in particular, had taken up a position,
side by side, close up against one another on a somewhat isolated bough.
They sat there quite still except for an occasional turn of the head,
which seemed to express surprise and annoyance at the clamour of their
fellows. Several other individuals had settled down in the same manner,
in rows of two or more, huddled as close as possible together, each row
being on a separate branch.