They are not content to wander about among rubbish heaps and in other
still less savoury places in the hope of securing any small morsel. They
demand substantial fare; nothing less than a large carcase pleases them.
It is true that they have sometimes to put up with garbage of the lesser
sort, so that those which have not been successful in their hunt have
perforce to gather in the trees near the municipal slaughter-house and
await the casting forth of the offal. Their usual method of securing a
meal is of the won-by-waiting description. They mount high into the air
and float on outstretched pinions 3000 or 4000 feet or more above the
level of the earth, and thence scan its surface with eager eye. When the
hand of death strikes any terrestrial creature, down comes the soaring
vulture. His earthward flight is observed by his neighbour, floating in
the air a mile away, who follows quickly after number one. In a few
seconds numbers three, four, five, six, and others are also making for
the quarry, so that the stricken creature, before life has left it, is
surrounded by a crowd of hungry vultures, and, as the poet has it, “but
lives to feel the vultures bick’ring for their horrid meal.” Nor do
these wait for death to set in before they begin their ghastly repast.
It suffices that their wretched victim is too feeble to harm them; they
then set to work to tear it to pieces, utterly indifferent to its cries
of agony. Such behaviour is characteristic of all birds and beasts of
prey. These, in consequence, have been dubbed “cruel” by those who
should know better. Thus Bonner, in his “Forest Creatures,” writes:
“Just as a child likes to enjoy the consciousness of having possession
of a cake, and revels for a while in the pleasurable feeling before
taking the first bite, feeling sure that delay will not weaken his
tenure, so will an eagle very often toy with his victim, and though
within his grasp, defer the fatal grip. At such times his appetite is
probably not very keen; or he is in a merry humour and likes the fun of
seeing the terror he causes, as he races in his mirth round and round
the animal almost paralysed with fear. Or perhaps there is somewhat of a
Caligula in his nature, and he considers _that_ the only true enjoyment
which is purchased by the acute suffering of others. Be this as it may,
he will thus dally with a creature’s anguish, and only after having
twenty times swooped down as if to seize it in his talons, do so in
reality.”
To call such behaviour on the part of a bird of prey cruel is, I submit,
utterly wrong, and based on an altogether incorrect perception of the
animal mind. It is my belief that vultures and other raptorial birds do
not recognise in the screams of their victims the wails of pain. Their
power of reasoning is not sufficient to enable them to interpret the
meaning of these cries. How can they possibly know that they are hurting
their victim, or that it can feel? They have never been taught that it
is most painful to be torn to pieces, and they themselves have not
experienced the sensation. How, then, are they to understand that it
hurts? An Indian coolie, even, does not appear to appreciate the fact
that birds can feel pain, for when accompanying a man out shooting he
will pick up a winged snipe or duck and put it, while still alive, in
the game stick and leave it there to die a lingering death. Now, I
readily admit that the Indian villager is not overburdened with brains,
but he is capable of simple reasoning, which is more than can be said of
any bird. He certainly is not conscious that by putting the head of a
live bird into a game stick he is causing unnecessary pain; much more
are birds of prey ignorant of the fact that being eaten alive is a most
painful experience.
A crowd of vultures gathers round a stricken animal in almost as short a
space of time as a mob of gaping Londoners collects round the victim of
an accident. Recently, in the course of a shoot in the Terai, the man in
the _machan_ next to mine shot a spotted deer, which fell lifeless in an
open patch in the forest. By the time the line of beaters had reached
our _machans_ fifteen or sixteen vultures had assembled round the dead
stag, and it was with difficulty that we, from our _machans_, kept the
greedy birds off the carcase.
Vultures are always to be found at the burning _ghat_. Wood is expensive
in many parts of India, so that only the more wealthy completely burn
the remains of their dead relatives. For the poor and the parsimonious
the vultures complete the work commenced by the fire, so that truer than
even its author suspected is Michelet’s description of vultures as
“beneficent crucibles of living fire through which Nature passes
everything that might corrupt the higher life.” When a body, with the
face only singed, is cast on to the Ganges, at least one vulture alights
upon it and proceeds to devour it as it is borne on the waters of the
sacred river; the air and gases in the corpse keep both it and the
vulture afloat. Sooner or later a rent causes the gases to escape, then
the corpse sinks suddenly and the vulture is often hard put to it to
reach the bank, for it cannot fly properly when its wings are wet. The
half-burnt corpse is not always consigned to the river, and in these
circumstances the scene at the _ghat_ when the living human beings have
left it is not one that is pleasant to contemplate. But in India, where
Nature’s back premises are so exposed, it is not always possible to
avoid it. More than once when strolling along a river bank have I
suddenly and unexpectedly come upon a company of vultures squatting in
an irregular circle round some object, each fighting with its neighbour
for a place at the repast. The vultures are not the only participants.
Some pariah dogs run about on the outskirts, every now and then making
frantic efforts to wedge themselves in between the vultures and so
obtain for their emaciated bodies a mouthful of food. Some crows and
kites are invariably present, trusting to their superior agility to
snatch an occasional morsel. And in the Punjab some ravens will also be
at the feast.
There are several species of vulture in India. Next to the scavenger
vulture the commonest is the white-backed species (_Pseudogyps
bengalensis_). This is not a bad-looking bird in its solemn lugubrious
way. Its general colour is ashy black—the black of a threadbare coat.
Its back is white, but this is usually nearly entirely hidden by the
dark wings, and shows merely as a thin streak of white along the middle
of the back. The dark grey head and neck are almost devoid of feathers
and their nakedness is accentuated by a ruff or collar of whitish
feathers. The bareness of the head makes the large hooked beak look
longer and bigger than it really is. The bird is nearly a yard in
length.
A yet finer bird is the black, King, or Pondicherry vulture (_Otogyps
calvus_). The back and wings of this species are glossy black relieved
by white patches on the thighs. Its bare head and neck are yellowish
red, and there is a wattle of this colour on each side of the head. This
vulture, unlike the last species, is solitary, and is called the “King
vulture” because, when it comes to a carcase, all the vulgar herd of
smaller vultures, kites, and crows give way before it, and, as a rule,
are afraid to approach until this regal bird has had its fill.
Vultures build huge platforms of nests high up in lofty trees, and, like
sand martins, rear up their young in the winter.
XI
THE INDIAN ROBIN
Speaking generally, the birds of India are to the feathered folk of the
British Isles as wine is to water. The birds, such as the blue tits,
which we looked upon in our youth as possessing gay plumage, seem to
have lost some of their lustre when we again set eyes upon them after a
sojourn in the East. It is not that they or we have grown older, that
their feathers have lost their ancient splendour or that the rose rims
to our spectacles have worn away. The explanation lies in the fact that
we have for years been looking upon allied species of brighter hue. The
English robin, however, is one of the few exceptions to this rule. He is
in all respects superior to his Indian cousins—the Thamnobias. I mean no
offence to the latter, for they are charming little birds, nevertheless
they must bow to the superiority of their English brethren. The Indian
robins lack the red waistcoat that gives the British bird his
well-to-do, homely appearance. It is true that our Indian robins wear a
patch of red feathers under the tail. But this, notwithstanding the fact
that they make unceasing efforts to display it, is not adequate
compensation for the lack of the red waistcoat. It is not so much what
one wears as the way in which one wears things that matters. To wear
brown boots with light-coloured clothes is no offence against good
taste, although at one time the undergraduates at Pembroke College,
Cambridge, were not allowed to wear brown boots in chapel; but to don
this description of footwear simultaneously with a frock coat is a sin
that is likely to be visited upon the children—I was about to say—unto
the fourth generation, but in this horrid, democratic, Lloyd-Georgian
age I think it would be more correct to say “unto the second
generation.” Nor is this the only point of inferiority of the Indian
robin. Although he is by no means a poor singer, he is not nearly so
brilliant a performer as his British cousin.
Then again, the Indian robin has not the confidential manners of the
English species. Often when I have been sitting in an English garden,
has a robin come and perched on the arm of my chair, an example which
his Indian counterpart has never shown the slightest inclination to
follow. In England the robin is a semi-domesticated bird; in India,
although a pair often take up their abode in the compound, robins prefer
to dwell “far from the madding crowd.” If the truth must be told the
Indian species love not the shady garden. The cool orchard has no
attractions for them. They abhor the babbling brook. Their idea of an
earthly paradise is a brick-kiln, a railway embankment, or a flat,
rocky, barren, arid piece of land. Aloes and prickly pear are their
favourite plants.
But enough of these odious comparisons. Let me now describe the two
Indian species of Thamnobia—the black-backed robin (_T. fulicata_) which
has possessed itself of South India and the brown-backed species (_T.
cambayensis_) which is found all over Northern India. The cock of the
former species is a glossy, jet-black bird, with a narrow white bar in
his wing, and the brick-red patch under his tail which I have already
had occasion to mention. The hen is sandy brown all over save for the
aforesaid patch. The hen of the northern species differs in no
appreciable way from her sister in the South; while the cock of the
North varies only from his southern brother in having the back brown
instead of black. It is my belief that the black-backed species arose as
a mutation from the brown-backed form. The hen and the two cocks
probably represent three stages in the evolutionary process.
I am sorry to be under the necessity of making a statement which may
offend the ladies, but the fact is that among birds the cocks tend to be
ahead of the hens as regards evolutionary development, they are, in a
sense, superior beings. The tendency is for all birds to assume
brilliant plumage, and it is fitting that this should be so, for are not
birds the most exquisite ornaments of the earth? In some species both
sexes have travelled equally far along the evolutionary path, and in
such instances the sexes are alike. In other cases one of the sexes is
one or more stages ahead of the other, and it is almost invariably the
cock who leads and who is, therefore, the more beautiful. It is my
belief that at one time both sexes of both species of Indian robin were
coloured as the hens now are. Later, a mutation arose in the cock
whereby all his plumage save the back became black, and when this
mutation became fixed in the species, the cock had advanced a stage in
his evolutionary progress. A still more advanced stage was reached when
the whole of the plumage became black. Could we peep a thousand years
into the future, it is quite likely that we should find that the
northern species of Indian robin had acquired a black back.
Some may think that these statements are far-fetched. I submit that they
are nothing of the kind. Not infrequently it happens that hen birds
develop the plumage of the male. Again, sometimes of two closely allied
species one displays marked sexual differences, while the sexes of the
other are difficult to distinguish. Every one is familiar with the showy
drake and the dull-coloured hen of the common mallard or wild duck of
Europe (_Anas boscas_), and we in India are equally familiar with an
allied species the spotted bill (_A. poecilorhyncha_), in which both
sexes are dull-coloured like the female mallard. The cock mallard is a
stage ahead of the hen mallard and of both sexes of the spotted bill as
regards evolutionary development. A thousand years hence the male
spotted-bill may have developed a coat of many colours. The foregoing
will not be acceptable to the old-fashioned Darwinians, but as these
cannot explain satisfactorily how it is that natural selection has given
cock robin in Northern India a brown back, and a black back to his
southern cousin, they are not entitled to dictate to us. The
Darwin-Wallace hypothesis has been of great service to Science during
the past fifty years, but zoology has now outgrown it, and sooner or
later all scientific men must recognise this fact. But we have made a
long digression into the arid field of science, let us hie back to our
Indian robins.
Perhaps their most interesting characteristic is their fondness for
queer nesting sites. There is nothing particularly remarkable about the
nest itself, which varies according to its situation, from a mere pad to
a neat cup composed of soft materials, such as cotton, grass, and
vegetable fibres. The nursery is cosily lined, frequently with feathers.
The lining almost invariably contains some human or horse hair, and
often fragments of snake’s skin. In April and May of one year I came
upon the following robins’ nests at Lahore: No. 1, in the disused nest
of a rat-bird (_Argya caudata_) placed about five feet above the ground
in a thorny but dense bush; No. 2, on the outer sill of a window, which
was guarded by trellis-work, the meshes of which were so fine that it
was with difficulty that I could insert two fingers into the nest; No.
3, in a hole in the mud wall of a deserted hut; No. 4, among the roots
of a sago palm tree; No. 5, in a very dilapidated disused rat-bird’s
nest; No. 6, in a hole in a railway embankment; No. 7, in a hole barely
a foot from the ground in the trunk of a tree—in the same hole was a
wasps’ nest; No. 8, in one of the spaces between bricks that had been
stacked in order to become dried by the sun.
The above form a varied assortment of sites; but there is nothing very
remarkable in any of them. Colonel Marshall records a nest built in the
hole in a wall intended for the passage of a punkah rope.
At Fategarh, some years ago, a pair of robins built inside an old
watering pot that had been thrown into a bush. Another pair went “one
better” by nesting in the loop of an old piece of cloth that had been
thrown over the branch of a tree.
Mr. J. T. Fry records in _The Countryside Monthly_ a nest built at
Jhansi in a long-haired brush used for taking down cobwebs. “The nest,”
he writes, “is constructed of the fine roots of the _khus-khus_ lined
with hair into which onion peel and scraps of cast-off snake’s skin have
been incorporated. The brush, when out of use, was placed against the
wall at the side of the bungalow, being fixed to the end of a long
bamboo. It was only in use about a fortnight before the nest was
discovered.”
The above were all nests of the brown-backed robin, but the black-backed
species selects equally curious nesting sites. As examples of these
mention may be made of holes in railway cuttings within a few feet of
the line, holes in walls, the side of a haystack, a hole in a gatepost.
Dr. Blanford found the nest of this species inside the bamboo of a
_dhooly_ in the verandah of Captain Glasfurd’s house at Sironcha. Mr. J.
Macpherson records a nest in an elephant’s skull lying out in his
compound at Mysore.
Both sexes take part in nest construction. At the mating season cock
robins are very bold and pugnacious, but these characteristics do not
always save the nest from destruction, as the following incident will
show.
In May, 1912, a pair of brown-backed robins elected to nest in the
verandah of my bungalow at Fyzabad. The roof of the verandah is
supported by longitudinal beams which rest on a series of cross-beams
that project from the main wall of the house and lean at their far end
on the verandah pillars. The upper surface of the cross-beams affords
admirable nesting sites of which the doves and mynas take full
advantage. The robins in question built their nest on one of these
cross-beams. No sooner had the nursery been completed than trouble
began. The first intimation I received of the existence of the nest was
much swearing (if I may use that expression to denote the angry cries of
a little bird) on the part of cock robin. The temperature on that day
was well over 100° F. in the shade, consequently I did not open the
doors of the house to ascertain the cause of the robin’s wrath. But the
angry cries of the bird persisted, and I heard them repeatedly on the
following day, so I braved the heat and went into the verandah to
prospect and discovered that a myna was the object of the robin’s wrath.
During the following day the language of the robin abated neither in
quantity nor quality; indeed, his noise began to get on my nerves. He
used to perch when giving vent to his feelings, just above the heads of
the _chaprassis_ who sat in the verandah awaiting orders. These men are
not usually very observant, but even they noticed and grew annoyed at
the robin’s noise, and on several occasions I heard them flicking at the
robin with a duster. During the early part of the fourth day there was
comparative quiet in the verandah, and I thought that the robins and
mynas had settled their differences. I was mistaken. The quiet proved to
be the lull before the storm. This burst about 4 p.m. The uproar brought
me to the window; from there I saw that the robin was hissing with rage
at a myna who was peeping into the robin’s nest. Then the cock robin
flew at the myna and pecked at him. The myna, although three times the
size of the robin, fled and flew from the verandah, followed by the
swearing robin. A couple of minutes later cock robin returned alone. He
then perched on the floor of the verandah, drew himself up to his full
height, like the heroine in a penny novelette (who, by the way, appears
always to slouch except when she is very angry), and stood there hissing
with rage. This continued until a _chaprassi_, who was squatting in the
verandah, drove the angry bird away. The next morning I found lying on
the floor of the verandah the wreck of the robins’ nest, and noticed
that a myna was constructing a nest on the site recently occupied by
that of the robin.
XII
THE SHIKRA
Falconers divide hawks into the long-winged and the short-winged
varieties. The former stand in much the same relation to the latter as
the cross-country runner does to the sprinter. The long-winged hawks
have dark eyes, while in the short-winged ones the eyes are yellow or
orange; hence the two classes are sometimes distinguished as dark-eyed
and light-eyed hawks. The various falcons, the peregrine, the laggar,
the saker, etc., come in the long-winged category. When they catch sight
of their quarry, they give chase and follow it, if necessary for a long
distance, till they either lose it or are able to get above it in order
to strike. The short-winged hawk is content with making one pounce or
dash at its quarry; if it secures it, well and good, if it fails, it
does not give chase. The sparrow-hawk and the shikra are familiar
examples of the short-winged hawks.
The long-winged falcons are naturally held in greatest favour by the
hawker; but short-winged birds of prey are also trained. Long-winged
hawks hunt in the open. Being long-distance fliers, they rely chiefly
upon their power of endurance, and so naturally like plenty of room in
which to operate. Short-winged hawks, on the other hand, usually hunt in
wooded localities, where they are better able to surprise their victims
than in the open.
After the kite, the shikra (_Astur badius_) is the commonest bird of
prey in India. It is in habits and appearance very like the common
sparrow-hawk (_Accipiter nisus_). So great is the resemblance between
the two species that “Eha,” in his _Common Birds of Bombay_, gives an
excellent description of the shikra under the title of the Indian
sparrow-hawk.
Although the two little hawks are so similar in appearance,
ornithologists place them in different genera on account of the
considerably longer legs of the sparrow-hawk proper and its heavily
spotted and blotched eggs, the eggs of the shikra being white and almost
entirely free from spots.
The shikra is a slightly-built bird about the same length as a pigeon;
its tail is half a foot long. The upper plumage is greyish. The wings
and tail are heavily barred with black. The breast is white, with large
brown spots in young birds; in old birds the brown spots are replaced by
a number of thin wavy, rust-coloured cross-bars. The female, as is
invariably the case in birds of prey, is considerably larger than the
male, she being fourteen inches in length as against his twelve and a
half. But it is quite useless to attempt to recognise a shikra, or
indeed any other bird of prey, from a description of its plumage. As
“Eha” says: “To try to make out hawks by their colour is at the best a
short road to despair. Naturalists learn to recognise them as David’s
watchman recognised the courier who brought tidings of the victory over
Absalom: ‘His running is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok.’
Every bird of prey has its own character, some trick of flight, some
peculiarity of attitude when at rest, something in its figure and
proportions which serves to distinguish it decisively. The sparrow-hawk
(shikra) flies with a few rapid strokes of the wings and then a gliding
motion, and this, together with its short, rounded wings and long tail,
distinguishes it from any other common bird of prey. I learn of its
presence oftener by the ear than the eye. Its sharp, impatient double
cry arrests attention among all other bird-voices.”
The shikra has comparatively feeble claws, and so is unable to tackle
any large quarry. Birds of prey strike with the claw, not with the beak,
as some artists would have us believe; hence the size of the claws of
any particular bird of prey affords a safe index of the magnitude of its
quarry. The more formidable the claw, the larger the prey. No matter how
large a raptorial bird be, if its claws are small and feeble, it feeds
either upon carrion or tiny creatures.
The shikra is said to live chiefly upon lizards; but it makes no bones
about taking a sparrow or other small bird, a mouse, or even a rat. In
default of larger game it does not despise grasshoppers, and, when the
termites swarm, it will make merry among these along with the crows and
kites. I once saw a shikra pounce upon a little striped squirrel. Some
crows were witnesses of the feat, and at once proceeded to attack the
shikra so vehemently that it let go of the squirrel, which made good its
escape. The crows, let me add, were not actuated by philanthropic
motives. Their object was, not to liberate the squirrel but to make a
meal of it. They were quite as disappointed as the shikra when the
little rodent regained its liberty.
Natives of India frequently hawk with the shikra, setting it on to
partridges, quails, and mynas. It is very easily and quickly trained.
Within a week or ten days of capture its education is complete. However,
hawking with a shikra is, in my opinion, very poor sport, for the shikra
makes but one dash at its quarry, and at once desists if it fails to
secure it. The hawker holds it in his hand and throws it like a javelin
in the direction of its quarry. While waiting for its victim it is
carried on the hand in the same way as a merlin is, but is never hooded.
It is only the dark-eyed hawks that have to be hooded; they seem to be
much more excitable than the light-eyed ones. A trained shikra is very
tame and does not show any objection to being handled.
The shikra nests from April to June, building, high up in a lofty tree,
a nest which can scarcely be described as a triumph of avine
architecture. Hume says: “These little hawks take, I should say, a full
month in preparing their nest, only putting on two or three twigs a day,
which they place and replace, as if they were very particular and had a
great eye for a handsome nest; whereas, after all their fuss and bother,
the nest is a loose, ragged-looking affair, that no respectable crow
would condescend to lay in.” Three bluish-white eggs are deposited in
the nest. Shikra nestlings show fight when interfered with and peck
savagely at the intruder.
XIII
A FINCH OF ROSEATE HUE
The _Fringillidæ_, or finches, constitute the most successful family of
birds in the world. The crow tribe runs the finches close, but the
_Corvi_ are handicapped by their large size. Were the sparrow as big as
the crow, man would never have allowed him to become the pest that he
is. The impudent pigmy is tolerated because he is so small and
insignificant.
Finches are birds of coarse build, and are characterised by a
vulgar-looking beak, so that they need either fine feathers or a sweet
voice to render them acceptable to man. Those finches which, like the
common sparrow, lack either of these attributes are accounted mean birds
of low estate. But, on the whole, Dame Nature has been kind to the
finches in that she has arrayed the cocks of many species in bright
colours. The showy goldfinch is a familiar instance of this, as is the
canary, but the yellow colour of the latter has been induced largely by
artificial selection. The wild canary is not a very beautiful bird.
Among the finches all shades of red and yellow are to be found. Brown
and green are worn by some species. Blue seems to be the only colour not
vouchsafed to the _Fringillidæ_.
Several of the finches have the gift of song. This being so, it is
regrettable that the particular species of finch which, like the poor,
is always with us should have such an execrable voice. If sparrows sang
like canaries what a pleasing adjunct to London they would be!
The gross, massive beak of the finch, though not good to look upon, is
of great value as a seed-husking machine. No one can have watched a
canary for five minutes without observing the address with which each
little seed is picked up, cracked, and the husk rejected by the joint
action of tongue and mandibles.
Sixty-four species of finch occur within the limits of the Indian
Empire. Of these fifteen species are known as rose-finches. Rose-finches
are birds of about the size of a sparrow. The plumage of the cocks is
more or less suffused with crimson, while that of the hens is dark
greyish olive sometimes washed with yellow. Rose-finches are essentially
birds of a cold climate; they are found in Northern Europe, Asia, and
America. All the Indian species, save one, are confined to the Himalayas
and the country north of those mountains. The one exception is the
species known as the common rose-finch (_Carpodacus erythrinus_). This
spreads itself during the winter all over the plains of India as far
south as the Nilgiris. I do not remember having seen it in or about
Madras, but it may sometimes visit that city. In April this rose-finch
goes north to breed, a few individuals remaining in the Himalayas, where
they nidificate at altitudes of 10,000 feet and upwards.
The nest is a neat cup-shaped structure made of grass with a lining of
fine material. It is usually built within a yard of the ground, in a
bush, or even among long grass. The eggs are blue with chocolate or
purple markings, which may be sparse or numerous, and may take the form
of blotches, freckles, or pencillings.
The cock rose-finch, or _Tuti_, as he is always called by the natives of
India, is a handsome bird. The head and neck are dull crimson, the lower
parts are rosy pink and the wings are brown. The rose-finches seen in
the early part of the winter are considerably less brightly coloured
than those observed after Christmas. This phenomenon is due to two
causes. The one is that the bird moults in September or October and dons
a new suit of clothes. These are of such excellent material that they
improve by wearing! As is so often the case, the margins of the new
feathers are duller than the inner portion. A bird’s feathers overlap
like the tiles on a roof, and they overlap to such an extent that only
the margin of each feather shows. As the dull edges wear away, the
brighter parts begin to show, hence the gradual transition from dullness
to brightness. Further, the actual colouring of the feathers becomes
intensified as the spring season approaches. But in the plains of India
the cock is never seen in the full glory of his crimson tunic, because
he departs to high altitudes at the breeding season.
The hen rose-finch is an olive-brown bird with a tinge of yellow and
some brown streaks in her plumage. The wing is set off by a couple of
whitish wing-bars. There are also bars in the wing of the cock, but
these are not well defined.
Seeing how beautiful the cock rose-finch is naturally, and how
successful have been the efforts to improve the canary, it may seem
strange that fanciers have not turned their attention to the rose-finch,
and produced, by artificial selection, a rose-finch arrayed from head to
tail in crimson lake.
The fact is all the crimson colour disappears from the plumage of a
rose-finch kept in captivity. Until some means of preventing this is
discovered it is hopeless to attempt to breed a crimson finch.
Rose-finches live in flocks, which consist usually of from sixteen to
thirty members. These flocks appear to be made up of cocks and hens in
equal numbers. The birds feed on the ground, from which they pick small
seeds that have fallen. “In the extreme south,” writes Jerdon of the
rose-finch, “I have chiefly seen it in bamboo jungle, feeding on the
seeds of bamboos on several occasions, and so much is this its habit
that the Telugu name signifies ‘Bamboo sparrow.’” In other parts of the
country it frequents alike groves, gardens, and jungles, feeding on
various seeds and grain; also not infrequently on flower buds and young
leaves. Adams states that in Kashmir it feeds much on the seeds of a
cultivated vetch.
During the greater part of the year the rose-finch is a silent bird. At
the breeding season, and a little before it, the cock joins in the bird
chorus. Its vocal efforts are well described by Blyth as “a feeble
twittering song, but soft and pleasing, being intermediate to that of
the goldfinch, and that of the small redpole linnet, the call note much
resembling that of a canary bird.”
Rose-finches are said to be very pugnacious, and in this respect they
resemble their vulgar relations the sparrows, but they differ from the
latter in lacking their fearlessness of man or beast. At the least alarm
a flock of rose-finches feeding on the ground scurries into the nearest
tree with a loud fluttering of wings. The harsh cry of the king-crow or
the shadow of a passing kite is quite sufficient to cause the instant
disappearance of the little flock into the foliage.
On an average, a feeding flock thus takes alarm at least twenty times in
the course of an hour. Sometimes the birds take fright for no apparent
reason whatever. Their behaviour in this respect is exactly like that of
chaffinches, greenfinches, etc., in England, which Edmund Selous
describes so accurately in that perfect nature book _Bird Watching_.
Selous “came to the conclusion that the cause of flight was almost
always a nervous apprehension, such as actuates schoolboys when they are
doing something of a forbidden nature and half expect to see the master
appear at any moment round the corner. Though there might be no
discernible ground for apprehension, yet after some three or four
minutes it seemed to strike the assembly that it _could_ not be quite
safe to remain any longer, and, presto! they were gone.”
It is my belief that what may be called the undue nervousness of little
birds has been caused by the attacks of birds of prey. It must as a rule
be the bolder spirits—those that refuse to take refuge in the foliage at
every alarm—that fall victims to the sparrow-hawk. The more nervous ones
escape and transmit their innate nervousness to their offspring. There
has thus arisen a race of little birds as nervous as horses.
Before a minute has passed the rose-finches, who have taken refuge in a
tree, perceive that there was no ground for alarm. They then drop to the
ground in twos and threes, so that, although the birds begin to return
almost as soon as they have fled into the foliage, some little time
elapses before the whole of the flock is again seeking food on the
ground. The reformation of a flock is a pretty sight—a shower of little
birds falling from a tree like leaves in autumn.
XIV
BIRDS ON THE LAWN
In some parts of India the hot-weather nights are sufficiently cool to
allow the European inhabitants to dispense with punkas and to enjoy
refreshing sleep in the open beneath the starlit sky. He who spends the
night under such conditions sees and hears much of the birds. Not an
hour passes in which the stillness of the darkness is not broken by the
voice of some owl or cuckoo. Most of our Indian cuckoos are as nocturnal
as owls. The brain-fever bird (_Hierococcyx varius_)—most vociferous of
the cuculine tribe—seems to require no sleep.
The human sleeper, no matter how early he wakes in the morning, finds
that some of the feathered folk have already begun the day. Every
diurnal bird is up and about long before the rising of the sun. In the
daylight the gauze curtains which kept the mosquitoes at bay during the
night, form a most convenient cache from which to observe the doings of
the birds. Birds do not see through the meshes of the mosquito nets.
Eyesight is largely a matter of training. This explains why the vision
of birds is so keen in some respects and so defective in others. A bird
of prey while floating in the air does not fail to notice a small animal
on the ground 3000 feet below. Nevertheless, that same bird will allow
itself to become entangled in a coarse net stretched out in front of a
tethered bird. I once asked a falconer how he would explain such
inconsistencies in the behaviour of raptorial birds. He replied that in
his opinion the bird of prey sees the net but fails to appreciate its
nature, that the falcon looks upon the net spread before its quarry as a
spider’s web, as a gossamer structure that can be contemptuously swept
aside. I think that the falconer’s explanation is not the correct one. I
believe that the bird of prey really does not see the net. It has eyes
only for its quarry. It is not trained to look out for snares, having no
experience of them under natural conditions. A bird that had several
times been snared while stooping at its prey would learn the nature of a
net and avoid it.
Similarly, birds, being unaccustomed to see living creatures emerge from
apparently solid structures, do not look for human beings inside
mosquito nets, and so fail to observe them. The consequence is that the
birds hop and strut about the lawn within a few feet of my bed, or even
perch on the mosquito curtain frame, utterly unconscious of my presence.
There is to me something very fascinating in thus watching at close
quarters the ways of my feathered friends. My compound boasts of a lawn,
sufficiently large for three tennis courts, which owing to much
watering, mowing, and rolling is green and velvet-like. This lawn is a
popular resort for many birds of the vicinity.
In England blackbirds, thrushes, robins, starlings, and sparrows are the
birds which frequent lawns. Of these the sparrows are the only ones
found in our Indian gardens. Sparrows are very partial to my lawn.
Throughout the day numbers of them hop about on the turf, looking for
objects so small that I have not been able to make out what they are.
The fact that sparrows are greatly addicted to a lawn that is watered
and mown twice a week serves to show that _Passer domesticus_ is not so
black as he is painted by his detractors. The sparrows cannot come to my
lawn for any purpose other than that of looking for insects.
The first birds to visit the lawn every morning are a pair of coucals,
or crow-pheasants (_Centropus sinensis_). They appear on the scene with
great punctuality about an hour before sunrise. The crow-pheasant is one
of the most familiar of Indian birds. It is neither a crow nor a
pheasant, nevertheless there is much to be said in favour of its popular
name, because the bird has altogether the appearance of a crow that has
exchanged wings and tail with a pheasant. It is black all over save for
its ruby-coloured eye and chestnut-hued wings. It belongs to the cuckoo
family, but, unlike the majority of its brethren, builds a nest and
incubates its eggs. It is characterised by an elongated hind toe, which
he who lies behind the mosquito net may observe as its possessor struts
by. There is something very pompous about the strut of the
crow-pheasant. Were it an inhabitant of Whitechapel, its friends would
undoubtedly enquire whether it was a fact that it had purchased the
street! But the sight of an insect on the lawn causes the coucal to
throw dignity to the winds. Its sedate walk becomes transformed into a
bustling waddle as it gives chase to the insect with a gait like that of
a stout, nervous lady hurrying across a road thronged with traffic.
Crow-pheasants feed largely on insects, and it is in search of these
that they frequent the lawn. Their food, however, is not confined to
such small fry; they are very partial to snakes, and so are useful birds
to have in the garden.
Hoopoes (_Upupa indica_) are constant visitors to my lawn. They revel in
soft ground. The comparatively hard probe-like bill of the hoopoe
enables the bird to extract insects from ground on which the soft-billed
snipe could make no impression. But hoopoes prefer soft ground; from it
they can obtain food with but little effort. Unfortunately for them,
velvety lawns are not common in India; hence the birds flock to those
that exist as eagerly as Europeans rush to the Himalayas in June. A few
mornings ago I counted twenty-seven hoopoes feeding on my lawn.
Occasionally a hoopoe perches on one of the bars from which my mosquito
curtains hang, and thus unconsciously exposes himself to close scrutiny
on my part. There are few birds so delightful to watch as hoopoes. Their
form is unique. Their colouring is striking and pleasing. Then they are
such fussy little creatures. When feeding they behave as if they were in
a violent hurry. The _modus operandi_ is a hasty tap of the bill here
and another there, and if these reveal nothing promising, a few hurried
steps, then more probing. The majority of these tappings and probings
reveal nothing, but every now and then a spot is discovered beneath
which an ant-lion, earth-worm, or other creature lies buried. Then the
fun waxes fast and furious; the hoopoe begins to excavate in real
earnest, and plies its bill as eagerly as a terrier scratches away the
loose earth that conceals its retreating quarry. After a few seconds
this strenuous probing and digging usually results in some creature
being dragged out of the earth. This is swallowed by the hoopoe after a
little manipulation rendered necessary by the length of the bird’s bill.
Having disposed of its quarry the insatiable hoopoe passes on, without a
pause, to seek for further victims. With twenty or thirty hoopoes thus
at work, day after day, it is strange that the insect store of my lawn
does not become exhausted.
While the hoopoe is feeding, its fan-like crest remains tightly closed.
This attitude of the crest denotes business. The corona of the hoopoe is
as mobile as are the ears of a horse. There is more expression in it
than in the face of many a man or woman.
Mynas are, of course, always to be found on the lawn, but as these birds
feed largely on grasshoppers, they seek their food by preference amid
grass which is drier and longer than that of my lawn.
At the time when the grass is irrigated numbers of pied mynas
(_Sturnopastor contra_) and paddy-birds (_Ardeola grayii_) visit the
lawn. The former strut about, and the latter stand near the place where
the water trickles from the pipe. Both come in quest of creatures driven
from their underground homes by the water.
Occasionally two or three crows visit the lawn; these come to gratify
their curiosity rather than for food. Crows are inquisitive creatures,
and cannot resist visiting any spot where they see other birds enjoying
themselves. Wagtails are birds which are very partial to lawns, but all
the Indian species, with one exception, leave India in April or May, so
that their graceful forms do not delight the eye in the hot weather.
XV
THE GREY HORNBILL
Hornbills, like the Jews, are a peculiar race. There are no other birds
like unto them. They are fowls of extravagant form. Their bodies are
studies in disproportion. The beak and tail of each species would fit
admirably a bird twice as big as their actual possessor, while birds
less than half their size might well look askance at the wings with
which hornbills are blessed. With the solitary exception of the “cake
walk” of the adjutant (_Leptoptilus dubius_), I know of no sight in
Nature more absurd than the flight of the hornbill. By dint of a series
of vigorous flaps of its disproportionately short wings the bird manages
to propel itself through the air. But the efforts put forth are too
strenuous to be maintained for many seconds at a time. When it has
managed to acquire a little impetus, the great bird gives its pinions a
rest, and sails at a snail’s pace for a few seconds, after which, in
order to save itself from falling, it violently flaps its wings again,
and thus manages to win its way laboriously from one grove to another,
in much the same way as the primitive flying reptiles must have done.
Nor is the excitement over when it reaches its destination. Owing to the
weight of the beak, the hornbill is in danger of toppling over, head
foremost, as it alights on a branch, and assuredly would sometimes do so
but for the long tail which serves to balance the great beak. So
vigorously does the hornbill have to flap its wings during flight that
the sound of the air rushing through them can be heard for nearly half a
mile in the case of the largest species.
All hornbills are grotesque. The grey species is, however, the least
grotesque, and approaches the most nearly to the appearance of normal
birds. Three species of grey hornbill occur in India. The common grey
hornbill (_Lophoceros birostris_) is characterised by the possession of
what is known as a casque—an appendage which the other two species of
grey hornbill lack. This is a horny excrescence from the upper surface
of the beak. In some species the casque is so large as to extend over
the greater part of the head and beak. No one has yet discovered its
use. I am inclined to think that it has no use. The Malabar and
Ceylonese grey hornbills, whose habits are identical with those of the
common grey hornbill, thrive very well, in spite of the fact that they
have no casque.
_Lophoceros birostris_ is a bird nearly two feet in length. The
prevailing hue of the plumage is greyish brown. The bill, which is four
inches long, and the casque are blackish. Like the other members of this
peculiar family, the grey hornbill possesses eyelashes, which increase
the strangeness of its appearance. This species is found in most parts
of the plains of India, except the Malabar coast, where it is replaced
by _Lophoceros griseus_. The grey hornbill of Ceylon is the species _L.
gingalensis_.
The majority of species of hornbill shun the vicinity of human beings.
They are accordingly to be found only in the Terai and other great
forest tracts. The grey hornbill, on the contrary, shows no fear of man.
Although strictly arboreal in its habits, it occurs in those parts of
the country that are not thickly wooded. A grove of trees is all that it
demands. Grey hornbills are birds of the highway and the village.
Usually they go about in small flocks.
_Lophoceros birostris_ is particularly abundant in the sub-Himalayan
districts of the United Provinces. In Oudh and the eastern part of Agra
almost every village has its colony of grey hornbills. These hamlets are
nearly always surrounded by trees, usually bamboos, among which the
hornbills live. In many parts of Northern India grey hornbills are
commonly seen in the avenues of trees which are planted along the high
roads to shelter wayfarers from the midday sun.
Hornbills feed largely on fruit and are fond of that of the pipal and
the banian trees. Their great bills are admirably suited to the plucking
of fruit. When the hornbill has severed a berry, it tosses it into the
air, catches it in the bill as it falls, and then swallows it. This is
the most expeditious way of passing the food from the tip of its bill to
the entrance to its gullet.
The cry of the grey hornbill is feeble for so large a bird, and is
querulous, like that of the common kite.
The nesting habits of the hornbills are very remarkable. The eggs are
deposited in a cavity in a tree. The cavity selected may be the result
of decay in the wood, or it may have been hollowed out by a woodpecker
or other bird. In either case the hornbill has usually to enlarge the
cavity, for, being a big bird, it requires a spacious nest. When all
preparations have been made, the female enters the nest hole, and does
not emerge until some weeks later, when the eggs have been hatched and
the young are ready to fly. Having entered the nest, the hen hornbill
proceeds to reduce the size of the orifice by which she gained access to
the nest cavity, by plastering it up with her ordure until the aperture
is no more than a mere slit, only just large enough to enable her to
insert her beak through it. Thus, during the whole period of incubation
and brooding she is entirely dependent on the cock for food. And he
never leaves her in the lurch. He is most assiduous in his attentions.
When he reaches the trunk in which his wife is sitting, he, while
clinging to the bark with his claws, taps the trunk with his bill, and
thus apprises her of his arrival. She then thrusts her bill through the
orifice and receives the food. When at length the young are ready to
leave the nest, the mother emerges with her plumage in a much-bedraggled
condition.
Why the hen hornbill behaves thus, why she is content to submit
periodically to a term of “simple imprisonment,” is one of the unsolved
riddles of Nature. This curious habit is peculiar to the hornbills, but
seems to be common to every member of the family. In this connection it
is interesting to note that the hoopoes, which are nearly related to the
hornbills, have somewhat similar nesting habits. The hen hoopoe,
although she does not adopt the heroic measure of closing up the
entrance to the nest cavity, is said never to leave the nest until the
young have emerged from the eggs. No sight is commoner in India than
that of a hoopoe carrying food to the aperture of a hole in a tree, or
in a building made of mud, in which his spouse is sitting. Another
curious feature in the nesting habits of the hornbill does not appear to
have been mentioned by any observer, and that is that during the nesting
season hornbills go about in threes, and not in pairs. I have noticed
this on two occasions, and Mr. Horne, in his interesting account of the
nesting of the grey hornbill at Mainpuri, which is recorded in Hume’s
_Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds_, mentions the presence of a third
hornbill, who “used to hover about, watch proceedings, and sometimes
quarrel with her accepted lord, but he never brought food to the
female.” Although grey hornbills are by no means uncommon birds, very
few nests seem to have been taken. The result is that there are several
points regarding their nidification that need elucidation. Those who
love the fowls of the air should lose no opportunity of studying the
ways of these truly remarkable birds.
XVI
THE FLAMINGO
Ornithologists, as is their wont, have disputed much among themselves as
to whether the flamingo is a stork-like duck or a duck-like stork.
Indians accept the former view and call the bird the King Goose (_Raj
Hans_); their opinion was shared by Jerdon, who classed the flamingo
among the geese. Likewise, Stuart Baker has given flamingos a place
among the Indian ducks and their allies.
The flamingo is both wader and swimmer. It has long legs, the better to
wade with, and webbed feet admirably adapted to natation. The bird
certainly wades by preference. I have never seen it in water
sufficiently deep to render swimming necessary or even possible. Those
who have been more fortunate state that the swimming movements of the
flamingo resemble those of a swan. I doubt whether flamingos ever swim
from choice, but the webbed feet are likely to be useful, especially in
the case of young birds, when flamingos are swept off their feet by the
wind in a violent storm.
Two species of flamingo occur in India. These are known as
_Phœnicopterus roseus_ and _P. minor_, or the common and the lesser
flamingo. As the former is the one most often seen in India let us
concentrate our attention on it. It is as tall as many a man, and
measures over four feet from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail.
Of these four feet the greater portion consists of neck, which is very
supple; a flamingo when preening its feathers often twists the neck so
that it assumes the shape of a figure of eight. The general hue of the
bird is white tipped with rosy pink; the wings are crimson and black,
hence the appropriate scientific name, _Phœnicopterus_, wings of flame.
The bill is pale pink, tipped with black, while the legs are reddish
pink.
Every Anglo-Indian has seen flamingos in the wild state, if not in
India, at any rate from the deck of a ship as it crept through the Suez
Canal. The shallow lakes and lagoons in the vicinity of the Canal abound
with flamingos. These beautiful birds are to be seen in numbers
throughout the cold weather in the shallow lakes and backwaters round
about Madras. Flamingos are very numerous in Ceylon, where they are
known to the Singalese as the “English Soldier Birds” on account of
their “crimson tunics” and upright martial bearing.
A flock of flamingos is a fine spectacle. Some years ago I saw near the
Pulicat Lake about two hundred of these birds. They were perhaps half a
mile from the house-boat. Their white bodies showed up well against a
background of blue water. Some of them were feeding with heads
underwater, others stood as erect as soldiers at attention and as
motionless as statues; a few were moving with great precision, like
recruits under training. Portions of the flock were congregated in small
groups, apparently in solemn conclave. Dignity and solemnity are the
distinguishing features of the flamingo. After watching the flock for
fully half an hour I fired a gun. I did not try to kill any of them.
They were out of range. I fired because I wanted to see the birds take
to their wings, to see them rise like a “glorious exhalation.” The
report of the gun seemed to cause no alarm. There was none of that
fluster and hurry that most birds display when they hear the sound of
firing. The flamingos rose in a stately manner; they did not all leave
the water simultaneously. The birds took to their wings by twos and
threes, so that it was not until more than a minute after the firing of
the gun that all of them were in the air. As their wings opened the
colour of the birds changed from white to crimson, the latter being the
hue of the lining of their wings. It was as if red limelight had been
thrown on to the whole flock.
During flight, the long white neck, that terminates in the
pink-and-black bill, is stretched out in front, and the pink legs point
behind, so that the neck and legs form one straight line, broken by the
crimson wings, which are flapped very slowly. The great birds sailed
thus majestically for a few hundred yards and then sank to the water.
When flamingos are about to alight the legs leave the horizontal
position assumed during flight and come slowly forward until they touch
the water. The whole flock settles without making any splash. It has
never been my good fortune to watch the flight of flamingos at very
close quarters. I will, therefore, reproduce from the _Saturday Review_
Colonel Willoughby Verner’s description of those he witnessed in Spain:
“What a wonderful sight it was! The curious-shaped heads and bulbous
beaks at the end of the long, thin, outstretched, and snake-like necks,
the small compact bodies, shining white below and rosy pink above, the
crimson coverts and glossy black of the quickly moving pinions, and the
immensely long legs projecting stiffly behind, ending in the
queer-shaped feet. Surely no other bird on God’s earth presents such an
incongruous and almost uncanny shape and yet affords such a beautiful
spectacle of colour and movement. Onward they sped, now in one long
sinuous line; now with some of the birds in the centre or rear
increasing their speed and surging up ‘line abreast’ of those in front
of them, and again falling back and resuming their posts, ever and anon
uttering their weird, trumpeting, goose-like call. They were flying not
fifteen feet above the water, and as they passed abreast of me, the
moving mass of white, pink, crimson, and black was mirrored in the
placid surface of the laguna below them which shone like a sheet of opal
in the setting rays of the sun.”
The beak of the flamingo is a curious structure. It is bent almost to a
right angle in the middle, so that when the basal portion is horizontal
the tip of the bill points towards the ground, and when the long neck is
directed downwards (as must be done when the bird feeds because of the
length of the legs) the terminal half of the bill is parallel to the
ground, and the tip points between the bird’s toes. Thus the flamingo
when feeding assumes the position it would adopt when about to stand on
its head! The upper mandible then is placed along the ground, and, for
the convenience of the bird, is flattened, while the lower mandible,
which is uppermost when the bird is feeding, is arched like the upper
mandible in most birds. This arrangement gives the flamingo a grotesque
appearance.
The food of this species consists of small crustaceans, insects and
mollusca, together with vegetable matter. The quarry is scooped out of
the mud at the bottom of the lake. The mandibles are lamellated like
those of ducks, hence they, assisted by the tongue, act as sieves and
reject most of the mud while retaining the nutritive material. The words
“most of the mud” are used advisedly, for it is not possible to sift all
out, so that those who have examined the contents of the stomach of the
flamingo have usually found it to contain a quantity of sand and mud.
The nest of the flamingo is a mound of earth raised by the bird from
shallow water. The only place in India where flamingos are known to
breed is the Run of Cutch. In seasons when there has been sufficient
rain-fall this curious spot abounds with nests of flamingos.
The older writers believed that, on account of the length of its legs,
the flamingo could not incubate its eggs in the ordinary manner. It was
known that the nest consists of a mound raised from the ground, and from
this it was conjectured that the bird stood up to hatch its eggs.
Writing of the inconvenience of the long shanks of the flamingo, Bishop
Stanley said:—
“A still greater inconvenience would ensue if it were under the
necessity of sitting on its nest, like other birds, for it would then be
utterly impossible to dispose of its long, stilted, disproportioned
legs. Nature has, however, met the difficulty, and taught it how to make
a nest exactly suited to its form and length of leg. It is made of mud,
in the shape of a hillock, with a cavity on the top where the eggs are
laid; and the height of the hillocks is such that she can sit as
comfortably on her nest as a horseman does on his saddle, leaving her
legs to hang dangling down at full length on either side.”
In order to impress this peculiarity of the flamingo on the mind of the
reader, the worthy Bishop furnishes a picture of an incubating flamingo.
A similar belief used to exist regarding herons and other long-legged
birds. These were supposed to sit astride the nest, and certain
veracious observers stated that they had noticed the legs dangling down.
Needless to state, there is no truth in these stories. Every
long-shanked bird is able to bend its legs and tuck them up under it
when necessary.
Mr. Abel Chapman has actually observed the flamingo folding its legs
under its body when it is about to sit on the nest.
But it is unfair to laugh at good Bishop Stanley. His statement that the
flamingo sits astride its nest is not nearly so ridiculous as Mr. A.
Thayer’s assertion that crocodiles mistake the flamingo for a sunset!
Mr. Thayer is an American artist who is obsessed by the theory that,
amid their natural surroundings, all birds and beasts are obliteratively
coloured, so as to be completely invisible. Instead of meeting with the
ridicule it deserves, this utterly preposterous theory appears to be
accepted by some British zoologists!
Two eggs are usually laid by the flamingo, but only one seems to be
hatched in the great majority of cases.
Baby flamingos are covered with greyish down, and have normally shaped
bills, which, however, at an early age assume the curious form so
characteristic of the adult.
XVII
SUMMER VISITORS TO THE PUNJAB PLAINS
During the months that Father Sol is doing his best to make the Punjab
an earthly Inferno the birds are busy at their nests. They do not seem
to mind the heat. Some of them positively revel in it, visiting us only
in the hot weather. These summer visitors form an interesting group.
The bee-eaters are the first to make their appearance. In the first or
second week in March, two species of bee-eater visit the Punjab—the
little green one (_Merops viridis_), and the blue-tailed species (_M.
philippinus_). The former is a grass-green bird about the size of a
bulbul. Its beak is slightly curved and black; a bar of the same hue
runs through the eye. The throat is a beautiful turquoise blue. The
wings are tinted with bronze, so that the bird, when it flies, looks
golden rather than green. The most distinctive feature of the bee-eater
is the middle pair of tail feathers, which are blackish and project
beyond the others as sharp bristles.
Bee-eaters feed upon insects which they catch on the wing. The larger
species live up to their name by devouring bees and wasps. Like every
other bird that hawks flying insects the bee-eater takes up a strategic
position on a telegraph wire, a railing, a bare branch or other point of
vantage, whence it keeps a sharp look-out for its quarry. When an insect
appears it is smartly captured in the air, the mandibles of the
bee-eater closing upon it with a snap, audible at a distance of several
yards.
Bee-eaters begin nesting almost immediately upon arrival. The nest is a
chamber, rather larger than a cricket ball, which the cock and hen,
working turn about, scoop out of a sandbank with beak and claw. The nest
chamber communicates with the exterior by a passage about three feet
long, so narrow that the bird is unable to turn round in it. Every kind
of sandbank is utilised. Numbers of nests are to be found in the mounds
that adorn the Lawrence Gardens at Lahore. Others may be seen in the
artificial bunkers on the uninviting _maidan_ which is by courtesy
called The Lahore Golf Links. The butts on the rifle range are sometimes
made use of, the bee-eaters being utterly regardless of the bullets that
every now and then bury themselves with a thud in the earth near the
nest hole.
The blue-tailed bee-eater is distinguishable by its larger size, its
yellowish throat, and its blue tail. It is not so abundant as the green
species, and excavates its nest at a higher level. The note of both
kinds of bee-eater is a soft but cheery whistle.
The honey-suckers (_Arachnechthra asiatica_) or sunbirds, as they are
frequently called, follow hard upon the bee-eaters. As these charming
little birds form the subject of a subsequent chapter, it is only
necessary to state in this place that they build thousands of nests in
the various stations of the Punjab during the summer months. At least,
one nest is to be found in every garden. In each little nursery two or
three families are reared in succession.
The koel (_Eudynamis honorata_) is perhaps the most interesting of our
summer visitors. We are all of us acquainted with his fluty crescendo
_ku-il, ku-il, ku-il_, also with the excited _kuk, koo-oo, koo-ooo_,
which the bird pours forth in a veritable torrent.
The koel is sometimes erroneously called the brain-fever bird. This
proud title properly belongs to another parasite, namely the hawk cuckoo
(_Hierococcyx varius_), which does not come as far west as Lahore, but
may be heard at Umballa. This noisy fowl shrieks _brain fever, brain
fever, brain fever_, beginning low down in the scale and ascending
higher and higher until his top note is reached, then he begins all over
again, and repeats the performance for an indefinite period. He would
have a future before him as a foghorn were it only possible to make him
call at will!
The cock koel is a jet black bird with a red eye and a green bill. When
flying he looks like a slenderly built, long-tailed crow. The hen is
speckled black and white. This cuckoo cuckolds crows.
The cock draws off the owners of the nest by placing himself near them
and screaming. The crows, being short-tempered birds, rise to the bait
and give chase. While they are absent the hen slips into the nest and
lays her egg. If sufficient time be allowed she destroys one or more of
the eggs already in the nest. She works hurriedly, for the operation is
a dangerous one. If she be caught on the nest the crows will try to kill
her and will, as likely as not, succeed. The life of the koel is by no
means all beer and skittles. If the hen koel gets away before the crows
return they fail to notice the strange egg, although it differs markedly
from their blue and yellow ones, being smaller and olive green blotched
with yellow. Nor do they seem to miss their own eggs which are lying
broken on the ground beneath the nest. Sometimes the koel returns and
lays a second egg in the same nest, and destroys all the legitimate
eggs, for she can tell the difference between her eggs and those of the
crow. Thus it sometimes happens that the deluded crows rear up only two
koels. They never seem to notice the trick that has been played upon
them. Even when the black-skinned young koels hatch out, the crows are
apparently unable to distinguish them from their own pink-coloured
young.
The young koel invariably emerges from the egg before his
foster-brothers and thus begins life with a start. He develops much more
quickly than they do, but, unlike the common cuckoo, ejects neither the
other eggs in the nest, nor the young birds as they hatch out. He lives
on good terms with the other occupants of the nest, and when fledged,
makes laudable if ludicrous attempts to caw.
The natives assert that the hen koel keeps an eye on her offspring all
the while they are in the crow’s nest and takes charge of them after
they leave it. I am almost certain that this is not so.
Early in April the paradise flycatchers (_Terpsiphone paradisi_) arrive.
The hen is a chestnut bird with a black head and crest and a white
breast; she looks something like a bulbul. The cock when quite young is
similarly attired. At his first autumnal moult, that is to say when he
is about fifteen months old, his two middle tail feathers outgrow the
rest by twelve or thirteen inches. In his third year white feathers
begin to appear among the chestnut ones, and after his third autumnal
moult he emerges as a magnificent white bird with a metallic black head
and crest. His elongated tail feathers now look like white satin
streamers. He retains this livery for the remainder of his life, and
looks so magnificent in it as to merit well his name. It is impossible
to mistake the paradise flycatcher. There is no other bird like it. It
is a denizen of orchards and shady groves and may always be seen during
the hot weather in the beautiful wood on the bank of the Ravi between
the bridge of boats and the railway. A cock paradise flycatcher, in the
full glory of his white plumage, as he flits like a sprite through the
leafy glade, is a sight never to be forgotten. The movements of his long
tail feathers as he pursues his course are as graceful as those of the
folds of the gossamer garments of a skilled serpentine dancer.
The nest is a deep cup, in shape like an inverted cone, plastered
exteriorly with cobweb and white cocoons. It is almost invariably placed
in a fork near the end of one of the lower branches of a tree. Both cock
and hen take part in nest building and incubation. As the cock sits his
long white tail feathers hang down over the side of the nest and render
him very conspicuous. The most expeditious way of finding a paradise
flycatcher’s nest is to look out for a sitting cock. The alarm note of
this species is a sharp harsh _Tschit_, but the cock is also able to
warble a very sweet song.
The Indian oriole (_Oriolus kundoo_) is another gorgeous summer visitor
to the Punjab. The cock is arrayed in rich golden yellow. His bill is
pink and he has a black patch on each side of his head, there is also
some black in his wings and tail. The hen is clad in greenish yellow and
is neither so showy nor so handsome. The oriole is commonly called the
mango bird by Europeans in India. I have never been able to discover
whether the bird is so named because the cock is not unlike a ripe mango
in colour, or because orioles are to be found in almost every mango
tope. _Oriolus kundoo_ is a bird of many notes. Of these the most
pleasing is a mellow _lorio, lorio_. Another note very frequently heard
is a loud but not unmusical _tew_. The alarm note of the species is a
plaintive cry, not easy to describe. It is uttered whenever a human
being approaches the nest. The hen alone incubates, but she is not often
seen upon the nest, for she leaves it at the first sound of a human
footfall.
The nest of the oriole is a wonderful structure. It is a cradle slung on
to a stout forked branch. The bird tears with its beak strips of the
soft bark from the mulberry tree. An end of the strip is wound round one
limb of the fork, then the other end is passed under the nest and wound
round the other limb of the supporting bough. If the strip be long
enough it is again passed under the nest. This framework supports the
nest proper, which is a hemispherical cup composed of fine roots and
dried grass. The minimum of material is used in construction, with the
result that the eggs lying in the nest are sometimes visible from below.
He who would find orioles’ nests should repair in June to the canal bank
or to the above-mentioned wood.
Every oriole’s nest that I have seen in Lahore has been placed near a
king-crow’s nest. It is, I think, for the sake of protection that the
oriole builds near the king-crow. This latter is so pugnacious that most
predaceous birds avoid the tree in which its nest is situated.
Among the summer visitors to the Punjab is a dove known as _Oenopopelia
tranquebarica_. Those who find this name rather a mouthful are at
liberty to call the bird the red turtle-dove. This species is of
interest on account of the large amount of sexual dimorphism which it
displays. The head and neck of the cock are ashy grey, his upper back
and wings are the peculiar red of a faded port-wine stain, the lower
back is grey, the middle tail feathers are brown and the other ones
white. There is a black collar round his neck. The hen is a uniform
greyish brown, her only adornment being a black collar similar to that
of the cock.
As a chapter of this work is devoted exclusively to the red turtle-dove,
nothing more need be said of it in this place, save that its note is not
the orthodox coo, it is a peculiar low grunt, and gives one the
impression that the bird has caught cold.
One summer visitor remains to be described, but he need not detain us
long, for, save his respectability, he has nothing in particular to
commend him. I allude to the yellow-throated sparrow (_Gymnorhis
flavicollis_). This bird probably sometimes passes for a hen house
sparrow; close inspection, however, reveals a yellow patch on the
throat. According to Jerdon this creature has much the same manners and
habits as the common sparrow. This I consider libellous. The
yellow-throated sparrow is a bird of retiring disposition and I have
never heard of one forcing its way into a _sahib’s_ bungalow. It nestles
in a hole in a tree. Having lined the ready-made cavity with dry grass
and feathers, it lays four eggs which are thickly blotched all over with
sepia, chocolate brown, or purple. A pair of these birds lives in the
octagonal aviary at the Lahore Zoo.
XVIII
A BIRD OF MANY ALIASES
The paddy bird has as many aliases as a professional criminal of twenty
years’ standing. I do not refer to his scientific names. Of course he
has a number of these. Every bird has. A person who desires violent
exercise for the memory cannot do better than try to keep pace with the
kaleidoscopic changes which Indian ornithological terminology undergoes.
The paddy bird is now known as _Ardeola grayii_, but I do not guarantee
that he will be so called next month. When I assert that the paddy bird
is a creature of many aliases, I mean that he has a number of popular
names. He is sometimes known as the pond heron, because no piece of
water larger than a puddle is too small to serve as a fishing ground for
him. His partiality to flooded rice fields has given rise to the name by
which he most commonly goes. He is frequently dubbed the blind heron,
especially by natives. The Tamils call him the blind idiot. Needless to
say the bird is not blind, its confiding disposition is responsible for
the adjective. It might be blind for all the notice it takes of
surrounding objects as it stands at the water’s edge, huddled up like a
decrepit old man.
Before proceeding further, let me, for the benefit of those who are
unacquainted with the avifauna of India, describe the bird. It is much
smaller than the common heron, being about the size of a curlew. The
head, neck, and the whole of the upper plumage are greenish brown, each
feather having a darker shaft stripe. The under parts are white, as are
the larger wing feathers, but these latter are so arranged as to be
altogether invisible when the wings are closed, so that the bird, when
it flies, seems suddenly to produce from nowhere a pair of beautiful
white pinions and sail away on them. Before it has flown far it usually
performs the vanishing trick. This, like most effective conjuring
tricks, is very easy to perform when one knows how to do it. The bird
merely folds its wings, then the dark coverts alone are visible. These
are of the same hue as the damp sand or mud on which the paddy bird
spends a considerable portion of the day. The dingy hues of the paddy
bird are the outcome of its habits; it is a _shikari_ that stalks its
prey or lies in wait for it. If it were as showy as the cattle egret its
intended victims would “see it coming” and mock at it. Hence the
necessity for its workaday garb.
The paddy bird is a very sluggish creature; it comes of a lazy family.
There is not a single member of the heron tribe that does sufficient
work to disqualify it for membership of the most particular trade union.
Most herons, however, do stalk their prey, which is more than the paddy
bird usually does. One may sometimes see him progressing through shallow
water at the rate of six inches a minute; but more commonly he stands in
shallow water as motionless as a stuffed bird, with his head almost
buried in his shoulders, looking as though he were highly disgusted with
things in general. As a matter of fact he is thoroughly enjoying
himself. His ugly eye is fixed upon some luckless frog in the water. The
moment this comes within striking distance the pond heron will shoot out
his long neck, seize the frog and swallow it whole. One cannot but feel
sorry for the frog as it finds itself being hustled down the heron’s
throat. It probably mistook the motionless creature for a rock and, even
had it not made this mistake, it could not be expected to know that the
bird had buried in its shoulders a patent telescopic neck. After the
amphibian is safely lodged _in ventro_, the paddy bird resumes his
strategic position at the water’s edge and maintains it for hours.
One day when I have nothing else to do I mean to mark down a paddy bird
in its roosting tree, follow it to its fishing ground and picnic there
all day and watch its behaviour. I shall then write an essay entitled _A
Leaf from the Diary of a Lazy Bird_.