The plumage of the sarus is a beautiful shade of grey. The tail feathers

are paler than the rest of the plumage, being almost white in some

individuals. There is a broad red band round the neck and the lower part

of the head. This at the breeding season becomes very brilliant, and

then looks like a broad collar of crimson velvet. The legs of the sarus

are also bright red and are nearly a yard long. So that the sarus can,

when he wishes to assert himself, look over the head of the average

human being without unduly stretching his neck.

The sarus is the only crane that stays in India throughout the year. As

has already been said, the species is very common in Northern India;

indeed, a broad stretch of landscape in that part of the world would not

seem true to life did it not contain a pair of saruses standing near

together. Every pair of these birds is a regular Darby and Joan. There

are instances on record of a sarus having pined away and died because it

had lost its mate. This affection of the male and female who pair for

life is so notorious that the Indians who eat the flesh of these birds

make a point, after they have bagged one of a pair, of killing the mate.

The food of saruses is, as Hume remarks, very varied. No small reptile

or amphibian comes amiss to them. They also eat insects and snails, and

seeds and green vegetable matter. They are often to be observed feeding

at some distance from water. Indeed, my experience is that they are seen

more often on dry land than in water. Their long legs appear to be of

little use to them except at the nesting season, when they are necessary

in order to enable the birds to wade to the nest. Cranes, unlike storks

and herons, cannot grip with the foot, so that they never perch in

trees. The nest is built on the ground and, presumably for the sake of

protection against jackals, wolves, and such-like creatures, is usually

surrounded by water. As a rule, it is not constructed on an island, but

is itself an islet rising from the bottom of the _jhil_ or tank in which

it is situated.

I have not had the good fortune to witness a nest of the sarus in course

of construction, but from the behaviour of the owners when heavy rain

falls after the nest is completed, I believe that both sexes take part

in construction. As the nesting season is in June, July, August, and

September, a good deal of rain usually falls while nesting operations

are going on. The nest is a mound or cone, composed of rushes and reeds,

of which the diameter is two feet at least. The top of this cone, on

which the eggs are placed, is usually about a foot above the surface of

the water. Thus the eggs lie only a little above the water level;

nevertheless, they always feel quite dry, as does the layer of rushes on

which they are placed. This is rather surprising—one would expect the

water to get soaked up into the parts of the nest above the surface; but

this does not happen. It is needless to say that if the top of the nest

became submerged it would be impossible to keep the eggs dry; hence,

when very heavy rain causes the water level round the nest to rise, the

parent saruses raise the top of the nest by adding more material to it.

Two eggs are usually laid. These, as befits the size of the owners, are

very large. It is as much as one can do to make both ends meet of a tape

eleven inches long, passed round the long axis of the egg. The eggs vary

considerably in size, but are usually of a creamy hue, They may be with

or without markings. The shell is very thick and hard, so that if

sarus’s eggs were used for electioneering purposes, fatalities would

often occur.

Various observers give very different accounts of the behaviour of the

parent saruses when their nest is attacked. The general experience is

that they show no fight, but that they retire gracefully as soon as the

human being gets within twenty yards of the nest. Hume, however, records

one case of a sitting sarus making such vigorous pokes and drives at the

man who approached her when sitting on the nest that he was forced to

flap her in the face vigorously with his waist cloth before she left her

eggs. That, says Hume, is the nearest approach to a fight for its

_penates_ he has ever seen a sarus make. Recently I visited a nest of

these birds, which was situated in a small patch of water, perhaps forty

feet square, with a millet field on one side and paddy on the other

three. I was on horseback, not wishing to wade nearly to my waist. With

me were three men. When we first noticed the nest, the hen was sitting

on it and the cock standing near by. As we approached the female rose to

her feet very slowly, and then I could see that the nest contained a

young one. When we were at a distance of some ten yards the female began

to move her feet as if scraping the nest, and the young bird betook

itself quietly to the water, and swam slowly into the neighbouring

flooded paddy field. The hen then slowly descended from the nest into

the water and quietly walked off. On reaching the nest, I found in it

one egg. I sent one of the men after the youngster, which he quickly

secured and brought to me to look at. It was about the size of a small

bazaar fowl, and had perhaps been hatched three days. It was covered

with soft down. The down on the upper parts was of a rich reddish fawn

colour, the back of the neck, a band along the backbone, and a strip on

each wing being the places where the colour was most intense; these were

almost chestnut in hue. The lower parts were of a cream colour, into

which the reddish fawn merged gradually at the sides of the body. The

eyes were large and black. The bill was of pink hue and broad at the

base where the yellow lining of the mouth showed. The pink of the bill

was most pronounced towards the base, fading almost to white at the tip.

The legs and feet were pale pink, the toes being slightly webbed. Even

at that stage of the youngster’s existence the legs were long, and

enabled him to swim with ease, but they were not strong enough to

support him when he tried to walk. Sarus cranes cannot walk properly

until they are several months old.

While I was handling the young bird the cock sarus was evidently

summoning up his courage, for presently he began to advance in battle

array, that is to say, with neck bent, so that the head projected

forward, mouth slightly open, and wings about half expanded. Thus he

slowly approached, looking very handsome. He did not advance direct, but

took a circuitous course as if stalking us. When he had approached

within about six feet I made a pretence of striking him with a short

cane. Of this act of hostility he took not the least notice, but

continued to approach. The men with me, who were on foot, began to fear

being attacked, so one of them pulled up some paddy stalks and threw

these at him. This made him jump and retreat a few paces. But he soon

recommenced his advance in battle array. Then one of the men rushed at

him. That caused him to retreat a few paces hastily, but with dignity.

He then proceeded to attempt a rear attack, and as he circled round us

with bent neck he put me in mind of the villain of the melodrama, who

stalks about saying “My time will come!” When the sarus had advanced

thus to within four feet of my men and looked as though he were about to

spring at them, one of these lunged at him with a short stick, and he

would have been struck had he not beaten a hasty retreat. Nothing

daunted, he again returned to the attack. We were at the nest for fully

ten minutes, and the whole time he was trying to get at us. Only once

did he utter his trumpet-like call. The female meanwhile remained

watching at a distance of perhaps forty yards.

Having seen what we wanted, we replaced the young bird and the egg in

the nest and retreated fifteen or twenty yards. We waited to see what

the parent birds would do. The female came up to the cock (she is

distinguishable by her smaller size); then they both advanced very

slowly towards the nest, the hen approaching the faster. When at a

distance of perhaps eight yards from the nest, the cock indulged in some

curious antics. He slowly drew himself up to his full height and stood

thus motionless for a few seconds, then he stretched out his bill

towards the sky. Next, the long neck began to bend slowly until it took

roughly the shape of the letter S. Then, while the neck was still so

bent, the sarus dipped his bill into the water. After this he again

stood upright and repeated the whole performance. Finally he indulged in

a little dance. Meanwhile the hen slowly advanced, and when within a

yard of the nest stood still and contemplated it for a little, then,

after caressing the youngster with her bill, she slowly climbed on to

the nest. The nest cavity being a very shallow one, the young bird

sitting in it could be seen from a considerable distance, and its

reddish fawn plumage showed up in strong contrast to its surroundings.

The sarus nestling cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called

protectively coloured, but it fares very well, notwithstanding its

conspicuousness, because its parents never depart far from the nest, and

while they are present it is immune from attack. Even large birds of

prey avoid the powerful beak of an infuriated crane.

XXXII

THE SWALLOW-PLOVER

Terns are so beautiful that, where they occur, they are apt to attract

unto themselves all attention. This is, I think, the reason why so

little is on record regarding the swallow-plovers, which haunt all the

larger rivers of India to such an extent that it is scarcely possible to

spend an hour on the Ganges, the Jumna, the Gogra, the Indus, the

Brahmaputra, the Nerbudda, the Mahanuddy, or even the distant Irawaddy

without meeting with a flock of those curious little birds.

Swallow-plovers, or pratincoles, as they are often called, are easily

described. They are plovers that subsist largely upon flying insects

which they catch when on the wing. As a result of this habit

swallow-plovers (_Glareola lactea_) have taken on some of the attributes

of the swallow, notably the long wings and the broad gape.

The total length of a swallow-plover, including the tail, is 6½ inches,

while the wing alone is nearly six inches long. It is these long wings

that give the bird a swallow-like appearance.

The general hue of _Glareola lactea_ is that curious sandy-grey shade of

brown which, for some occult reason, is known as isabelline. The short

tail is white with a black tip. There is a black streak through the eye

and a white one near the margin of the wing. The abdomen is white. The

legs are short for those of a plover; nevertheless, the species is very

nimble on its feet, and runs in the manner peculiar to the peewit

family.

Swallow-plovers are to be found at a distance from water, but they are

essentially river birds.

At sunset, when insects in their myriads disport themselves over the

surface of rivers, the swallow-plovers issue forth and hawk these flying

hexapods just as swallows do, and, as they fly low over the face of the

waters, they are doubtless often mistaken for swallows.

Jerdon states that swallow-plovers live exclusively on insects which

they catch on the wing. I doubt whether this assertion is correct. These

birds certainly feed largely on flying insects, but as they spend the

major part of their time on the sand, over which they run swiftly, I

think that creeping things constitute a not inconsiderable portion of

their diet.

Their nesting habits are similar to those of terns and plovers; that is

to say, the eggs are placed on the sand or bare ground without any

semblance of a nest.

I make a point every year, if possible, of spending a morning on a river

at the beginning of the hot weather looking for the nests of terns and

other birds which lay on _churs_ and sandbanks. Almost every Indian

river is plentifully studded with islets which render its navigation

difficult, but afford most convenient nesting sites for many species of

birds. The sandy islets whereon eggs are laid are nearly always those of

which some portion is sufficiently high to escape being flooded when the

river rises in consequence of the melting of the snow on the higher

peaks of the Himalayas. The selected islands are almost invariably

sufficiently far from the river bank to prevent jackals and other

predaceous creatures wading across to them. If terns or plovers fail to

take such precautions, the chances are that their eggs will come to

grief.

This year (1912), on the 15th April, I went out on the Gogra at Fyzabad,

and found over thirty nests of swallow-plovers on one islet, on which I

also saw two eggs of the black-bellied tern (_Sterna melanogaster_).

Immediately I set foot on the island the terns and small pratincoles

commenced making an uproar, which, of course, amounted to an assurance

that they had eggs on the island. One portion of it was well sprinkled

with stunted vegetation, and thither I at once repaired, to the great

disgust of the swallow-plovers, who flew about excitedly, uttering their

lapwing-like cry—_titeri, titeri_. A search of less than a minute served

to reveal a couple of eggs placed on the bare ground between two small

plants that were growing out of the sand. As I stooped down to examine

these eggs I looked round and saw a very curious and pretty sight.

Swallow-plovers were surrounding me. They were nearly all on the ground

and striking strange attitudes. Some were lying on the sand as though

they had been wounded and fallen to the ground; others were floundering

on the ground as if in pain; some were fluttering along with one wing

stretched out limply, looking as though it were broken; while others

appeared to have both wings injured. I did not count the birds, but at

least twenty of them were seemingly injured. I had often seen one bird

or a pair behave thus, but never a whole flock.

All the plover family have this injury-feigning instinct, but in none is

it so well developed as in the pratincoles.

“The strange antics,” writes Hume, “played by these little birds, at

least those of them that had young or hard-set eggs, whenever we

approached their treasures were very remarkable; flying past one, they

would come fluttering down on to the sand a few paces in front of one,

and there gasp and flutter as if mortally wounded, hobbling on with

draggled wings and limping legs as one approached them, and altogether

simulating entirely helpless and completely crippled birds. No one

unacquainted with the habits of this class of birds could have believed,

to see them flapping along on the sands on their stomachs, every now and

then falling head over heels and lying quite still for an instant, as if

altogether exhausted, that this was all a piece of consummate acting

intended to divert our attention from their nests.”

Hume here voices the popular opinion that birds, when they behave as

though they are injured, are deliberately pretending to be wounded with

the object of diverting the attention of an intruder from their eggs or

young. I hold this view to be utterly and entirely wrong. Consider the

long chain of reasoning that a bird has to make before behaving as

swallow-plovers are supposed to do. In the first place the birds must

know or believe that the intruder has come with the object of taking

their eggs or young ones. They must know or believe that the said

intruder would like to capture them in preference to their eggs or

young. They must further have discovered that a bird with a leg or a

wing broken is easier to capture than one that is sound in limb. They

must also know how a bird with a broken wing or leg behaves when

endeavouring to escape from a foe. Knowing and believing all these

things, the swallow-plover must reason thus within itself: “If I pretend

that I am injured the intruder will try to catch me and thus be drawn

away from my eggs or young. I will, therefore, proceed to act the

wounded bird to the best of my ability.”

I do not for a moment believe that the average swallow-plover has half

this knowledge and power of reasoning. Its behaviour can be accounted

for in a far more probable manner. We all know that instinct teaches

birds to fly away from all birds or beasts of prey or large strange

moving objects; but instinct teaches them to guard their eggs. Now, when

a human being approaches the eggs of a pratincole, these two instincts

come into violent opposition, and the bird’s mental equilibrium is much

disturbed; the result is that the bird undergoes all manner of strange

contortions. We look at these and say, “What a clever little bird! How

well it is acting!” The contortions of the swallow-plover undoubtedly do

tend to attract the attention of predaceous creatures, and are probably

useful to the species when there are young, for these are able to slip

away while the attention of the attacker is momentarily diverted by the

parent birds. Hence such behaviour must tend to be perpetuated by

natural selection. That it is in no sense an intelligent act is obvious

from the fact that such behaviour occurs when there are eggs, and so can

do no good; moreover, the parents will go on behaving in this manner

even after the intruder has taken the eggs and put them in his pocket!

Textbooks tell us that _Glareola lactea_ lays from two to four eggs. I

have never found more than two in a clutch, and think that Hume made a

mistake when he said “from two to four,” and as plagiarism is very rife

among writers on ornithology, other ornithologists have copied his

statements without acknowledgment, and, of course, reproduced his

mistake!

The eggs of this species are interesting on account of the extraordinary

variations they exhibit. As Hume well says, it is scarcely possible to

find two eggs (outside the same clutch) that closely resemble each

other. It not infrequently happens that the two eggs in the same clutch

differ so greatly that it is difficult to believe that they are the

produce of one hen. The ground colour may vary from pale green, almost

white, to fawn colour. The markings sometimes take the form of blotches,

so that the eggs look like those of a small tern. More usually the

markings appear as tiny spots, freckles, pencillings, or cloudy smudges.

On a sandbank containing twenty nests it is possible to pick out ten

eggs, each of which differs so greatly from the others that the casual

observer would certainly say they all belonged to different species. The

size is, of course, fairly uniform, but the shape varies greatly; some

are elongated, while others are nearly as broad as they are long.

Occasionally a pear-shaped egg is found, but as a rule the narrow end of

the egg is comparatively blunt. That eggs which are laid on the sand in

the open should display these extraordinary variations is an awkward

fact for those who consider that the colouring of birds’ eggs is the

direct result of natural selection. If this were so we should expect to

find a wonderful sameness about the eggs of this species, which are laid

in such exposed situations. The fact is, of course, that on a sandbank

eggs of any colour that is not too pronounced are difficult to see;

hence, for purposes of protection, the actual colours of the background

and the markings of the egg are matters of little importance.

XXXIII

THE BIRDS OF A MADRAS GARDEN

Richard Jefferies devotes several chapters of one of the most delightful

of his books—_Wild Life in a Southern County_—to the birds that frequent

a farm on the Downs. “On looking back,” he writes, “it appears that the

farm-house, garden, orchard, and rickyard at Wick are constantly visited

by about thirty-five wild creatures, and, in addition, five others come

now and then, making a total of forty. Of these forty, twenty-six are

birds, two bats, eight quadrupeds, and four reptiles. This does not

include some few additional birds that only come at long intervals, nor

those that simply fly overhead or are heard singing at a distance.

“Around the farm-house itself come the starlings, sparrows, swallows,

water wagtails, hedge-sparrows, robins, wrens, tomtits, thrushes, and

blackbirds. The orchard is frequented by sand martins, cuckoos, missel

thrushes, goldfinches, greenfinches, flycatchers, linnets, blackcaps,

and titmice.

“In the rickyard are seen redstarts, stone-chats, rooks, chaffinches,

wood-pigeons, doves, and larks.”

Now a closer observer of nature than Richard Jefferies never existed,

and he knew every square yard of the Wick Farm, so that we may be sure

that the list he gives is exhaustive.

This list seems very meagre to one who is accustomed to bird life in

India. If the Wick Farm were transported bodily and set down in the

middle of India it would be visited by seventy or eighty species of

birds instead of twenty-six.

Every garden of tolerable size in Madras is the abode of quite twice as

many birds as those which visit a downland farm in England, so superior

is India to England as a field for the ornithologist.

Every Madrassi whose bungalow is placed in a garden worthy of the name

may, without leaving the same, count upon seeing fifty species of birds

before he has been many months in the country.

First there are the perennials—the birds which, like the poor, are

always with us—the jungle and the house crows, the white-headed babbler,

the iora, the red-vented and the white-browed bulbuls, the king-crow,

the tailor bird, the common and the brahmany mynas, the common sparrow,

the golden-backed woodpecker, the bush lark, Loten’s and the

purple-rumped sunbirds, the coppersmith, the white-breasted kingfisher,

the hoopoe, the koel, the crow-pheasant, the spotted owlet, the common

and the brahmany kites, the spotted and the little brown doves, and the

cattle egret; while if the garden boast of anything in the shape of a

pond there will be found the common kingfisher and the paddy bird.

Nearly all these birds nest in the compound, and all are so familiar to

every Anglo-Indian that no description is needed. Moreover, I have, I

think, previously treated of all of them with the exception of the iora

(_Aegithina tiphia_). In case there be any who are unable to give this

beautiful little species a name when they see or hear it, let me briefly

describe it. It is considerably smaller than a sparrow, and lives amid

the foliage, from which it picks the tiny insects that constitute its

food. In summer the upper parts of the cock are black, and the lower

parts bright yellow. There are two narrow white bars in the wing. In

winter the black on the head and back is replaced by yellowish green.

The hen has the upper plumage and tail green, and the lower parts

yellow. She also has the two white wing bars. To my mind the iora is a

good songster. Nevertheless, “Eha” states that it “has no song, but

scarcely any other bird has such a variety of sweet notes.” I will not

quarrel over the meaning of the word song; every one who knows the iora

must agree that it continually makes a joyful noise.

Less common than the birds named above, but occupants of almost every

garden, are the butcher birds and their cousins the wood-shrikes, the

fantail flycatchers, and the pied wagtails, the emerald bee-eaters, and

parakeets, the robin and the palm swift.

The commonest species of butcher bird in Madras is the bay-backed shrike

(_Lanius vittatus_), a small bird with a grey head and a maroon back,

and a broad black streak through the eye. This tyrant of the garden

takes up a perch on a bare branch, and there remains like a sentinel on

a watch-tower, until it espies an insect on the ground. On to this it

swoops, displaying, as it descends, much white in the wings and the

tail.

The wood-shrike (_Tephrodornis pondiceranus_) frequents trees and

hedgerows. But for its broad white eyebrow and the white in its tail, it

might pass for a sparrow. It is most easily recognised by its melodious

and cheerful call—_tanti tuia, tanti tuia_.

The pied wagtail (_Motacilla maderaspatensis_)—elegance

personified—loves to sit on the housetop and pour forth a lay which vies

with that of the canary. Suddenly away it flies, speeding through the

air in undulating flight, until it reaches the ground, where,

nimble-footed as Camilla, it chases its insect quarry.

The fantail flycatcher (_Rhipidura albifrontata_) is another study in

black and white. This most charming of birds frequents leafy trees,

whence it pours forth its sweet song of six or seven notes. Every now

and again it, after the manner of all flycatchers, sallies into the air

after insects. Having secured its victim, it alights on a branch or on

the ground, and there spreads out its tail and turns as if on a pivot,

now to one side, now to the other.

We must seek the robin (_Thamnobia fulicata_) among the tangled

undergrowth in some corner of the compound neglected by the gardener.

There shall we find the pair of them—the cock a glossy black bird with a

narrow white bar in the wing, the hen arrayed in a gown of reddish

brown. In each sex there is a patch of brick-red feathers under the

tail, and, as if for the purpose of displaying this, the tail is carried

almost erect.

If there be any fruit ripening, even if it be that of the cypress, green

parrots (_Palaeornis torquatus_) are certain to visit the garden. On the

approach of a human being these feathered marauders will fling

themselves into the air with wild screams, and dash off, looking, as

Lockwood Kipling says, like “live emeralds in the sun.”

Even more like living emeralds are the little green bee-eaters (_Merops

viridis_), whose feeble twitter may emanate from any tree. Take a huge

emerald and cut it into the shape of a bird. Insert a pale blue

turquoise at the throat, rubies for the eyes, and set these off with

strips of darkest emery, let into the head a golden topaz, then breathe

into this collection of gems the breath of life, and you will have

produced a poor imitation of that gem of the feathered world—the little

emerald merops.

If there be palm trees in the garden the presence of the little palm

swift (_Tachornis batassiensis_) is assured. Palm swifts are tiny

smoky-brown birds which travel unceasingly through the air in pursuit of

the insects on which they feed. During flight the wings remain expanded,

looking like a bow into the middle of which the slender body is

inserted.

I had almost forgotten one of the most striking birds in the world—the

Indian paradise flycatcher (_Terpsiphone paradisi_), which certainly is

entitled to a place among the common birds of a Madras garden. The cocks

are white or chestnut, according to age. The crested head is shining

black, and the two median tail feathers are greatly elongated, so that

they flutter in the air like satin streamers as the bird flits about

among the trees. The hen lacks the lengthened tail feathers, and, as

“Eha” says, looks like a chestnut-coloured bulbul. Indeed, Anglo-Indian

boys call this species the _Shah Bulbul_.

There are a number of occasional bird visitors to our Madras gardens.

Parties of minivets and cuckoo shrikes come and seek for insects among

the leaves of trees. The unobtrusive yellow-throated sparrow (_Gymnorhis

flavicollis_) is another tree-haunting species to be looked for in the

garden. Conspicuous among the less common birds which feed on the ground

are the gorgeous roller or “blue jay,” the sprightly magpie robin, the

white-throated munia, attired like a quaker, and that bird of many

colours the Indian pitta, which keeps always near thick underwood,

sometimes issuing from thence into the open to give forth a cheery

whistle.

In conclusion, mention must be made of the migrant species. Many of the

birds that come to the farm on the downs of which Jefferies wrote—the

swallows, the cuckoos, and the wagtails—are but summer visitors to

England. So do a number of migrating species visit our Madras gardens.

There is, however, this difference in the two cases. The migrating

species visit England in summer for nesting purposes, whereas they spend

the winter in warm Madras, and leave it in summer before the nesting

time begins.

Among the winter visitors which come into the garden must be mentioned

the beautiful Indian oriole, a study in yellow and black, the Indian

redstart, or, to give it its older name, the fire-tail, the grey-headed

wagtail, whose under parts are bright yellow, the dull earthy-hued

little Sykes’s warbler, which hides itself in a bush and keeps on

calling out _chick_, and the grey-headed myna, which, but for the fact

that the head and recumbent crest are grey, might easily pass for a

brahmany myna.

The birds above enumerated do not form by any means an exhaustive list.

Were birds that sometimes come into the garden included, the list would

extend to three times its present length.

XXXIV

SUNBIRDS

Sunbirds, or honey-suckers as they are sometimes called, are to the

tropics of the Old World what humming birds are to the warmer portions

of the New World.

Sunbirds are tiny feathered exquisites which vary in length from 3½ to 5

inches, including a bill of considerable length for the size of the

bird.

They are numbered among the most familiar birds of India, owing to their

abundance and their partiality to gardens. They occur all the year round

in the warmer parts of the peninsula, but leave the coldest regions for

a short time during the winter.

Twenty-nine species of sunbirds are described as belonging to the Indian

Empire, but most of them are only local in their distribution. Three

species, however, have a considerable range. These are _Arachnechthra

asiatica_, the purple sunbird, which occurs throughout India and Burma,

ascending the hills to 5000 feet; _A. zeylonica_—the purple-rumped

sunbird—which is the commonest sunbird in all parts of Southern India

except Madras, where the third species, _A. lotenia_—Loten’s sunbird—is

perhaps more abundant.

The genus _Arachnechthra_ is characterised by a great difference in

appearance between the sexes. The hens of all the species are very like

one another; all are homely-looking birds, dull greenish brown above and

pale yellow below. The cocks of the various species are arrayed in

metallic colours as resplendent as those that decorate humming birds.

Seen from a little distance, the cock of the purple-rumped species is a

bird with dark head, neck, wings, back, and tail, and bright yellow

under parts, while the female is brown above and yellowish beneath. Thus

at a distance the male does not look much more beautiful than the

female, but if one is able to creep up sufficiently near him his plumage

is seen to be unsurpassable; it glistens with a splendid metallic sheen,

which is purple or green according to the direction from which the sun’s

rays fall upon it. On the top of the head is a patch of brilliant

shining metallic green, which exceeds in beauty any crown devised by

man.

The cocks of the purple and Loten’s species are very much alike, but may

be readily distinguished by the fact that the slender curved bill of

Loten’s is considerably longer than that of its cousin. How shall I

describe these beautiful birds? In my volume _Indian Birds_ I classed

them among black birds, because they look black when seen at a distance,

but I stated that they are in reality dark purple, and have been taken

to task for not classing them among the blue birds. The fact of the

matter is that these birds cannot be said to be of any colour; like shot

silk, their hue depends upon the angle at which the sun’s rays fall upon

them. In the sunlight their plumage glistens like a new silk hat, and

sometimes the sheen looks lilac and at others green.

The habits of all three species appear to be exactly alike.

The cocks of all have fine voices. At his best the purple sunbird sings

as sweetly as a canary. Indeed, on one occasion when I was staying at

Bangalore I heard a bird singing in the verandah which I thought was a

caged canary; it was only when I went to look at the canary that I

discovered it to be a wild sunbird pouring forth its music from some

trellis-work!

Sunbirds are always literally bubbling over with energy. They are

bundles of vivacity—ever on the move. Although they eat tiny insects,

they subsist chiefly on the nectar of flowers, which appears to be a

most stimulating diet.

Sunbirds have long, slender, curved bills and tubular tongues, hence

they are admirably equipped to secure the honey hidden away in the

calyces of flowers. As the little birds insert their heads into the

blossoms they get well dusted with pollen, so that, like bees and some

other insects, they probably play an important part in the

cross-fertilisation of flowers; but they do not hesitate to probe the

sides of large flowers with their sharp bills, and thus secure the honey

without bearing pollen to the stigma. It is pretty to watch the sunbirds

feeding. They are as acrobatic as titmice and strike the most

extraordinary attitudes in their attempts to procure honey. When there

is no convenient _point d’appui_ they hover like humming birds, on

rapidly vibrating wings, and while so doing explore with their long

tongues the recesses of honeyed flowers. To quote Aitken, “between

whiles they skip about, slapping their sides with their tiny wings,

spreading their tails like fans, and ringing out their cheery refrain.

As they pass from one tree to another they traverse the air in a

succession of bounds and sportive spirals.” Verily the existence of a

sunbird is a happy one!

The nest of the sunbird is one of the most wonderful pieces of

architecture in the world, and it is the work of the hen alone. While

she is working like a Trojan, her gay young spark of a husband is

drinking riotously of nectar! The nest is a hanging one, and is usually

suspended from a branch of a bush or a tree, and not infrequently from

the rafter of the verandah of an inhabited bungalow; sunbirds show

little fear of man.

The nest is commenced by cobwebs being wound round and round the branch

from which the nest will hang. Cobweb is the cement most commonly

employed by birds. To this pieces of dried grass, slender twigs, fibres,

roots, or other material are added and made to adhere by the addition of

more cobweb.

The completed nest, which usually hangs in a most conspicuous place,

often passes for a small mass of rubbish that has been pitched into a

bush, and, in view of the multifarious nature of the material used by

the sunbird, there is every excuse for mistaking the nursery for a ball

of rubbish. Grasses, fibres, fine roots, tendrils, fragments of bark,

moss, lichen, petals or sepals of flowers, in short, anything that looks

old and untidy is utilised as building material.

In _Birds of the Plains_ I mentioned the sunbirds’ nest that was

literally covered with the white paper shavings that are used to pack

tight the biscuits in Huntley and Palmer’s tins.

“It is curious,” writes Mr. R. M. Adam, “how fond these birds are of

tacking on pieces of paper and here and there a bright-coloured feather

from a paroquet or a roller on the outside of their nests. When in Agra

a bird of this species built a nest on a loose piece of thatch laid in

my verandah, and on the side of the nest, stuck on like a signboard, was

a piece of a torn-up letter with ‘My dear Adam’ on it.”

Mr. R. W. Morgan describes a yet more extraordinary nest that was built

by sunbirds in an acacia tree in front of his office at Kurnool: “It was

ornamented with bits of blotting-paper, twine, and old service stamps

that had been left lying about. The whole structure was most compactly

bound together with cobwebs, and had a long string of caterpillar

excrement wound round it. This excrement had most probably fallen on to

a cobweb and had stuck to it, and the cobweb had afterwards been

transported in strips to the nest.”

The completed nest is a pear-shaped structure, with an opening at one

side near the top. Over the entrance hole a little porch projects, which

serves to keep out the sun and rain when the nest is exposed to them.

The nest is cosily lined with silk cotton. The aperture at the side acts

as a window as well as a door; the hen, who alone incubates, sits on her

eggs, looking out of the little window with her chin resting comfortably

on the sill.

Two eggs only are laid. The smallness of the clutch indicates that there

is not a great deal of loss of life in the nest. The immunity of the

sunbird is due chiefly to the inaccessibility of the nest. The latter is

usually at the extreme tip of a slender branch upon which no bird of any

size can obtain a foothold. When a sunbird does make a mistake and place

its nest in an unsuitable place, the predaceous crows devour the young

ones, as they did recently in the case of a nest built in the middle of

an ingadulsis hedge in my compound at Fyzabad.

In conclusion, I should like to settle one disputed point in the economy

of the purple sunbird (_A. asiatica_). Jerdon stated that the cock doffs

his gay plumage after the breeding season and assumes a dress like that

of the hen except for a purple strip running longitudinally from the

chin to the abdomen.

Blanford denied this. He appears to have based his denial on the fact

that cocks in full plumage are to be seen at all seasons of the year.

There is no month in the year in which I have not seen a cock purple

sunbird in nuptial plumage. I used, therefore, to think that Blanford

was right and Jerdon wrong.

Afterwards I came across the following passage by Finn in _The Birds of

Calcutta_: “The purple cock apparently thinks his wedding garment too

expensive to be worn the whole year round; for after nesting he doffs

it, and assumes female plumage, retaining only a purple streak from chin

to stomach as a mark of his sex. . . . I well remember one bird which

came to the museum compound after breeding to change his plumage; he

kept very much to two or three trees, singing, apparently, from one

particular twig, and even when in undress he kept up his song.”

Since reading the above I have watched purple sunbirds carefully, and

have observed that during the months of November and December cocks in

full breeding plumage are very rarely seen, although there is no lack of

cocks in the eclipse plumage described by Finn.

Moreover, a purple sunbird which is being kept in an aviary in England

assumes eclipse plumage for a short period each year at the beginning of

winter. Thus there can be no doubt that the cock of the purple species

does doff his gay plumage after the nesting season, but only for a short

period. In January the majority of cocks are in breeding plumage, and,

indeed, in some parts of the country nest building begins as early as

February.

XXXV

THE BANK MYNA

The bank myna (_Acridotheres ginginianus_), like the Indian corby

(_Corvus macrorhynchus_), is a bird that has suffered neglect at the

hands of those who write about the feathered folk. The reason of this

neglect is obvious. Even as the house crow (_Corvus splendens_)

overshadows the corby, so does the common myna (_Acridotheres tristis_)

almost eclipse the bank myna. So familiar is the myna that all books on

Indian birds deal very fully with him. They discourse at length upon his

character and his habits, and then proceed to dismiss the bank myna with

the remark that his habits are those of his cousin.

The bank myna is a myna every inch of him. He is a chip of the old

block; there is no mistaking him for anything but what he is. So like to

his cousin is he that when I first set eyes upon him I took him for a

common myna freak. And I still believe I was not greatly mistaken. I

submit that the species arose as a mutation from _A. tristis_.

Once upon a time a pair of common mynas must have had cause to shake

their heads gravely over one or more of their youngsters who differed

much from the rest of the brood. As these youngsters grew up, the

differences became even more marked, they showed themselves slaty grey

where they should have been rich brown, and pinkish buff where white

feathers ought to have appeared, and the climax must have been reached

when these weird youngsters developed crimson patches of skin at the

sides of the head, instead of yellow ones. Probably, the other mynas of

the locality openly expressed their disapproval of these caricatures of

their species, for mynas do not keep their feelings to themselves. As

likely as not they put these new-fangled creatures into Coventry, for

birds are as conservative as old maids.

Thus these myna freaks were compelled to live apart, but, being strong

and healthy, they throve and either paired _inter se_, or managed to

secure mates among their normally dressed fellows. In either case, the

offspring bore the stamp of their abnormal parents.

It is a curious fact, and one which throws much light on the process of

evolution, that abnormalities have a very strong tendency to perpetuate

themselves. Thus was brought into being a new species, and as there were

in those times no ornithologists to shoot these freaks, and as they

passed with credit the test prescribed by nature, the species has

secured a firm footing in India. This hypothesis accounts for the

comparatively restricted distribution of the bank myna. It does not

occur south of the Narbada and Mahanadi Rivers, but is found all over

the plains of Northern India, and ascends some way up the Himalayas. It

is particularly abundant in the eastern portion of the United Provinces.

In the course of a stroll through the fields at Allahabad, Lucknow, or

Fyzabad, one meets with thousands of bank mynas. There seems to be

evidence that this species is extending its range both eastwards and

westwards; and one of these days a southerly advance may be made, so

that eventually the bank myna may form an attractive addition to the

birds of Madras.

This species goes about in flocks of varying numbers, after the fashion

of the common myna. It comes into towns and villages, but is much less

of a garden bird than its familiar cousin. It is in the fields,

especially in the vicinity of rivers, that these birds occur most

abundantly. They consort with all the other species of myna, for,

whatever may have been thought of them when first evolved, they are now

in society. King-crows (_Dicrurus ater_) dance attendance upon them as

they do on the common mynas, for the sake of the insects put up by them

as they strut through the grass. The king-crow, owing to the length of

its tail and the shortness of its legs, is no pedestrian, and so is not

able to beat for itself.

The books tell us that bank mynas feed on insects, grain, and fruit. I

am inclined to think that their diet is confined almost exclusively to

the first of these articles. I speak not as one having authority, for,

in order to do this, it is necessary to shoot dozens of the birds and

carefully examine the contents of their stomachs. This kind of thing I

leave to the economic ornithologist. I admit that bank mynas are very

partial to the fields of millet and other tall grain crops, but I am

persuaded that they visit these for the insects that lurk on their

spikes.

Grasshoppers are to the common myna what bread and meat are to the

Englishman, the _pièces de résistance_ of the menu. This is why mynas

always affect pasture land, where it exists, and keep company with

cattle, the sedate march of which causes so much consternation among the

grasshoppers. Bank mynas eat grasshoppers, but seem to prefer other

insects, especially those which lurk underground.[3] Certain it is that

wherever they occur they maintain a sharp look-out for the ploughman,

and follow him most assiduously as he turns up the soil by means of his

oxen-drawn plough. The house crows also attend this function. The other

species of myna follow the plough, but not so consistently as the bank

myna. The pied starling, although it does not disdain the insects cast

up by the plough, seems to prefer to pick its food out of mud. One often

sees a flock of these birds paddling about in shallow water, as though

they were sandpipers.

It is amusing to watch a flock of bank mynas strutting along a newly

turned furrow. In Upper India it is usual for two or more ploughs to

work together in Indian file, a few yards separating them. The mynas

like to place themselves between two ploughs, and so fearless are they

that they sometimes allow themselves almost to be trodden on by the team

behind them. Although the progress of the ploughing oxen is not rapid,

it is too fast for the mynas, who find themselves continually dropping

behind, and have every now and again to use their wings to keep pace

with them. At intervals, the whole following, or a portion of it, takes

to its wings and indulges in a little flight purely for the fun of the

thing. The flock sometimes returns to the original plough, at others

transfers its attentions to another. Thus the flocks are continually

changing in number and personnel, and in this respect are very different

from the companies of seven sisters. The latter appear to be definite

clubs or societies, the former mere chance collections of individuals,

or probably pairs of individuals.

Bank mynas are so called because they invariably nest in sandbanks, in

the sides of a well, or some such locality, they themselves excavating

the nest hole. Like sand martins, bank mynas breed in considerable

companies, but they are not so obliging as regards the season of their

nidification. They usually select sites which are not only at a distance

from human habitations, but difficult of access, and, as the birds do

not begin to nest until well on in May, when the weather in Upper India

is too hot to be described in literary language, one does not often have

a chance of seeing the birds at work. Their nesting passages do not

necessarily run inwards in a straight line. The result is that

neighbouring ones often communicate. At the end of the passage is a

circular chamber which is lined with grass and anything else portable.

Cast-off snake skin is a lining particularly sought after. Mr. Jesse

informs us that from one of these nests in the bank of the Goomti, near

Lucknow, he extracted parts of a Latin exercise and some arithmetic

questions. The owners of the nest were not going in for higher

education; it was merely a case of putting a thing to a use for which it

was never intended, a feat at which both birds and Indian servants are

great adepts. Notwithstanding the fact that the eggs are laid in dark

places, they are blue, as are those of the other mynas. Young bank mynas

lack the red skin at the side of the head, and are brown in places where

the adults are black. Young mynas of all species have a rather mangy

appearance. Like port wine, they improve with age.

[3]Since the above was written, C. W. Mason has published a paper

entitled _The Food of Birds in India_. In this he shows that eight

stomachs of the bank myna contained 106 insects. His researches show

that this species is very partial to the caterpillars of the common

castor pest, _Ophiusa melicerte_. _Vide Memoirs of the Department of

Agriculture in India_ (Entomological Series, Vol. III).

XXXVI

THE JACKDAW

The jackdaw, although numbered among the birds of India, has not

succeeded in establishing itself in the plains. Large numbers of

jackdaws visit the Punjab in winter, where they keep company with the

house crows and the rooks, the three species appearing to be on the best

of terms. At the first approach of the warm weather the daws, the rooks,

and the majority of the ravens betake themselves to Kashmir or to

Central Asia, leaving the house crows to represent the genus _Corvus_ in

the plains of the Punjab. The jackdaw (_Corvus monedula_) is in shape

and colouring like our friend _Corvus splendens_, differing only in its

smaller size and in having a white iris to the eye. As is the case with

the common Indian crow, individual jackdaws differ considerably in the

intensity of the greyness of the neck. In some specimens the sides of

the neck are nearly white. Of these systematists have made a new

species, which they call _C. collaris_. Oates, I am glad to observe,

declines to recognise this species. A jackdaw is a jackdaw all the world

over, and it is absurd to try to make him anything else.

As it has not been my good fortune to spend any time in Kashmir, my

acquaintance with the jackdaws of India is confined to those that visit

the Punjab in winter. These do not appear to frequent the vicinity of

houses; I have invariably found them feeding in fields at some distance

from a village. They roost, along with the crows and the rooks, in

remote parts of the country. Every evening during the half-hour before

sunset two great streams of birds pass over Lahore. The larger stream,

consisting of crows, rooks, and daws, moves in a north-westerly

direction, while the other, composed exclusively of ravens, takes a more

westerly course. The ravens apparently decline to consort with their

smaller and more frivolous relations.

Although jackdaws seem never to remain in the plains after the beginning

of spring, they are able to thrive well enough in the hot weather. A

specimen in the Zoological Gardens at Lahore keeps perfectly well, and

loses none of his high spirits even when the heat is, to use the words

of Kipling, “enough to make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl.” But then, as

Bishop Stanley asked, “who ever saw or heard of a moping, melancholy

jackdaw?” This particular bird is able to hold his own quite well

against the crows, rooks, and ravens confined in the same aviary.

Moreover, all these are on quite friendly terms with an Australian

piping crow—a butcher bird which apes the manners and appearance of a

crow so successfully as to delude the _Corvi_ into thinking that he is

one of themselves! Half a century ago Jerdon wrote: “The jackdaw is

tolerably abundant in Kashmir and in the Punjab, in the latter country

in the cold weather only. It builds in Kashmir in old ruined palaces,

holes in rocks, beneath roofs of houses, and also in trees, laying four

to six eggs, dotted and spotted with brownish black.” No one living in

Kashmir appears to have taken the trouble to amplify this somewhat

meagre account of the jackdaw in Asia. It would be interesting to know

whether the daws of Kashmir have any habits peculiar to themselves. The

fact that Jerdon mentions their breeding in trees is interesting, for in

England they nest in buildings in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out

of a thousand.

The jackdaw makes a most admirable pet. When taken young it becomes

remarkably tame, soon learning to follow its master about like a dog.

Moreover, the bird is as full of tricks as is a wagon-load of monkeys,

so that Mr. Westell does not exaggerate when he says that the jackdaw

when kept as a pet seems more of an imp than a bird. It thieves for the

mere sake of thieving. The nest is sometimes a veritable museum of

curiosities. One bird, immortalised by Bishop Stanley, appears to have

tried to convert its nest into a draper’s shop, for this, although not

finished, was found to contain some lace, part of a worsted stocking, a

silk handkerchief, a frill, a child’s cap, “besides several other

things, but so ragged and worn out that it was impossible to make out

what they were.”

XXXVII

FIGHTING IN NATURE

A correspondent to _Country Life_ states that he has noticed that in the

various battles between ravens and golden eagles, which frequently take

place in the island of Skye, the golden eagles are always defeated.

He enquires whether this phenomenon is a usual one and how it is that

the comparatively weak raven can vanquish so powerful a bird as the

golden eagle.

The above statement and its attendant queries are the result of faulty

observation.

Such a thing as a battle between ravens and golden eagles has probably

never happened. If it did take place it could have but one ending—the

victory of the golden eagles.

Battles rarely, if ever, occur in nature between different species. In

order that a battle may take place it is necessary that each of the

opposing species should want the same thing and be ready to fight and,

if necessary, to sustain serious injuries in order to obtain that thing.

Now these conditions are rarely fulfilled except at the breeding season,

when males of the same species fight for the females.

The only other things over which fighting is likely to arise are food

and nesting sites.

It frequently happens that birds of different species want the same

food. But this rarely leads to anything in the nature of a battle. In

such contests the weaker almost invariably gives way to the stronger

without any fighting.

A familiar instance of this is afforded by the behaviour of the

white-backed (_Pseudogyps bengalensis_) and the black vultures (_Otogyps

calvus_) when they gather round a carcase.

Jesse writes, and my experience bears out what he says: “Often I have

been watching the vulgar white-backed herd, with a disreputable

following of kites and crows, teasing and fighting over a body, when one

of these aristocrats (i.e. _Otogyps calvus_), in his red cap and white

waistcoat, has made his appearance. Way is immediately made for him, the

plebeian herd slinking back as if ashamed or afraid, and I cannot

remember the last comer ever being obliged to assert his authority.”

If the smaller vultures, which are the more numerous, chose to combine,

they could drive off the black vultures, but in doing this some of them

would run the risk of sustaining injuries. Now, it seems to be a rule in

nature that no creature will willingly run such a risk. Rather than do

this an animal will flee before a comparatively puny adversary.

The instinct of self-preservation, which includes the preservation of

the body from injury, is strongly developed in all organisms. Natural

selection tends to develop this instinct, because the individuals in

which the instinct is strongly developed are less likely to be injured

by fighting than those which are pugnacious. In other words, it does not

pay to fight in nature. Injured individuals are seriously handicapped in

the struggle for existence. Thus natural selection tends to produce

cowards.

At the breeding season an instinct, which is ordinarily dormant in

birds, suddenly becomes active—the instinct of preserving the nest and

its contents.

This instinct, when aroused, frequently overmasters the instinct of

self-preservation, with the result that shy birds become bold, timid

ones grow aggressive, little birds which usually are terrified at the

close proximity of a human being allow themselves to be handled rather

than leave their eggs or young.

At the breeding season the desire to protect the nest leads many birds

to attack, or to make as if to attack, all intruders.

No sight is commoner in India than that of a pair of little drongos

(_Dicrurus ater_) chasing a kite or a crow.

Similarly I have witnessed doves chase and put to flight a tree-pie

(_Dendrocitta rufa_), and fantail flycatchers mob a corby (_Corvus

macrorhynchus_).

Nor are such cases confined to India.

In England Mr. A. H. Bryden states that he has seen sea-gulls mob and

put to flight so formidable a creature as a peregrine falcon.

In each of the above instances the bird pursued could, if it wished,

turn round and rend its puny adversaries. Why does it not do so? Because

the instinct of self-preservation is implanted in it so firmly.

This instinct teaches it never to resist an attack, no matter how feeble

the attacker be.

The object of the attack, provided it have no nest to defend, has

everything to lose and nothing to gain by resisting the attack and

giving battle. It matters little to a golden eagle on the look-out for

quarry in which direction it flies; hence if, while it is sailing

through the air, it is suddenly attacked by a couple of infuriated

ravens, the obvious course is for it to change the direction of its

flight. If it fail to do this it must either run the risk of being

severely pecked by the ravens or fight them and thereby expose itself to

injury. Under the circumstances it naturally chooses the line of least

resistance.

It is absurd to speak of a bird that behaves in this manner as being

defeated in battle. It does not suffer defeat. It merely declines to

give battle.

The general rule in nature is, “Never fight when a fight can be

avoided.”

This rule is unconsciously followed by all birds, except those that have

nests.

The most familiar example of the rule in operation is the well-known

habit of birds of surrendering their perches to new-comers. When

individual A flies to a perch occupied by individual B the latter almost

invariably gives way without demur. The particular perch is of no value

to the occupier, but a whole body may be a matter of life or death.

XXXVIII

BIRDS AND BUTTERFLIES

Biological science is at present in a rather peculiar position.

Biologists are divided into two parties. On the one side stand the

theorists and their followers; on the other the practical men who think

for themselves. At present, the theorists are the party in power (and

they are quite Lloyd-Georgian in their methods), while the practical

men, the breeders and the field naturalists, form the opposition. The

reason of the division is that many facts, that have come to light

lately, do not fit in with the theories that hold the field.

Now, when facts are discovered which militate against a theory the

proper course for the holder of the theory is to test carefully the

alleged facts, and if they prove to be really facts to discard or modify

his theory.

Unfortunately the professional biologists of to-day do not usually

follow this course. They have made fetishes of their theories, which

they worship as the Israelites worshipped the golden calf. The

consequence is that they feel in honour bound either to ignore or to

gloss over the facts that are subversive of their fetishes. When they

write books in honour of their fetishes, they omit many facts which tend

to show that their fetishes are shams. They regard the discussers of the

awkward facts as enemies to be crushed. Hence the gulf between the two

classes of biologists.

One of the fetishes of the present day is the theory of protective

mimicry. Butterflies and moths are the organisms which exemplify best

this theory.

It often happens that two species of butterfly occur in the same

locality which resemble one another in outward appearance. In such cases

zoologists assert that one species mimics the other. They maintain that

this mimicry has been brought about by natural selection, because the

one species profits by aping its neighbour. The species that is copied

is said to be unpalatable. The copy-cat, if I may use the expression,

may be either palatable or unpalatable. In either case it is believed to

profit by the resemblance. If it is edible the birds that are supposed

to prey upon butterflies are said to leave it alone, because they

mistake it for its unpalatable neighbour. This resemblance of an edible

form to an unpalatable one is called Batesian mimicry.

If the copy-cat be unpalatable it is nevertheless said to profit by the

likeness, because young birds are supposed to feed on every kind of

butterfly and only to learn by experience which are unpalatable. The

theory is that if they attack a red-coloured butterfly and find it nasty

to the taste, they leave all red-coloured butterflies alone henceforth.

Thus, the imitating species may benefit by the sacrifice of the other

red-coloured species. This is known as Mullerian mimicry.

The mimicry theory is very enticing; indeed, it is so enticing that

those who hold it, as, for example, Professor Poulton, of Oxford, seem

to think that there _must_ be something wrong with the evidence opposed

to it.

I assert that it is not the evidence against the theory, but the theory

itself that is wrong.

The objections to the hypothesis are many and weighty. Finn and I

summarised most of them in _The Making of Species_.

Two of the objections appear to be insuperable.

The likeness cannot be of much use until it is fairly strong. How, then,

is the beginning of the resemblance to be explained?

In order that natural selection should have produced these astounding

resemblances, it is necessary that butterflies should be preyed on very

largely by birds; but all the evidence goes to show that birds very

rarely eat butterflies. In the course of some ten years spent in India I

have not seen butterflies chased by birds on more than a dozen

occasions. Similarly, Colonel Yerbury, during six years’ observation in

India and Ceylon, can record only about six cases of birds capturing, or

attempting to capture, butterflies. Colonel C. T. Bingham, in Burma,

states that between 1878 and 1891 he on two occasions witnessed the

systematic hawking of butterflies by birds, although he observed on

other occasions some isolated cases.

Nor is the evidence, as regards India, confined to the experience of the

casual observer. Mr. C. W. Mason, when supernumerary entomologist to the

Imperial Department of Agriculture for India, conducted a careful

enquiry into the food of birds. The enquiry was made at Pusa in Bengal,

in the years 1907, 1908, 1909. The results arrived at by Mr. Mason are

published in the _Memoirs of the Department of Agriculture for India_

(Entomological Series, Vol. III, January, 1912). As the result of this

enquiry, in the course of which the contents of the stomachs of hundreds

of Indian birds were examined, Mr. Mason writes (page 338, _loc. cit._):

“Butterflies do not form any appreciable proportion of the food of any

one species of bird, though a good many birds take these insects at

times. . . .

“The butterflies include a number of minor pests, of which _Melanitis

ismene_ was taken by _Merops viridis_ and _Papilio pammon_ by

_Acridotheres tristis_. Other well-known pests are _Pieris brassicae_,

_Virachola isocrates_ and _Papilio demoleus_. _Belenois mesentina_, a

Pierid, was seen to be taken on one occasion by the king-crow, and

_Ilerda sena_ by _Passer domesticus_, both of which insects are neutral.

“Moths include many major pests of varied habits—defoliators, miners,

cut-worms, grain and fabric pests. The larvae form an inexhaustible

supply of insect food to almost all species of insectivorous birds, and

even many species of birds that when mature feed almost, if not quite,

entirely on grain and seeds are when in the nest fed very largely on

caterpillars by the parent birds.”

Obviously, then, in India birds comparatively rarely attack butterflies;

but they devour millions of caterpillars. It is the same in other parts

of the world.

Mr. G. A. K. Marshall, in the course of five years’ observation in South

Africa, recorded eight cases of birds capturing butterflies.

Similarly Mr. Banta points out in various issues of _Nature_, in 1912,

that all the evidence available shows that in North America birds very

rarely capture butterflies. Field naturalists scarcely ever witness a

butterfly chased by a bird. Of 40,000 stomachs of birds examined very

few were found to contain remains of butterflies.

In 1911 the butterflies of the species _Eugonia californica_ were so

numerous that “the ground was often blackened with them, and great

swarms of them filled the air from morning to evening.” Yet of the birds

in the locality where those butterflies were most numerous, only five

out of forty-five species were found by direct observation and stomach

examination to eat the eugonia, and the only bird that fed off them

copiously was the brewer blackbird (_Euphagus cyanocephalus_) which is

almost omnivorous, and eats insects of all kinds, even if they be what

Darwinians call warningly coloured!

Now, modern theorists, as a rule, ignore facts such as these, and this

certainly is the wisest course they can pursue, unless they are ready to

give up these theories or make themselves look foolish.

However, I am glad to be able to record that Professor Poulton has, as

regards the remarks of Mr. Banta, not followed the usual course of the

modern theorist.

He has had the courage to take up the cudgels and reply to Mr. Banta in

_Nature_. The reason of this unusual course appears to be that Mr. C. F.

M. Swynnerton has made some observations in South Africa which Professor

Poulton considers are in favour of his pet theory.

According to the Professor, Mr. Swynnerton, as the result of three and a

half years’ investigation in South-East Rhodesia, “has obtained the

records of nearly 800 attacks made by 35 species of birds belonging to

30 genera and 18 families, upon 79 species of butterflies belonging to 9

families or sub-families.”

Professor Poulton does not seem to see that the researches of Mr.

Swynnerton are altogether subversive of the theory of protective

mimicry. In order that natural selection may totally change the

colouring of a butterfly (as it does according to the theory of

protective mimicry), that butterfly must be habitually preyed upon by

large numbers of birds, which must be so vigilantly and unceasingly on

the look-out for it, that its only chance of escaping from their attacks

must be for it to assume a disguise.

Compare with this the state of affairs revealed by Mr. Swynnerton’s

observations. He worked for three and a half years, and, as his

investigations extended to eighteen families of birds, they must have

been very extensive. Exactly how extensive they have been we do not

know, because he has not yet published them. Nevertheless, as the result

of three and a half years’ watching and stomach examination he has

evidence of only “nearly 800” attacks made by birds on insects; that is

to say, on an average about two attacks in three days!

Watch a bee-eater feeding and you will see it take twenty or thirty

insects in less than an hour. If you were to watch it one whole day you

might see it capture 300 insects, but certainly not more than one of its

victims, on an average, would be a butterfly. Yet, the theory of mimicry

is based upon the assumption that butterflies are so greatly preyed upon

by birds that they require special means of protection!

I ask all who are interested in the subject to be ever on the look-out

for birds chasing butterflies or moths. These are so large and so easy

to identify that there can be no chance of mistaking them. Even a casual

observer, when watching a bird, cannot fail to notice the capture of a

butterfly by it. And when a bird has captured a butterfly it cannot

dispose of it very quickly. According to Mr. Swynnerton, “some (birds)

swallow the insect (butterfly or moth) whole, but usually after

masticating or beating it; some remove inconvenient portions by

‘worrying’ like a dog or beating against perch or ground; some grasp the

prey in one foot and tear off the rejected portions with the bill,

eating the rest piecemeal.”

The fact that the average bird has to go through all the above

performances before devouring a creature containing so little

nourishment as a butterfly, is sufficient to show that it does not pay

birds to chase butterflies.

But it is best not to rely on arguments to refute the theories of

persons who have no logic in them. The only way to destroy the

pernicious zoological theories that hold the field at present is to pile

up the facts that tell against them. Similarly, theories that are true

cannot be established satisfactorily except by the accumulation of

facts. The relations between birds and butterflies can be determined

only by observation, and for that kind of observation no country

presents a better field than India. Moreover, such observations can be

conducted by people having little or no scientific knowledge.

XXXIX

VOICES OF THE NIGHT

The stillness of the Indian night suffers many interruptions.

In the vicinity of a town or village the hours of darkness are rendered

hideous by the noises of human beings and of their appendages—the pariah

dogs. In the jungle the “friendly silences of the moon” are continually

disturbed by the bark of the fox, the yelling of the jackal, or the

notes of the numerous birds of the night.

The call of the various nocturnal birds must be familiar to every person

who has spent a hot weather in the plains of Northern India and slept

night after night beneath the starry heavens. With the calls of the

birds all are familiar, but some do not know the names of the

originators of these sounds.

First and foremost of the fowls that lift up their voices after the

shades of night have fallen are the tiny spotted owlets (_Athene

brama_). Long before the sun has set these quaint little creatures

emerge from the holes in which they have spent the day, and treat the

neighbours to a “torrent of squeak and chatter and gibberish” which is

like nothing else in the world, and which Tickell has attempted to

syllabise as “_Kucha, kwachee, kwachee, kwachee, kwachee_,” uttered as

rapidly as the little owlets’ breath will allow of. These noisy

punchinellos are most vociferous during moonlit nights, but they are by

no means silent in the dark portion of the month.

Almost as abundant as the spotted owlet is another feathered pigmy—the

jungle owlet (_Glaucidium radiatum_). This species, like the last, calls

with splendid vigour. Fortunately for the Anglo-Indian its note is

comparatively mellow and musical. It is not altogether unlike the noise

made by a motor cycle when it is being started, consisting, as it does,

of a series of disyllables, low at first with a pause after each, but

gradually growing in intensity and succeeding one another more rapidly

until the bird seems to have fairly got away, when it pulls up with

dramatic abruptness. The best attempt to reduce to writing the call of

this bird is that of Tickell: “_Turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, turtuck,

turtuck, turtuck, tukatu, chatuckatuckatuck._” This owlet calls in the

early part of the night and at intervals throughout the period of

darkness, and becomes most vociferous just before the approach of

“rosy-fingered dawn.”

Very different is the cry of the little scops owl (_Scops giu_). This

bird has none of that Gladstonian flow of eloquence which characterises

the spotted and the jungle owlets. His note is, however, more befitting

the dignity of an owl. He speaks only in monosyllables, and gives vent

to those with great deliberation. He sits on a bough and says “_wow_” in

a soft but decisive manner. When this pronouncement has had time to sink

into the ears of his listeners, he repeats “_wow_,” and continues to

sound this impressive monotone at intervals of a minute for several

hours.

The above are the three owls which are most often heard in the plains of

Northern India. Sometimes all three species, like the orators in Hyde

Park, address the world simultaneously from neighbouring trees.

There are numbers of other owls that disturb the stillness of the night

with more or less vigour, but it would be tedious, if not impossible, to

describe them all. It must suffice to make mention of the low, solemn

booming _durgoon durgoon_, of the huge rock-horned owl (_Bubo

bengalensis_) and the wheezy screech of the barn owl (_Strix flammea_).

Another call, often heard shortly before dawn, is doubtless usually

believed to be that of an owl. This is the deep, _whoot, whoot, whoot_

of the coucal or crow pheasant (_Centropus sinensis_), that curious

chocolate-winged black ground-cuckoo which builds its nest in a dense

thicket.

Unfortunately for the peace of mankind the coucal is not the only cuckoo

that lifts up its voice in the night. Three species of cuckoo exist in

India which are nocturnal as owls, as diurnal as crows, and as noisy as

a German band. A couple of hours’ sleep in the hottest part of the day

appears to be ample for the needs of these super-birds. From this short

slumber they awake, like giants refreshed, to spend the greater portion

of the remaining two-and-twenty hours in shrieking at the top of their

voices.

Needless to state these three species are the brain-fever bird, the

koel, and the Indian cuckoo—a triumvirate that it is impossible to match

anywhere else in the world. Some there are who fail to distinguish

between these three giants, and who believe that they are but one bird

with an infinite variety of notes. This is not so. They are not one

bird, but three birds. Let us take them in order of merit.

The brain-fever bird or hawk cuckoo (_Hierococcyx varius_) is _facile

princeps_. In appearance it is very like a sparrow-hawk, and, but for

its voice, it might be mistaken for one. This species has two distinct

notes. The first of these is well described by Cunningham as a “highly

pitched, trisyllabic cry, repeated many times in ascending semitones

until one begins to think, as one sometimes does when a Buddhist is

repeating his ordinary formula of prayer, that the performer must surely

burst.” But the brain-fever bird never does burst. He seems to know to a

scruple how much he may with safety take out of himself. It is not

necessary to dilate upon this note. Have we not all listened to the

continued screams of “brain-fever, _brain-fever_, Brain-fever,” until we

began to fear for our reason? The other call is in no way inferior in

magnitude. It consists of a volley of single descending notes, uttered

with consummate ease—_facilis descensus_—which may or may not, at the

option of the performer, be followed by one or more mighty shouts of

Brain-fever. There is not an hour in the twenty-four during the hot

weather when this fiend does not make himself heard in the parts of the

country haunted by him. His range extends from Naini Tal to Tuticorin

and from Calcutta to Delhi. Assam, Sind, and the Punjab appear to be the

only portions of India free from this cuckoo.

The second of the great triumvirate is the Indian koel (_Eudynamis

honorata_). This noble fowl has three calls, each as powerful as the

others.

The first is a crescendo _ku-il, ku-il, ku-il_, very pleasing to Indian

ears, but too powerful for the taste of Westerns. The second is well

described by Cunningham as an outrageous torrent of shouts, sounding

“_kuk, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū_,” repeated at brief intervals in tones

loud enough to wake the seven sleepers. When the bird thus calls its

whole body vibrates with the effort put forth. The third cry is uttered

only when the koel is being chased by angry crows, and is, as Cunningham

says, a mere cataract of shrill shrieks: “_Hekaree, karee_.”

For the benefit of those unacquainted with the ways of the koel it is

necessary to state that that bird spends much of its time fleeing before

the wrath of crows. It lays its eggs in the nests of these. And, if one

may judge from their behaviour, they suspect the koel. The other two

calls are heard at all hours of the day and night, and it makes no

difference to the koel whether it is the sun or the moon, or only the

stars that are shining. He is always merry and bright. The second call,

however, is usually reserved for the dawn. Hence this particular vocal

effort is rendered all the more exasperating, coming as it does

precisely at the time when, after the departure of a “sable-vested

night” straight from Dante’s Inferno, which has been embellished by the

sluggishness of the _punkawalla_, a certain degree of coolness sets in

to give some chance of a little refreshing sleep. Then is it that the

jaded dweller in the plains, uttering strange oaths, rushes for his gun

and seeks out the disturber of his slumber. In case there be any unable

to identify the koel, let it be said that the cock is black from head to

foot, that he possesses a wicked-looking red eye, that he is about the

size of a crow, but has a slighter body and a longer tail. The hen is

speckled black and white. This bird spares not even Sind or the Punjab.

It visits every part of the plains of India, wintering in the south and

summering in the north.

The third of the triumvirate, the common Indian cuckoo (_Cuculus

micropterus_), although in its way a very fine bird, is not of the same

calibre as its confrères. It stands to them in much the same relation as

Trinity College, Dublin, does to the Universities of Oxford and

Cambridge. It has quite a pleasant note, which Indians represent as

_Boutotaka_, but which is perhaps better rendered by the words

“wherefore, therefore,” repeated with musical cadence. It does not call

much during the middle of the day. It usually uplifts its voice about

two hours before sunset, and continues until the sun has been up for a

couple of hours. This cuckoo is very common in the Himalayas and in the

plains of India from Fyzabad to Calcutta. Fyzabad ought really to be

renamed Cuckooabad. It is the habitation of untold numbers of cuckoos.

There during the merry month of May the cuckoos spend the night chanting

anthems of which the refrain runs _kui-il, ku-il, ku-il, wherefore,

therefore, brain-fever, brain-fever, brain-fever_. The Indian cuckoo is

very like the English cuckoo in appearance, and it victimises the seven

sisters (_Crateropus canorus_) and other babblers, as does the

brain-fever bird.

The night-loving cuckoos have demanded so much space that the other

vocalists of the hours of darkness will have to be content with very

brief notice.

The night heron (_Nycticoran griseus_) makes the welkin ring with his

guttural cries of “_waak, waak_,” uttered as he flies after nightfall

from his roost to the pond where he will fish till morning. As he fishes

in silence the addition he makes to the noises of the night is not

great. The large family of plovers must be dismissed in a single

sentence. They, like many cuckoos, regard sleep as a luxury; hence their

plaintive cries are heard both by day and by night. The most familiar of

their calls is the “_did-he-do-it, pity-to-do-it_,” of the red-wattled

lapwing (_Sarcogrammus indicus_). The notes of the rest of his family

consist of variations of the words _titeri, titeri_.

In conclusion, mention must be made of the nightjars or goatsuckers, as

they are sometimes called after the fashion of the Romans, who believed

that these birds used to sally forth at night and milk goats. This

belief was based on two facts. First, the udders of goats were often

found to be empty in the morning; secondly, the broad gape possessed by

the nightjar. However, the character of these birds has now been

cleared. We know that their bills are wide in order to seize large

insects on the wing, and that if goats yield no milk in the morning it

is not the nightjar who is to blame. Nightjars are brownish grey birds,

mottled and barred all over like cuckoos, for which they are often

mistaken. Two are common in India. The first of these is _Caprimulgus

asiaticus_, the common Indian nightjar, whose call is heard only after

nightfall, and resembles the sound made by a stone skimming over ice.

The other nightjar is that of Horsfield (_Caprimulgus macrurus_). Its

note has been compared to the noise made by striking a plank with a

hammer. The distribution of nightjars is capricious. They are fairly

common in the western districts of the United Provinces.

Horsfield’s nightjar is abundant in the _sal_ forests of the Pilibhit

district.