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 headsof thechaprassiswho 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 achaprassi, 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.
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 upontheir 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 hisCommon 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 thebest 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 pounceupon 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.
TheFringillidæ, or finches, constitute the most successful family of birds in the world. The crow tribe runs the finches close, but theCorviare 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 somespecies. Blue seems to be the only colour not vouchsafed to theFringillidæ.
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 individualsremaining 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, orTuti, 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 twitteringsong, 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 bookBird 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 itcouldnot 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 attacksof 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.
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 isso 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 muchwatering, 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 thatPasser domesticusis 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 possessorstruts 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 fussylittle creatures. When feeding they behave as if they were in a violent hurry. Themodus operandiis 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 numbersof 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.
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 reptilesmust 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 birostrisis 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 possesseseyelashes, 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 byLophoceros griseus. The grey hornbill of Ceylon is the speciesL. 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 birostrisis 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 ofNature. 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’sNests 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.
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 areknown asPhœnicopterus roseusandP. 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, othersstood 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 andcome 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 theSaturday ReviewColonel 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 ofthe 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 incubateits 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.
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 thathawks 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 uninvitingmaidanwhich 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 necessaryto 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 crescendoku-il, ku-il, ku-il, also with the excitedkuk, 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 shrieksbrain 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.