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 ofGlareola lacteais that curioussandy-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 onchursand sandbanks. Almostevery 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 groundand 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, aredeliberately 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 thatGlareola lactealays 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, almostwhite, 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.
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 thegarden 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 apatch 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 Madrasgarden. 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 theShah 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 outchick, 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.
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 areArachnechthra 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 genusArachnechthrais 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 volumeIndian BirdsI 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; likeshot 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 extraordinaryattitudes in their attempts to procure honey. When there is no convenientpoint d’appuithey 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 mistakingthe 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.
InBirds of the PlainsI 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 servesto 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 byFinn inThe 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.
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 fromA. tristis.
Once upon a time a pair of common mynas must have had cause to shake their heads gravely overone 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 pairedinter 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 plainsof 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 economicornithologist. 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, thepièces de résistanceof 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 worktogether 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. Theirnesting 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 entitledThe 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).
[3]Since the above was written, C. W. Mason has published a paper entitledThe 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).
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 genusCorvusin the plains of the Punjab. The jackdaw (Corvus monedula) is in shape and colouring like our friendCorvus 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 callC. 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 theCorviinto thinking that he is one of themselves! Half a century ago Jerdon wrote: “The jackdaw istolerably 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.”
A correspondent toCountry Lifestates 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 tendsto 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 punyadversaries. 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.