Birds of the Plains
by Douglas Dewar · English · Gutenberg #46394 · 401,427 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Birds of the Plains
Author: Douglas Dewar
Illustrator: F. D. S. Fayrer
Release date: July 24, 2014 [eBook #46394]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS OF THE PLAINS ***
[Illustration: THE GREY PELICAN. (PELECANUS PHILIPPENSIS)]
BIRDS OF
THE PLAINS
BY DOUGLAS DEWAR, F.Z.S., I.C.S.
WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF LIVING BIRDS
BY CAPTAIN F. D. S. FAYRER, I.M.S.
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
PREFACE
It is easy enough to write a book. The difficulty is to sell the
production when it is finished. That, however, is not the author’s
business. Nevertheless, the labours of the writer are not over when he
has completed the last paragraph of his book. He has, then, in most
cases, to find a title for it.
This, I maintain, should be a matter of little difficulty. I regard a
title as a mere distinguishing mark, a brand, a label, a something by
which the book may be called when spoken of—nothing more.
According to this view, the value of a title lies, not in its
appropriateness to the subject-matter, but in its distinctiveness.
To illustrate: some years ago a lady entered a bookseller’s shop and
asked for “Drummond’s latest book—_Nux Vomica_.” The bookseller without a
word handed her _Lux Mundi_.
To my way of thinking _Lux Mundi_ is a good title inasmuch as no other
popular book has one like it. So distinctive is it that even when
different words were substituted the bookseller at once knew what was
intended. That the view here put forward does not find favour with the
critics may perhaps be inferred by the exception many of them took to the
title of my last book—_Bombay Ducks_.
While commending my view to their consideration, I have on this occasion
endeavoured to meet them by resorting to a more orthodox designation. I
am, doubtless, pursuing a risky policy. Most of the reviewers were kind
enough to say that _Bombay Ducks_ was a good book with a bad title. When
criticising the present work they may reverse the adjectives. Who knows?
D. D.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. British Birds in the Plains of India 1
II. The Bird in Blue 10
III. Sparrows in the Nursery 16
IV. The Care of Young Birds after they leave the Nest 23
V. The Adjutant Bird 29
VI. The Sarus 35
VII. The Stability of Species 40
VIII. The Amadavat 46
IX. The Nutmeg Bird 52
X. The Did-he-do-it 56
XI. Cobbler or Tailor? 62
XII. A Crow in Colours 68
XIII. Up-to-date Species Making 73
XIV. Honeysuckers 78
XV. A Hewer of Wood 84
XVI. A Feathered Sprinter 89
XVII. A Bird of Character 94
XVIII. Swifts 99
XIX. Birds as Automata 104
XX. Playing Cuckoo 111
XXI. The Koel 117
XXII. The Common Doves of India 124
XXIII. Doves in a Verandah 130
XXIV. The Golden Oriole 135
XXV. The Barn Owl 140
XXVI. A Tree-top Tragedy 145
XXVII. Two Little Birds 150
XXVIII. The Paradise Flycatcher 156
XXIX. Butcher Birds 163
XXX. Ducks 168
XXXI. A Dethroned Monarch 173
XXXII. Birds in the Rain 178
XXXIII. The Weaver Bird 183
XXXIV. Green Parrots 190
XXXV. The Roosting of the Sparrows 197
XXXVI. A Gay Deceiver 202
XXXVII. The Emerald Merops 208
XXXVIII. Do Animals Think? 213
XXXIX. A Couple of Neglected Craftsmen 219
XL. Birds in their Nests 224
XLI. Bulbuls 229
XLII. The Indian Corby 235
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Grey Pelican (_Pelecanus philippensis_), a Bird
of the Plains _Frontispiece_
The White-breasted Kingfisher (_Halcyon smyrnensis_) 4
The Redshank (_Totanus calidris_), one of the British Birds found
in India 8
The Indian Roller, or “Blue Jay” (_Coracias indica_) 12
The Indian Adjutant (_Leptoptilus dubius_) 28
The Indian Adjutant (_Leptoptilus dubius_) 34
Loten’s Sunbird (_Arachnechthra lotenia_) 78
(Note the long curved bill, adapted to insertion in flowers.)
The Yellow Sunbird (_Arachnechthra zeylonica_) 80
Nest of Loten’s Sunbird 82
(Notice that it is built in a spider’s web.)
Loten’s Sunbird (Hen) about to enter nest 90
The Indian Spotted Owlet (_Athene brama_) 94
The Indian Paddy Bird (_Ardeola grayii_) 114
The Common Kingfisher (_Alcedo ispida_), one of the British Birds
found in India 144
The Indian Kite (_Milvus govinda_) 148
The Grey-necked Crow (_Corvus splendens_) 190
The Bengal Red-whiskered Bulbul (_Otocompsa emeria_) 230
BIRDS OF THE PLAINS
BRITISH BIRDS IN THE PLAINS OF INDIA
Most birds are cosmopolitans and belong to no nationality. Strictly
speaking, there is only one British bird, only one bird found in the
British Isles and nowhere else, and that is the red grouse (_Tetrao
scoticus_).
For this reason some apology seems necessary for the heading of this
article. “Birds common to the Plains of India and the British Isles”
would doubtless be a more correct title. However, I write as an
Englishman. When I meet in a foreign land a bird I knew in England I like
to set that bird down as a fellow-countryman.
In India most of the familiar birds: the thrush, the blackbird, the robin
redbreast, the wren, the chaffinch, and the blue tit are conspicuous by
their absence; their places being taken by such strange forms as _mynas_,
_bulbuls_, seven sisters, parakeets, etc. The Englishman is therefore
prone to exaggerate the differences between the avifauna of his own
country and that of India. The dissimilarity is indeed great, but not so
great as is generally supposed.
A complete list of British birds comprises some four hundred species; of
these nearly one-half occur in India. But a list of British species is
apt to be a misleading document. You may keep a sharp look-out in England
for a lifetime without ever setting eyes on many of the so-called British
birds. Every feathered thing that has been blown by contrary winds, or
whose dead body has been washed by the waves, on to the shores of Albion
has been appropriated as a British species. This sounds very hospitable.
Unfortunately the hospitality is of a dubious nature, seeing that every
casual bird visitor promptly falls a victim to the gun of some
self-styled naturalist. Having slaughtered his “feathered friend” the
aforesaid naturalist proceeds to boast in the press of his exploit.
I do not deem it correct to speak of these occasional visitors as British
birds. On the other hand, I think we may legitimately call the birds we
see constantly in England, at certain or all seasons of the year, English
birds. Of these many are also found in India. More of them occur in the
Punjab than in any other part of the country because of our long cold
weather, and because, as the crow flies, if not as the _sahib_ travels,
the Punjab is nearer England than is any other province.
The ubiquitous sparrow first demands our attention. This much-abused
little bird is, thanks to his “push,” quite as much at home in the
“Gorgeous East” as he is in England. He is certainly not quite so
abundant out here; the crows and spotted owlets take care of that. They
are very fond of sparrow for breakfast. Nevertheless, _Passer domesticus_
is quite plentiful enough and is ever ready to nest inside one’s
bungalow.
The Indian cock sparrow differs slightly in appearance from the English
bird, having more white on the sides of his neck. This is not, as might
be supposed, due to the fact that he is not coated with soot to such an
extent as the cockney bird. Every widely distributed species, including
man, has its local peculiarities, due to climatic influences, isolation,
and other causes. If the isolation be maintained long enough the process
of divergence continues until the various races differ from one another
to such an extent as to be called species. Local races are incipient
species, species in the making. The barn owl (_Strix flammea_) is another
case in point. This is a familiar owl in England, and is common out here,
but not nearly so abundant as the little spotted owlet that makes night
hideous by its caterwaulings. The Indian barn owl, which, in default of
barns, haunts mosques, temples, deserted buildings, and even secluded
verandahs, differs from our English friend in having stronger claws and
feet, and the breast spotted instead of plain white. These trivial
differences are not usually considered sufficient to justify the division
of the barn owl into two species.
Some of our English birds assume diminutive proportions in India, as, for
example, the kingfisher and the raven. This may perhaps be attributed to
the enervating Indian climate. The common kingfisher (_Alcedo ispida_) is
exceedingly common in all parts of India except the Punjab. It does,
indeed, occur in that province, but not abundantly. The commonest
kingfisher in the Land of the Five Rivers is the much more splendid
white-breasted species (_Halcyon smyrnensis_), which may be recognised by
its beautiful blue wings with a white bar, and by its anything but
melodious “rattling scream.”
This winter the ravens are invading Lahore in very large numbers. It is
impossible not to notice the great black creatures as they fly overhead
in couples or in companies of six or eight, uttering solemn croaks.
But the Indian raven, large as it is, is a diminutive form; its length is
but twenty-four inches as compared with the twenty-eight of its English
cousin. Moreover, there are slight anatomical differences between the two
races; hence the Indian bird was at one time considered to be a separate
species and was called _Corvus lawrencii_. There certainly does seem to
be some justification for this procedure, since the Indian raven has not
the solitary, shy, and retiring disposition of the bird at Home. It
consorts with those feathered villains the Indian crows, and, like them,
thieves from man and delights to tease and annoy birds bigger than itself
by pulling their tail! But there exist ravens of all sizes intermediate
between the large European form and the small Indian one, so that it is
not possible to find a point at which a line may be drawn between them.
For this reason the Indian raven is now held to be one and the same
species as the English bird—_Corvus corax_.
[Illustration: THE WHITE-BREASTED KINGFISHER. (HALCYON SMYRNENSIS)]
Two cousins of the raven, namely, the rook and the jackdaw, also occur in
the Punjab. They both visit us in the cold weather and fraternise with
the common crows. The rook may be readily distinguished from these by the
bare whitish patch of skin in front of its face. Last year hundreds of
rooks were to be seen in the fields between the big and the little Ravi.
They are not so abundant this winter owing to the comparative mildness of
the weather.
The jackdaw is very like _Corvus splendens_ in appearance. It may,
however, be easily distinguished by its white eye. There is at present a
jackdaw in confinement in the Lahore “Zoo.”
The coot (_Fulica atra_) is another bird common at Home which is also
abundant in India. He needs no description, being familiar—too
familiar—to every sportsman in India. He is the “black duck” of Thomas
Atkins that remains on the _jhil_ after all the duck have disappeared. It
is unnecessary to say that the bird is not a duck, but a water-hen that
apes the manners of one. His black plumage, white face, and the
difficulty he experiences in rising from the water prevent him being
confounded with a duck.
Ornithological text-books tell us that the skylark (_Alauda arvensis_)
visits India during the winter. This may be so, but I do not think I have
ever seen one in the Punjab. I have seen thousands of the Indian skylark
(_Alauda gulgula_)—a very similar bird, which is said to soar and sing
“just as the lark in England does.”
As a rule it soars only at daybreak. There are in India so many birds of
prey, ever on the look out for quarry, that our larks are not able to
sing with impunity at heaven’s gate. They usually put forth their vocal
efforts from a less exalted platform.
“The eel’s foe, the heron” (_Ardea cinerea_), need not detain us long,
although he is a common bird in both England and India, for the Punjab is
too dry to be a favourite resort of waders. There is, however, a heron in
the “Zoo” at Lahore who lives happily enough among the ducks and storks
in spite of the way in which the kites worry him when he is at supper.
The blue-rock pigeon (_Columba livia_) is another English bird found in
the Punjab. This must not be confounded with its cousin (_Columba
intermedia_) the very common Indian blue pigeon, of which so many have
taken up their quarters in the Montgomery Hall. The European form is not
nearly so abundant, and is distinguished by its paler colour and by the
fact that its lower back is white instead of bluish grey.
The family of birds of prey affords us a large number of species common
to England and India. Almost all the well-known English raptores are
found in India—the peregrine falcon, the marsh harrier, the hen-harrier,
the merlin, the kestrel, the sparrow-hawk, and the buzzard. All these are
considerably more abundant in India than in the British Isles.
Thus far we have spoken chiefly of birds that are found in the plains of
India all the year round. We have now to deal with migrants. As was to be
expected, many of these are common to Hindustan and to England.
Surprising as it may seem, stationary birds are the exception rather than
the rule. The majority of species, like viceroys and
lieutenant-governors, divide their time more or less equally between two
different places. It is by no means always easy to determine whether any
particular species is a migrant one or not. The mere fact that specimens
of it are seen in any given place at all seasons of the year is not
sufficient to prove that it is non-migratory. For the birds of a species
we saw six months ago are not necessarily the same ones that we have with
us to-day. To take a concrete example, the crested lark (_Galerita
cristata_) is found in Lahore all the year round, but is far more
plentiful in summer than in winter, which is the only time when it is
seen in England. The species is therefore a migratory one.
The general rule as regards migratory birds is that they breed in the
north and then go south for a season to enjoy themselves. Great Britain
is further north than India and has a much colder climate, hence we
should expect birds to crowd to India for the pleasant cold weather and
go to England for the genial summer. This does happen to a large extent.
Yet there are surprisingly few birds which winter in India and summer in
England. The only common ones that I can call to mind are the wagtails,
the pipits, and the quail (_Coturnix communis_). There are two reasons
for this. The first is that migration takes place in a more or less
northerly and southerly direction, and the British Isles are not due
north of India. The second reason is that England is a long way south of
the Arctic Circle. Its winter is therefore not cold enough for the taste
of many birds. Geese, ducks, and snipe are cold-loving creatures. Their
idea of nice mild weather is the English winter! In order to avoid
anything in the shape of heat they migrate very far north in summer, and
in winter, being driven southwards by the intense Arctic cold, spread
themselves all over the temperate zone. Thus it comes to pass that the
full and the jack snipe, the grey lag-goose, the mallard, the gadwall,
the pintail and the shoveller ducks, the widgeon and the teal, are winter
visitors both to India and the British Isles. But whereas snipe, geese,
and most ducks leave India for the hot weather, many of them remain in
Great Britain for the summer and nest there. It is probable that the
birds which spend the winter in Great Britain go further north to breed,
their place in the British Isles being taken by species that have
wintered in Africa. The north of Scotland, even, is too far south to
serve as a breeding place for some species. The little jack snipe
(_Gallinago gallinula_) is one of these; he never breeds in England,
whereas the common or full snipe (_Gallinago cœlestis_) does. Hence the
former is set down as a migrant in England, while the latter is thought
to be a permanent resident. In point of fact both are migrants, as we see
in India, but while some full snipe find a Scotch summer cool enough for
them to breed in, all jack snipe find it insufferably hot.
[Illustration: THE REDSHANK. (TOTANUS CALIDRIS)]
A curious fact regarding snipe in India is that these birds appear in the
south earlier than they do in the north. I do not know the earliest date
after the end of the hot weather on which a snipe has been shot in the
Punjab, but believe it to be considerably later than the last week in
August, at which time snipe are regularly shot in the Madras Presidency.
This is not what we should have expected. It is but reasonable to suppose
that the earliest birds to arrive in India would take up their winter
quarters in the north, and that the later arrivals, finding all eligible
residences in the north already occupied, would go farther afield. The
only explanation of the phenomenon which occurs to me is that the most
northerly birds are the first to feel the approaching Arctic winter and
so are the first to migrate. These, when they arrive in India, find the
northern portion of the peninsula too hot for them, so pass on southwards
until they come to the places where the temperature is at that season
lower.
This article has already reached an undue length, yet quite a number of
birds, more or less common in England and in India, have not been
mentioned. On this account I owe apologies to the cuckoo, the stint, the
sandpiper, the redshank, the ringed and the Kentish plovers. But the
names of these and of eight score others, are they not written in the
appendix?
THE BIRD IN BLUE
As I write my tympanic membranes are being somewhat rudely shaken by the
clamorous voices of a brood of young blue jays, which are in a nest
somewhere in one of the chimneys of my bungalow.
From the point of view of the blue jays the site they have chosen for
their nursery is an admirable one; indeed, had the architect of the
bungalow received a handsome “tip” he could not have provided the birds
with more comfortable accommodation.
The shaft of the chimney is not straight, as, in my humble opinion, it
should be. At a few feet from the top it is bent at a right angle, and
runs horizontally for a short distance before it again assumes what I
consider to be its normal course.
The architect was, however, not such a fool as he may appear, for it is
quite impossible to clean properly the chimney of his design; it must
therefore take fire sooner or later, and the fire may spread and result
in the destruction of the house. The re-erection thereof would of course
mean more work for the said architect.
The blue jays are as satisfied as the designer with the chimney, because
the horizontal portion forms a shelf upon which they can lay their eggs.
These are visible neither from above nor from below, and they are as
inaccessible as invisible, for the chimney is so narrow as to baffle all
attempts at ascent or descent on the part of human beings.
The blue jays make good to my ear what they deny my eye. The young
hopefuls utter unceasingly a loud cry resembling that of some creature in
distress. This is what I have to listen to all the time I am in the
bungalow. Outside, the parent birds make the welkin ring with their
raucous voices. Never were father and mother prouder of their offspring
or fonder of proclaiming the fact. When not cumbered about much serving
they squat either on the roof or on a blue gum tree hard by, and, at
regular intervals, utter a short, sharp, harsh “Tshow.” This is
emphasised by a jerk of the tail; the blue jay does nothing without first
consulting its caudal appendage.
On the occasions when I made vain attempts to obtain a look at the young
birds the parents took to their wings, and, as they sped through the air,
uttered cries so harsh and dry-sounding as to make me feel quite thirsty!
The blue jay is so familiar to us Anglo-Indians as to need no
description. We have all admired the bird as it lazily sailed through the
air on outstretched pinions of pale blue and rich ultramarine. We have,
each of us, watched it perched on a railing looking out for its insect
quarry. It is then comparatively inconspicuous, its neck and wing coverts
being the hue of a faded port-wine stain. We have seen it pounce upon
some object too small for us to distinguish, and either devour it then
and there or bear it off in triumph.
We all know that the bird is not a jay at all, that its proper name is
the Indian roller (_Coracias indica_), that it is related to the
kingfisher family, and that it is called a jay merely on account of its
gaudy plumage.
Next to its colour the most striking thing about the blue jay is its
wonderful power of flight. Ordinarily the bird is content to flap along
at an easy pace, but, when it likes, it can move for a little as though
it were shot out of a catapult; moreover, it is able to completely change
its course with startling rapidity; hence even the swiftest birds of prey
find it no child’s play to catch a roller bird. A good idea of its aerial
performances may be obtained by watching it attack a kite that persists
in hovering about in the neighbourhood of the nest. Blue jays, like
king-crows and doves, are exceedingly short-tempered when they have
young.
This species seems to indulge in very little sleep; it is up betimes, and
may be seen about long after every other day bird, with the possible
exception of the king-crow, is fast asleep.
The blue jay is a good friend to the gardener, since it feeds exclusively
on insects and small animals. Jerdon cites as the chief articles of its
diet, large insects, grasshoppers, crickets, mantidæ, and beetles, with
an occasional field-mouse or shrew. To this list he might have added
frogs and small snakes.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN ROLLER, OR “BLUE JAY.” (CORACIAS INDICA)]
At most seasons of the year the blue jay strikes one as a rather sluggish
bird, being content to squat on a perch for a great part of the day and
wait patiently for quarry to come its way. At the breeding season,
however, it becomes very sprightly. It is then more than usually
vociferous and indulges in a course of aerial gymnastics. It may be seen
at these throughout the month of March, now towering high above the
earth, then dropping headlong down, to suddenly check itself and sail
away, emitting the while the hoarsest and wheeziest notes imaginable, and
behaving generally like the proverbial March hare. These performances are
either actual love-making or a prelude to it. By the end of March the
various birds have sorted themselves out, and then the billing and cooing
stage begins.
At this season the birds are invariably found in pairs; the cock and hen
delight to sit side by side on some exposed branch. Like the young
couples that moon about Hyde Park on Sundays, blue jays do not mind
spooning in public. As the sexes dress alike it is not possible to say
which of a couple is the cock and which is the hen. Under such
circumstances naturalists always assume that the bird which makes the
advances is the cock. I am not at all sure that this assumption is
justified. Among human beings the ladies very frequently set their caps
at the men. Why should not the fair sex among birds do likewise?
In many species the sexes dress differently, and it is then easy to
discover which sex “makes the running,” and in such cases this is by no
means always the cock. I have seen one hen paradise flycatcher drive away
another and then go and make up to a cock bird. Similarly I have seen two
hen orioles behave in a very unladylike manner to one another, all
because they both had designs on the same cock. He sat and looked on from
a distance at the contest, and would assuredly have purred with delight
had he known how to do so! But of this more anon. The blue-jay lovers sit
on a branch, side by side, and gaze upon one another with enraptured
eyes. Suddenly one of them betakes itself to some other tree, uttering
its hoarse screeches as it flies. Its companion follows almost
immediately and then begins to bow and scrape, puff out its neck, slowly
wave its tail, and utter unmusical cries. The bird which is being thus
courted adds its voice to that of its companion. The raucous duet over,
silence reigns for a little. Then one of the birds moves on, to be
followed by its companion, and the above performance is repeated, and
will continue to be repeated dozens of times before the birds give
themselves over to family cares.
The greatest admirer of the blue jay could not call its nest a work of
art. The eggs are laid in a hole in a tree or building. Usually the hole
is more or less lined by a promiscuous collection of grass, tow,
feathers, and the like, but sometimes the birds are content to lay their
eggs in the bare cavity.
The blue jay, although so brazen over its courtship, strongly objects to
having its family affairs pried into, so if you would find its nursery
you must, unless you are lucky, exercise some patience. The birds
steadfastly refuse to visit the nest when they know they are being
watched. If patience be a virtue great, the blue jay is a most virtuous
bird, for, if it is aware that it is being observed, it will take up a
perch and sit there for hours, mournfully croaking, rather than betray
the whereabouts of its eggs or young. Most of the nests I have seen have
been discovered by accident. For example, when going along a road I have
had occasion to look round suddenly at some bird flying overhead and
caught sight of a roller entering a hole in a tree.
Some days ago I was out with a friend, when we saw a hoopoe, with food in
its mouth, disappear into a hole in the wall of a Hindu temple. The
aperture was about seven feet from the ground, so, in order to look into
it, I mounted my friend’s back. While I was investigating the hoopoe’s
hole, a blue jay flew out of another hole in the wall within a yard of my
face!
Like Moses of old, I turned aside to investigate this new wonder, and
found that the hole went two and a half feet into the wall, and that its
aperture was a square six inches in both length and breadth. The floor of
this little alcove was covered with earth and tiny bits of dirty straw,
which may or may not have been put there by the blue jay. On this lay a
clutch of four glossy white eggs, nearly as large as those laid by the
degenerate Indian _murghi_. Fortunately for those blue jays I am not an
egg collector. As it was, I did remove one of them for a lady who was
anxious to have it, but this was not missed. Birds cannot count.
SPARROWS IN THE NURSERY
The sparrow, as every Anglo-Indian knows, is a bird that goes about
dumping down nests in _sahibs’_ bungalows. It is greatly assisted in this
noble work by the native of India, who has brought to the acme of
perfection the art of jerry-building. In the ramshackle, half-finished
modern bungalow the rafters that support the ceiling never, by any
chance, fit properly into the walls. There are thus in every room a
number of cracks, holes, and crevices in which the sparrows love to nest.
As a matter of fact, these are not at all safe nesting places. Apart from
the fact that the nest is liable to be pulled down at any moment by an
angry human being, the situation is dangerous, because there is nothing
to prevent a restless young bird from falling out of the nest and thus
terminating a promising career. A few days ago a servant brought me a
baby sparrow that had fallen out of a nest in the pantry. I always feel
inclined to wring the neck of any sparrow that fate has put within my
grasp, for I have many a score to pay off against the species. Upon this
occasion, however, I felt mercifully inclined, so took the young bird,
which was nearly covered with feathers, and offered it bread soaked in
milk. This it swallowed greedily. When the youngster was as full up
inside as the Hammersmith ’bus on a wet day, I told the bearer to put it
in the cage in which my amadavats dwell. When I left for office I
directed the man to feed the new arrival. On my return in the evening the
bearer informed me that the young hopeful had declined its food. Now, a
young sparrow refuses to eat only when it is stuffed to the brim. It was
thus evident that its parents had found it out and were feeding it, in
spite of the fact that the nest from which it came was in the pantry on
the east side of the house, while its new quarters were in the west
verandah.
The next day a second sparrow fell out of the nest in the pantry and was
also consigned to the amadavats’ cage. At bed-time that night I took a
look at the birds, and found that the two young sparrows had tucked
themselves snugly in the seed tin! The next morning a third sparrow from
the same nest was brought to me; it was put in the cage along with its
brethren. As my office was closed on the day in question, I had the cage
placed in front of my study window. I could thus watch the doings of the
latest additions to my aviary. The hen sparrow does the lion’s share of
the feeding; she works like a slave from morning to night. At intervals,
varying from one to ten minutes, throughout the day she appears with a
beakful of food, which consists chiefly of green caterpillars.
It is the custom to speak of the sparrow as a curse to the husbandman.
The bird is popularly supposed to live on grain, fruit, seedlings, and
buds—those of valuable plants by preference. There is no denying the fact
that the sparrow does devour a certain amount of fruit and grain, but, so
far from being a pest, I believe that the good it does by destroying
noxious insects far outweighs the harm. Adult sparrows frequently feed on
insects. I have watched them hawking flies in company with the swifts,
and the skill displayed by the “spadger” showed that his was no ’prentice
hand at the game.
Sparrow nestlings in the early stages are fed almost exclusively on
caterpillars, grubs, and insects. As there are usually five or six baby
sparrows in a brood, and as these have appalling appetites, they must
consume an enormous number of insects. Let us work out a little sum. We
may assume that the sparrow brings at least three caterpillars in each
beakful of food she carries to her brood. She feeds them at least fifteen
times in the hour, and works for not less than twelve hours in the day. I
timed the sparrows in question to commence feeding operations at 5.30
a.m., and when I left the bungalow at 6 p.m. the birds were still at it.
Thus the hen sparrow brings in something like 540 insects _per diem_ to
her brood. She feeds them on this diet for at least twenty days, so that
the brood is responsible for no less than 10,000 insects, mostly
caterpillars, before its units are ready to fend for themselves.
According to Hume, the sparrow in India brings up two broods in the year.
I should have doubled this figure, since the species appears to be always
breeding. But it is better to understate than exaggerate. We thus arrive
at the conclusion that the hen sparrow destroys each year over 20,000
insects, mostly injurious, in the feeding of her young. Add to this
number those she herself consumes, those the cock eats, and those he
brings to the nest, and you have a fine insect mortality bill.
The movements of the mother bird when feeding her young are so rapid that
it is not easy to determine what it is she brings to the nest, even
though the objects hang down from her beak; the same applies to the cock.
In order to make quite certain of the nature of the food she was
bringing, I sought, by frightening her, to make her drop a beakful;
accordingly, at one of her visits I tapped the window-pane smartly just
as she was about to ram the food down the gaping mouth of a young bird.
She flew off chirruping with anger and alarm, but kept her bill tightly
closed on the food she was carrying. As the parents had to feed the young
ones through the bars of a cage the process required some manipulation,
and, in spite of its care, the bird sometimes dropped part of its burden;
but, almost before I had time to move, it had dashed down to the ground
and retrieved it. However, by dint of careful watching I managed to bang
the window immediately after the hen had dropped something of a dark
colour. Having frightened her away I rushed outside and found that the
object in question was part of a sausage-shaped sac containing a number
of tiny green grubs. After a few minutes the hen returned with her beak
full. Her fright had made her suspicious, so she perched on the verandah
trellis-work and looked around for a little. Nine times she flew towards
the cage, but on each occasion her courage failed her, to the intense
disgust of her clamouring brood. At the tenth attempt she plucked up
sufficient courage to feed the young birds.
At a subsequent visit she dropped a caterpillar, and I frightened her
away before she could retrieve it. I found it to be alive and about an
inch in length.
On another occasion I saw her ramming something black down the throat of
a young hopeful. Frightening her away, I went outside and found the
youthful bird making valiant attempts to swallow a whole mulberry. But it
was not often that she gave them fruit; green caterpillars formed quite
nine-tenths of what she brought in; the remainder was composed chiefly of
grubs, with an occasional grasshopper or moth. As the young grew older
the proportion of insect food given to them diminished until, when they
were about twenty-two days old, their diet was made up principally of
grain.
The day on which the third young sparrow was put into the cage was a warm
one, so at 2 p.m., when the shade temperature was about 115°, I brought
the cage into the comparatively cool bungalow, for the sake of the
amadavats. The cock sparrow witnessed the removal of the cage and did not
hesitate to give me a bit of his mind. In a minute or so the hen returned
with her beak full of green caterpillars. When she found the cage gone,
she, too, expressed her opinion of me and of mankind in general in no
uncertain terms. It was the last straw. Earlier in the day I had removed
one of the baby sparrows from the cage and placed it in a cigar-ash tray
outside the cage. The hen had affected not to notice that anything had
happened, and fed it in the ash-tray as though she were unconscious of
the removal. When, however, the whole cage and its contents disappeared
it was quite useless for her to pretend that nothing was wrong, so she
treated me to her best “Billingsgate.”
After the cage had been inside for about three-quarters of an hour the
young “spadgers” began to feel the pangs of hunger, and made this known
by giving vent to a torrent of chirrups which differed in no way from
those that make the adult so offensive. All that the poor mother could do
was to answer from the outside. I felt, that afternoon, that I was paying
off with interest some of my score against the sparrow.
The next day I did not take the cage into the bungalow, because I wanted
to ascertain whether sparrows feed their young throughout the day, or
whether they indulge in a noonday siesta. They kept it up, at their
respective rates, throughout the day, although the thermometer in the
shade must have risen to 115°. After the hen had disburdened herself of
the food she brought, she would perch for a moment on the trellis, and
pant with open beak as though she were thoroughly exhausted.
I have long been trying to ascertain how birds in the nest obtain the
liquid they require. Do the succulent caterpillars, on which young
sparrows are fed, provide them with sufficient moisture, or do the
parents water them? Although I spent several hours in watching those
sparrows, I am not able to answer the question satisfactorily. I placed a
bowl of water on the ground near the cage, hoping that this would tempt
the hen bird to drink, and that I should see her carry some of the liquid
to her offspring. But she took no notice of the water. She certainly used
to come to the cage sometimes with her beak apparently empty, and yet
insert it into the open mouth of a young one. Was she then watering the
nestling, or did her beak hold some small seeds that did not protrude? It
seems incredible that unfledged birds exposed to the temperature of an
Indian summer require no water; nevertheless, I never actually saw any
pass from the crop of the parents to those of the youngsters.
THE CARE OF YOUNG BIRDS
AFTER THEY LEAVE THE NEST
It has been urged as an objection to the Darwinian theory that Natural
Selection, if that force exists, must tend to destroy species rather than
cause new ones to come into being. Nearly all birds leave the nest before
they are fully developed. When they first come out of the nursery they
have attained neither their full powers of flight nor complete skill in
obtaining food. Every young bird, no matter how fine a specimen it be,
leaves the nest an inexperienced weakling, and can therefore stand no
chance in competition with the fully grown and experienced members of the
species. Natural Selection takes an individual as it finds it and pays no
attention to potentialities.
That such an objection should have been urged against the theory of
Natural Selection is proof of the fact that naturalists are inclined to
forget that, with many, if not all, species of birds, the duties of the
parents towards their offspring by no means cease when the young birds
leave the nest.
The parent birds, in many cases, continue to feed their young long after
these are apparently well able to fend for themselves. This fact is not
sufficiently emphasised in books on natural history. On the other hand,
such works lay stress upon the fact that in many species of birds the
parents drive their offspring away from the place of their birth in order
that the numbers of the species in the locality shall not outgrow the
food supply. How far this is a general characteristic of birds I do not
know. What I desire to emphasise is that the driving-away process, when
it occurs, does not take place until some time after the young have left
the nest. The fact that the parent birds tend the young long after they
have left the nest, and even after they are fully capable of holding
their own in the struggle for existence, disposes of the above-cited
objection to the theory of Natural Selection. Nature is so careful of the
young warriors that she prolongs the instinct of parental affection
longer than is absolutely necessary. So important is it that the young
should have a fair start in life that she errs on the safe side.
It is common knowledge that foster-parents feed cuckoos when these have
grown so large that, in order to reach the mouth of their spurious babes,
the little foster-mothers have to perch on their shoulders.
The sight of a tiny bird feeding the great parasite is laughable, but it
is also most instructive. It demonstrates how thoroughly bird mothers
perform their duties.
Crows tend their young ones for weeks after they have left the nest. I
have had ample opportunity of satisfying myself as to this.
It was my custom in Madras to breakfast on the verandah. A number of
crows used to assemble daily to watch operations and to pick up the
pieces of food thrown to them. They would go farther when the opportunity
occurred, and commit petty larceny.
The crows were all grey-necked ones, with the exception of two belonging
to the larger black species. But these latter are comparatively shy
birds, and consequently used to hang about on the outskirts of the crowd.
Among the grey-necked crows was a family of four—the parents and two
young birds. Every day, without fail, they used to visit the verandah;
the two young birds made more noise than all the rest of the crows put
together. They were easily recognisable, firstly, by their more raucous
voices, and, secondly, by the pink inside of the mouth. When I first
noticed them they were so old that, in size, they were very nearly equal
to the mother. Further, the grey of the neck was sharply differentiated
from the black portions of the plumage, showing that they had left the
nest some time ago.
Unfortunately I did not make a note of the day on which they first put in
an appearance. I can, however, safely say that they visited my verandah
regularly for some weeks, during the whole of which time the mother bird
fed them most assiduously. It was ludicrous to see the great creatures
sidle up to mamma when she had seized a piece of toast, and open their
red mouths, often pecking at one another out of jealousy.
They were obviously well able to look after themselves; their flight was
as powerful as that of the mother bird, yet she treated them as though
they were infants, incapable of doing anything for themselves.
At the beginning of the cold weather I changed my quarters, so was not
able to witness the break-up of the crow family. Probably this did not
occur until the following spring, when nesting operations commenced.
The feeding of the young after they have left the nest and are full-grown
is not confined to crows.
I was walking one morning along a shady lane when I noticed on the grass
by the roadside a bird which I did not recognise. It was a small
creature, clothed in black and white, which tripped along like a wagtail.
It had no tail, but it wagged the hind end of its body just as a
sandpiper does. While I was trying to identify this strange creature, a
young pied wagtail came running up to it with open mouth, into which the
first bird popped something. I then saw that the unknown bird was simply
a pied wagtail (_Motacilla maderaspatensis_) which had lost her tail! The
young bird was fully as large as the mother, and having a respectable
tail, which it wagged in a very sedate manner, looked far more imposing.
The parts of the plumage which were black in the mother were brownish
grey in the young bird. The white eyebrow was not so well defined in the
youngster as in the adult, while the former had rather more white in the
wing, but as regards size there was nothing to choose between the two.
The young bird remained in close attendance on the mother. It was able to
keep pace with her as she dashed after a flying insect. It ran after her
begging continually for food. The mother swallowed most of the flies she
caught, but now and again put one into the mouth of the young bird, but
she did so very severely, as if she were saying, “You are far too old to
be fed; it is no use to pretend you cannot catch insects, you are a
naughty, lazy, little bird!” But the lackadaisical air of the young one
expressed more plainly than words: “Oh, mother, it tires me to chase
insects. They move so fast. I have tried, but have caught so few, and am
very hungry.”
For several minutes the young wagtail followed the mother; then something
arrested its attention, so that it tarried behind its parent. The mother
moved away, apparently glad to be rid of the troublesome child for a
little. Then she suddenly flew off. Presently the young wagtail looked
round for its mother, and I was interested to see what would happen when
it noticed that she had flown away. My curiosity was soon satisfied.
Directly the young bird perceived that the mother had gone, it set itself
most philosophically to catch insects, which it did with all the skill of
an old bird, turning, twisting, doubling, with the elegance of an
experienced wagtail.
I describe these two little incidents, not as anything wonderful, but as
examples of what is continually going on in the world around us.
The parental instinct is probably developed in some birds more than in
others, but I believe that in all cases the affection of a bird mother
for her young persists long after they have left the nest, and for some
time after they are fully capable of looking after themselves.
Birds are born with many instincts, but they have much to learn both
before and after they leave the nest. It is not until their education is
complete, until the mother bird has taught them all she herself knows,
until they are as strong or stronger than she, that the young birds are
driven away and made to look after themselves.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN ADJUTANT. (LEPTOPTILUS DUBIUS)]
THE ADJUTANT BIRD
The adjutant bird (_Leptoptilus dubius_) is one of Nature’s little jokes.
It is a caricature of a bird, a mixture of gravity and clownishness.
Everything about it is calculated to excite mirth—its weird figure, its
great beak, its long, thin legs, its conspicuous pouch, its bald head,
and every attitude it strikes. The adjutant bird is a stork which has
acquired the habits of the vulture. Forsaking to a large extent frogs and
such-like delicacies, which constitute the normal diet of its kind, it
lives chiefly upon offal. Now, most, if not all, birds which feed on
carrion have the head and neck devoid of feathers. This arrangement, if
not ornamental, is very useful. The bare head and neck are, as “Eha”
remarks, “the sleeves tucked up for earnest work.” The adjutant forms no
exception to the rule, it wears the badge of its profession. But let me
here give a full description of this truly comic bird. It stands five
feet in its stockings. Its bill is over a foot in length and
correspondingly massive. As we have seen, the whole head and neck are
bare, except for a few feathers scattered over it like the hairs on an
elephant’s head. The bare skin is not lacking in colour. On the forehead
it is blackish; it becomes saffron-yellow on the upper neck, while lower
down it turns to brick-red. There is a ruff of white feathers round the
base of the neck. This ruff, of course, appears entirely out of place and
adds to the general grotesqueness of the bird. The back and wings are
ashy black, becoming slaty grey at the breeding season. The lower parts
are white.
As if the creature, thus arrayed, were not sufficiently comic, Nature has
given it a great pouch which dangles from the neck. This is over a foot
in length and hangs down like a bag when inflated. It is red in colour,
spotted with black. Its situation naturally leads one to believe that it
is connected with the gullet, that it is a receptacle into which the bird
can hastily pass the garbage it swallows pending more complete disposal.
But it is nothing of the sort. It does not communicate directly with the
œsophagus. Knowing this, one is able to appreciate to the full the
splendid mendacity of the writer to _Chambers’s Journal_ in 1861, who
declares that he witnessed an adjutant swallow a crow which he watched
“pass into the sienna-toned pouch of the gaunt avenger. He who writes saw
it done.”
Note the last sentence. The scribe was evidently of opinion that people
would not believe him, so thought to clinch matters by bluffing! But, to
do him justice, it is quite possible that he did see an adjutant swallow
a crow, for other observers have witnessed this, but the remainder of the
story rests upon the sandy foundation of the imagination. If the truth
must be told, we do not know for certain what the use of this pouch is.
Blyth suggested that it is analogous to the air cell attached to one lung
only of the python or the boa-constrictor, and, as in that case, no doubt
supplies oxygen to the lungs during protracted meals. The bird can thus
“guzzle” to its heart’s content without having to stop every now and then
to take a “breather.”
But we must return to the appearance of the bird, for the account of this
is not yet complete, since no mention has been made of the eye. This is
white and very small, and so gives the bird a wicked, knowing expression,
like that of an elephant. Colonel Cunningham speaks of “the malignantly
sneaking expression of the pallid eyes.” This is perhaps a little severe
on the adjutant, but it is, I fear, quite useless to deny the fact that
he has “a canister look in his heye.”
A mere description of the shape and colouring of the adjutant does not
give any idea of his comicality. It is his acts rather than his
appearance that make him so ludicrous. Except when floating high above
the earth on his great pinions the bird always looks grotesque. To say
that he, as he walks along, recalls a hunchbacked old man who is
deliberately “clowning” is to give a hopelessly inadequate idea of the
absurdity of his movements. Lockwood Kipling is nearer the mark when he
says: “For grotesque devilry of dancing the Indian adjutant beats
creation. Don Quixote or Malvolio were not half so solemn or mincing, and
yet there is an abandonment and lightness of step, a wild lift in each
solemn prance, which are almost demoniacal. If it were possible for the
most angular, tall, and demure of elderly maiden ladies to take a great
deal too much champagne and then to give a lesson in ballet dancing, with
occasional pauses of acute sobriety, perhaps some faint idea might be
conveyed of the peculiar quality of the adjutant’s movements.”
Sometimes the bird struts along solemnly with bent back and forwardly
pointed bill, at others it will jump or skip along with outstretched
wings and clap its beak. It cannot even stand still without striking
ludicrous attitudes. Seen from behind, it looks like a little
hunch-backed old man with very thin legs, dressed in a grey swallow-tail
coat. Adjutants sometimes vary the monotony of existence by standing on
one leg; occasionally they sit down, stretching their long legs out in
front, and looking “as though they were kneeling wrong side foremost.”
Colonel Cunningham gives a most entertaining account of the habits of
these birds, many of which used, until quite recently, to be seen about
Calcutta. My observations are chiefly confined to birds in captivity;
this perhaps accounts for the fact that they do not agree in all respects
with those of the Colonel. According to him, adjutants “are singularly
ill-tempered birds, constantly squabbling with one another, even in the
absence of any cause of competition, such as favourite roosts or
specially savoury stores of offal. Even whilst several of them are
standing quietly about, sunning themselves and apparently buried in deep
thought, a quarrel will suddenly arise for no apparent reason; and then
you may see two monstrous fowls begin to pace around, cautiously stalking
one another, and watching for a favourable opportunity of striking and
buffeting with beak and wings. The expression of slow malignity with
which such duellists regard one another is gruesome, and the injuries
resulting from the fray are often ghastly; blinded eyes and bloody
cockscombs being matters of everyday occurrence.”
Captive adjutants seem to be most placid birds. There are three of them
in the “Zoo” at Lahore, kept in a large park-like enclosure, and I have
never seen these fighting. They appear to be always, if not on the best
of terms, at any rate, indifferent to one another. The three will stand
for many minutes at a time in a row, motionless as statues. Sometimes a
male and a female will huddle up to one another and remain thus, with
their heads almost touching, looking like caricatures of Darby and Joan.
The table manners of adjutants, like those of most other carrion feeders,
are not polite. I will therefore not attempt to describe them. In the
good old days, feeding adjutants used to be a favourite pastime of Mr.
Thomas Atkins at Calcutta. I regret to have to say that his motives were
not always purely philanthropic. To connect two pieces of meat by a long
string and then throw them among a crowd of adjutants savours of
practical joking. One bird, of course, swallows one piece of meat, while
a second adjutant secures the other morsel. All goes well until each of
the birds tries to go its own way—then a tug-of-war results, fraught with
gastronomical disturbance to the combatants.
Adjutants are nowhere very abundant; they are nevertheless spread over
the whole of Northern India, but do not appear to be found so far south
as Madras. Another species, however—the smaller adjutant (_L.
javanicus_)—has been observed on the Malabar coast.
Some natives make adjutant-catching their profession. The birds are
captured on account of their down-like feathers, which are of
considerable commercial value.
The catcher fits the skin of an adjutant over his head and shoulders, and
in this attire creeps up to a company of the birds as they stand
half-asleep, knee-deep in water. Great is the surprise of the
unsuspecting birds when one of them is unceremoniously seized by the wolf
in the adjutant’s skin.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN ADJUTANT. (LEPTOPTILUS DUBIUS)]
THE SARUS
Having discoursed upon the adjutant, it seems but fitting that we should
turn our attention to another long-shanked gentleman—the sarus. The
adjutant is, as we have seen, a stork, while the sarus is a crane. I do
not know whether this conveys very much information to the average mind.
Most people will, I imagine, “give it up” if asked, “What is the
difference between a stork and a crane?” Yet there are considerable
differences between the two; they belong to different families, and, like
rival tradesmen of the same name, “have no connection with one another.”
I do not propose to detail the anatomical differences between storks and
cranes, for the excellent reason that I myself do not know them all, nor
have I the least intention of acquiring such knowledge. It forms part of
the dry bones of science, and these are best left to museum
ornithologists to squabble over. There are, however, one or two simple
points which suffice to enable us to distinguish at a glance a crane from
a stork. The hind toe of the stork is well developed, while that of the
crane is small and does not touch the ground; the consequence is that the
stork likes to rest on trees, while the crane prefers to stand on _terra
firma_ on its flat feet. The nostrils of the crane are half-way down the
beak, while they are at the base in the bill of the stork. The crane
nests on the ground; the stork builds in a tree. Young storks are
helpless creatures, while little cranes hop and run about from the moment
they leave the egg. Lastly, the crane has a voice, a fine loud voice, a
voice that can be heard a mile away, a voice like a trumpet, for its
windpipe is coiled. King stork, on the other hand, has no voice; when he
wants to make a joyful noise he is obliged to clap together his great
mandibles.
Cranes have been favourites with man from time immemorial. The result is
that ancient and mediæval writers have plenty to say about them. Now the
naturalist of old considered himself in honour bound to attribute some
wonderful characteristic to every beast of which he wrote. If he did not
know of any clever thing done by any creature, he invented something for
it to do. This method had the advantage of making natural history a very
exciting and interesting study. Cranes were supposed to perform all
manner of tricks with stones. As we have seen, they are blessed with
powerful voices, and, like other loud-voiced people, find it difficult to
keep silent. They are fully persuaded that silence is golden; but, when
it comes to acting up to this belief, the flesh proves itself very frail.
Thus it came to pass that the sagacious birds, when migrating, used to
stop up their mouths with stones. As they are far too well-bred to speak
with the mouth full, they were able to maintain a decorous silence when
travelling.
I can cite plenty of authority for this statement. There is, in
particular, no less a personage than “Robert Tanner, Gent. Practitioner
in Astrologie and Physic.” “The cranes,” he writes, “when they fly out of
Cilicia, over the mountain Taurus, carried in their mouths a pebble
stone, lest by their chattering they should be seized upon by eagles.”
The cranes had yet another use for their stones. When the main body were
resting at night, sentinels were posted to guard against surprise, so
that the company could go to sleep in security. To ensure necessary
vigilance, the sentinels stood on one foot and held in the other a large
stone. If they inadvertently nodded, their muscles relaxed and the stone
dropped. This, of course, used to wake them up. Even Alexander the Great
was glad to learn a lesson from the cranes. He used to go to roost with,
not a stone in his hands, but a silver ball, as more befitting his royal
dignity. On the slightest movement the ball would fall and he wake up.
Thus it was that he never overslept himself. We do not do such heroic
things nowadays; nor do cranes.
Cranes are birds which will not stand nonsense. The pigmies used to go
egg-collecting among them; the result of this was, to translate Homer:—
When inclement winters vex the plain,
With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise and order, through the midway sky:
To pigmy nations wound and death they bring.
Notice that as the cranes were on the war-path there was no necessity for
them to fill their mouths with stones; they wanted all their lung power
to bark at their pigmy foes.
Having considered cranes as they are not, it behoves us to glance at them
as they are. The sarus is a handsome creature. It stands over five feet
high. The general colour of the plumage is a beautiful French grey. The
head and long neck are devoid of feathers, but are covered with numerous
tiny crimson warts or papillæ. These assume a deeper hue at the breeding
season, which occurs from July to September. There is a patch of grey on
the sides of the head. The throat and a ring round the nape are covered
with black hairs.
Saruses feed upon vegetable substances, insects, earthworms, frogs,
lizards, and other small reptiles, with an occasional snake thrown in by
way of condiment. “This,” remarks Babu Ram Brama Sanyal, “shows the kind
of accommodation they must have.”
Saruses are not gregarious birds, but hunt in couples and are said to
mate for life. It is further asserted that when one of a pair is killed
the other pines away and dies. I believe this to be true, although I
cannot vouch for it, and am certainly not going to put the statement to
the test by shooting one of a pair: for these cranes are such tame,
confiding birds that to shoot them savours strongly of murder.
According to Jerdon, a young sarus is not bad eating, but old birds are
worthless for the table. Lucky old birds! Saruses thrive very well in
captivity. As they habitually indulge in all manner of eccentric dances
they make most amusing pets. They are usually gentle and let strangers
caress them and tickle their heads. But I always let others try this on
for the first time with a strange crane, because some birds resent this
head-tickling and, to again quote from the worthy Babu above mentioned,
“appear to exist only as it were for pecking at everything, bird, beast,
and man: children being the special object of their wrath.”
There are two cranes in the “Zoo” at Lahore; they are a most mischievous
couple. They used to be kept with the ducks and geese, and amused
themselves by rooting up all freshly planted rushes. At feeding time it
was their habit to hop from one dish of food to another with outstretched
wings and thus frighten off the ducks and secure the lion’s share for
themselves. They were then removed to the enclosure where the adjutants
are. They started playing tricks on these, but the adjutant has a
powerful beak which he is quite ready to use when necessity arises. The
result is that the saruses are not on speaking terms with the adjutants.
Unlike the adjutant, whose nest is a huge platform of sticks placed on
the top of a very lofty tree, the sarus builds its nursery on the ground.
This takes the form of a large cone, several feet in diameter at the base
and two or three feet high. It is composed of reeds, rushes, and straw,
and placed by preference in shallow water. Great care is taken to keep
the eggs above water level. If, as is apt to happen in India, heavy rain
comes on after the completion of the nest, the parents speedily set to
work to raise the eggs by adding more material to that upon which they
rest.
THE STABILITY OF SPECIES
If two crows be taken to an ornithologist and he be told that one of them
was caught in the Himalayas while the other was captured in Madras, he
will not be able to tell which individual came from which area: in other
words, the crows of Madras resemble those of the Himalayas. This, of
course, is no unusual phenomenon. The same may be said of the myna, the
king-crow, and a great many other birds and beasts. Yet the phenomenon is
a remarkable one if we take into account the facts of variation.
If several hundred thousand crows be collected and carefully examined, it
will be found that no two of them resemble one another in all respects.
This being so, we should expect the crows of Madras to differ from those
of the Himalayas, since the two environments are so dissimilar. We may
say with tolerable certainty that no intercrossing takes place between
the crows of the two localities: for these birds are stay-at-home
creatures, and do not wander far afield. In this case, therefore, it is
not intercrossing that has prevented the origin of local races.
A consideration of the main causes which conduce to the stability of
species may not be devoid of interest; for the subject is one which has
hitherto attracted but little attention. Since the Darwinian hypothesis
was given to the world we have heard so much of variation and the origin
of new species that the other phenomenon—that of the fixity of species—in
spite of varying environments has been almost entirely overlooked. Yet it
was just this feature of animal life that attracted the attention of the
older zoologists and led them to believe that species had been created
once and for all, and that, when created, they were immutably fixed.
Most biologists, if asked to explain the comparative fixity of species,
the slowness of evolution, would, I think, refer to the fact that
variations appear to take place indiscriminately in all directions. Take,
for example, a large number of birds of any species and measure any one
organ, let us say the first primary wing feather. Suppose the average
length be six inches. We shall find that in a considerable percentage of
the individuals measured the wing is exactly six inches in length: that
six inches is what we may call the favourite or fashionable length of the
wing. The next commonest lengths will be 5.99 and 6.01 inches, and so on.
We shall find that only a very small percentage of the individuals have
wings shorter than 5½ inches or longer than 6½ inches; and if we measured
a thousand individuals we probably should not find any in which the wing
was shorter than five inches or longer than seven.
Now, the commonly accepted theory is that in those cases where there is
free interbreeding the long-winged varieties and the short-winged
varieties tend to neutralise one another, hence no change in character
takes place. The effects of variation are swamped by intercrossing. It is
only when intercrossing is checked, as when natural selection weeds out
certain varieties, that evolution occurs.
This theory, of course, explains, or helps to explain, why species are so
stable; but it involves the assumption that there is no such thing as
sexual selection among animals in a state of nature. The theory assumes
that individuals mate in a haphazard manner, that a long-winged hen is as
likely to select a short-winged husband as a long-winged one. Are we
justified in assuming this? At present there is little evidence on the
subject. Evidence can only be procured by measuring a number of pairs of
birds that have mated, and seeing whether large hens mate chiefly with
large cocks or with small cocks, or indifferently with large or small
cock-birds.
That sexual selection is a reality and not a mere hypothesis there can, I
think, be but little doubt. It is with the theory that supposes that the
females alone exercise selection that I feel compelled to quarrel. The
male selects his partner just as much as the female selects hers. The
choice is mutual.
In the Zoological Gardens at Lahore there are a number of ordinary
coloured peacocks and a number of albinos. No coloured hen will mate with
a coloured cock if she is allowed to exercise a choice between him and an
albino. Here, then, is a clear example of sexual selection.
Professor Karl Pearson has spent much time in trying to discover whether
there is such a thing as sexual selection—what we may call unconscious
selection—among human beings. His experiments tend to show that there is.
If we take a thousand married men whose stature is not less than six
feet, and a thousand also who are none of them taller than 5 ft. 8 in.,
we shall find that the average height of the wives of the former is
greater than that of the wives of the shorter men.
If wild animals display a similar characteristic, it is evident that to
say that intercrossing swamps variation and causes species to remain
stable is not altogether accurate; for, if like select like as partners,
we should expect a number of races to rapidly arise, or, at any rate,
three races—a large, medium, and small one. So far, however, as we can
see, species display no such tendency. We are therefore driven to the
conclusion either that there is among species in a state of nature no
tendency for like individuals to select like as their partners, or, if
there be such a tendency, there is some force at work which counteracts
it.
It may be thought that the case of the peafowl in the Lahore “Zoo” tends
to show that among animals it is dissimilarity, not similarity, that
attracts, for the coloured hens mate with white cocks in preference to
those like themselves.
As a matter of fact the hens select the white cocks, not because they are
white, but because of the strength of the sexual instincts of these
latter. The white cocks continually show off before the hens; the sexual
desire is developed more highly in them than in the ordinary cocks, and
it is this that attracts the hens.
We must also bear in mind that abnormal variations have a strong tendency
to perpetuate themselves. If a white cock mates with an ordinary peahen,
the majority of the offspring are pure white.
If there be such a thing as sexual selection, and if it be, as I believe,
the strongest, the most mettlesome individuals, those in which the sexual
instincts reach the highest development, that attract the opposite sex,
then the question arises: is there any connection between these
characteristics and the size and colour of their possessor? We are not in
possession of sufficient data to answer this question in the affirmative.
Nevertheless I believe that such a relation does exist.
The researches of Professor Pearson seem to point to the fact that there
exists a definite relation between variation and fertility. For every
species there is a mode or typical size and form, and from this there are
deviations in all directions, and, speaking generally, the greater the
deviation from the mode the less the fertility of the individual.
If this be a general law we have here a very potent factor tending to
make species stable. Those individuals which deviate least from the
common type are the most fertile; they produce the most offspring;
moreover, they are the most numerous, hence they, by sheer force of
numbers, keep a species stable. The abnormal individuals are
comparatively few in number, and they beget comparatively few of their
kind, so have no chance of establishing themselves and crushing out the
normal type, unless natural selection steps in to their aid.
Is comparative infertility the result of feebleness of the sexual
instinct? If so, sexual selection must be conducive to the stability of
species.
For if the rule be the greater the deviation of an individual from the
normal the less the development in it of the sexual instinct and the less
its fertility, it follows that an abnormal organism is less likely to
find a mate than a normal individual is; and if it do succeed in forming
a union, that union will probably produce less than the average number of
offspring.
THE AMADAVAT
“Gentlemen,” said a Cambridge professor to his class, “I regret that
owing to the forgetfulness of my assistant, I am unable to show you a
specimen of the shell of the mollusc of which we are speaking. You have,
however, but to step into the parlour of any seaside lodging-house and on
the mantelpiece you will see two of the shells in question.” Every
undergraduate immediately knew what the shell was like; so will my
readers at once recognise the bird of which I write when I inform them
that the amadavat is the little red bird with white spots that occurs in
every aviary in India. The bird is, indeed, not all red, but the bill is
bright red and there are patches of this colour all over the plumage—more
in the cock than in the hen, and more in the former in the breeding
season than at other times. Thus the general effect is that of a red
bird; hence the native name _Lal munia_, which, being interpreted, is the
red munia. This is the proper English name of the bird, although fanciers
frequently call it the red waxbill. Men of science know it as
_Sporæginthus amandava_. I may say here that the name avadavat or
amadavat is derived from Ahmedabad, whence great numbers used to be
exported, for the bird is a great favourite in England.
It is the cage bird of India _par excellence_. Hundreds of thousands of
amadavats must at this moment be living in captivity. The bird takes to
cage life as a Scotsman to whisky. Within five minutes of capture the
little creature is contentedly eating its seed and singing quite gaily.
This is no exaggeration. I was recently out with a friend when we came
upon a small boy catching munias. We saw captured a fine cock which my
friend purchased for two annas. Not happening to have a cage in his
pocket, he put the tiny creature into a fold of his handkerchief and
placed the remainder of the handkerchief in his pocket. While we were
walking home our captive began twittering in answer to his companions who
were still free. If this be not philosophical behaviour, I do not know
what is.
Nothing is easier than to catch munias. All that is required is the
common, pyramidal-shaped, four-anna wicker cage in which birds are
usually carried about in India. To the base of one of the walls of this a
flap is attached by a hinge. The flap is the same size and shape as the
wall of the cage, and composed of a frame over which a narrow-meshed
string net is stretched. A string is fastened to the apex of the flap.
The cage, with a captive bird inside, is placed in the open so that the
flap rests on the ground. On this some groundsel is thrown. In a few
minutes a passing amadavat is attracted to the cage by the song of the
bird inside. The new-comer at once begins to feed on the groundsel. Then
the bird-catcher, who is seated a few yards away, pulls the string
sharply, so that the flap closes over the side of the cage and thus the
bird is secured. It is then placed inside the cage and the flap again
set. In this manner a dozen or more amadavats can be captured in an hour.
As nine red munias are sold for a rupee, and as they will live for years
in captivity and cost next to nothing to keep, it is not surprising that
they are popular pets.
Moreover, the amadavat is no mean songster. “Eha” is, I think, a little
severe on the bird when he states that “fifty in a cage make an admirable
chorus.” The bird is small, so is its voice, but what there is of the
latter is exceedingly sweet. Were its notes only louder the bird would be
in the first rank as a songster. A rippling stream of cheery twitters
emanates unceasingly from a cage of munias. The birds seem never to tire.
The cock frequently utters, in addition to this perpetual twitter, a
warble of five or six notes. The birds love to huddle together in a row
on a perch and twitter in chorus. Suddenly the chorus ceases; one of the
birds raises his head above the level of the others and sings a solo,
while the rest listen in silence with the air of connoisseurs. When he
has finished, another bird has a “turn,” then another. The whole
performance always puts me in mind of one of those impromptu concerts
which soldiers are so fond of getting up.
Quite apart from their song, munias afford him who keeps them much
pleasure, because they are most amusing birds to watch. They are very
fond of heat. They are happiest when the thermometer stands at about a
hundred. When they huddle together for the sake of warmth, all are
content except the two end birds, who are kept warm only on one side. No
bird, therefore, likes to be an outside one of a row. If two or three,
sitting close together, are joined by another, this last does not take up
a position at the end of the line. He knows a trick worth two of that. He
perches on the backs of two in the middle and tries to wedge himself in
between them. Sometimes he succeeds. Sometimes he does not. When he does
succeed he frequently upsets the equilibrium of the whole row.
Needless to say, the birds roost huddled together, and at bed-time there
is great manœuvring to avoid an outside position. Each tries to get
somewhere in the middle, and, in order to do so, adopts one of two
methods. He either flops on top of birds already in position, and, if he
cannot wedge himself in, sleeps with one foot on the back of one bird and
the other on its neighbour’s back. The birds do not seem to mind being
sat upon in this way. The other method is for the two outer birds to
press inwards until one of those in the middle of the row is squeezed so
hard as to lose its foothold and be violently ejected upwards. The bird
thus jockeyed out of its position then hops to one end and in its turn
begins to push inwards, and so the process continues until the birds grow
too sleepy to struggle any more. All this contest is conducted without a
sound. There is no bickering or squabbling. The only thing I know like it
is the contest in the dining-room of an Indian hotel, when two “boys,”
each belonging to a different master, seize a dish simultaneously. Each
is determined to secure that dish, and neither dares utter a sound for
fear of angering his _Sahib_. Thus they struggle in grim silence.
Eventually one is victorious and walks off in triumph with the dish. The
defeated servant at once accepts the situation; so is it with a munia
ejected from a central position.
Although amadavats are widely distributed in India and fairly common in
most parts of the country, they usually escape notice on account of their
small size. When flying overhead they are probably mistaken for sparrows.
Moreover, they do not often visit gardens; they prefer open country.
Amadavats belong to the finch family, to the great tribe which includes
the sparrow, the canary, and the weaver-bird. By their coarse, stout
beak, tapering to a point, you may know them. The use of this big beak is
to husk grain. Finches do not gobble up their seed whole as pigeons or
fowls do; they carefully husk each grain before swallowing it. Hence the
meal of a bird of this family is a somewhat protracted affair. He who
keeps an aviary should remember this and provide his birds with several
seed-boxes, otherwise one or two bullies (for there are bullies even
among tiny birds) are apt to monopolise the food.
He should also bear in mind that Nature does not provide her feathered
children with teeth. Seed-eating birds, therefore, habitually swallow
small stones and pieces of grit. These perform the function of millstones
inside the bird. From this it follows that it is cruel to keep
seed-eating birds without supplying them with sand and grit.
The bone of a cuttle-fish, tied to the wall of the cage, is much
appreciated by all the finch tribe and helps to keep them in condition.
The nest of the amadavat is a large ball of fibrous material, somewhat
carelessly put together, with a hole at one side by way of entrance.
Winter is the season in which to look for the nests, but they are not
easy to find, being well concealed in low bushes. Six pure white
glossless eggs are usually laid.
THE NUTMEG BIRD
The nutmeg bird or spotted munia (_Uroloncha punctulata_) is second only
to the amadavat as an aviary favourite. The two species are almost
invariably caged. This is, perhaps, the reason why I was once gravely
assured by a lady that the spotted munia is the hen; and the amadavat the
cock of one and the same species! Needless to say, the birds, although
relatives, belong to different genera. The stouter bill of the spotted
munia proclaims this. In colour the beak is bluish black or dark slate
colour, and contrasts strongly with the chocolate-brown of the head,
neck, back, wings, and tail. The breast is white with a number of black
rings, which give it the appearance of a nutmeg-grater, hence the popular
name of the bird. Fanciers go one better and call it the spice bird. If
in years to come the former name be forgotten, etymologists will put
their wise heads together and puzzle and wrangle over the derivation of
the name “spice bird”!
The habits of the spotted munia are those of the amadavat. Like the
latter, it seems to thrive in captivity; it also loves warmth, and likes
to go to roost with a warm companion on each side of it. Red and spotted
munias live together very amicably in a cage; but as the latter, owing to
their less showy plumage, are usually in a minority, they have to be
content with outside positions at roosting-time. Sometimes my munias take
it into their tiny heads to sleep on a perch which runs across a corner
of the cage, and is barely long enough to accommodate them all. There are
several other finer and longer perches, but, for some reason or other,
they seem to prefer this one. Possibly its breadth is better adapted to
the grip of their feet than that of any of the others. I may here say, in
parenthesis, for the benefit of those who keep cage birds, that every
cage should contain several perches of varying diameter, so as to permit
the inmates of the cage the luxury of a change of grip.
Well, when a dozen birds persist in roosting on a perch intended only to
seat ten, at least one of them is unable to find room on the perch, and
is obliged either to sleep on the backs of some of his companions or
make-believe that he is roosting on the perch. This latter feat is
accomplished by the bird clutching hold of the two wires between which
the perch passes and maintaining himself at an angle of 45° with the
vertical. In this attitude a bird will sometimes sleep! Of course, its
body is in part resting on that of its neighbour, but, allowing for this,
a more uncomfortable position is inconceivable to a human being. The
spotted munia, however, seems to find it tolerably comfortable.
Birds sleep standing, often on one leg. Did this require any appreciable
muscular effort on the part of the bird there could be no rest in such an
attitude, and the bird would fall off its perch as soon as it went to
sleep. As a matter of fact, the muscles and tendons of a bird’s hind-limb
are so arranged that, to use the words of Mr. F. W. Headley, “when the
leg bends at the ankle, there is a pull upon the tendons, the muscles are
stretched, the toes are bent and grasp the perch on which the bird sits.
Thus he is maintained by his own weight, which bends the leg and so
causes the toes to grip.” Thanks to this feature of their anatomy,
passerine birds are able to sleep on branches of trees out of reach of
prowling beasts of prey.
The great force with which a bird grasps its perch is worthy of note. As
every hawker is aware, a falcon, when carried on the wrist, grips the
leather gauntlet so tightly as to almost stop the circulation of the
blood in the hand of the carrier. A fox cannot open its mouth when once
its snout is in the iron grip of an eagle. Examples of the power of the
grip of the foot of a passerine bird will occur to every one who has had
much to do with our feathered friends. Crows habitually roost in the
topmost branches of trees, which must be very violently shaken in a gale
of wind; yet the birds never seem to lose their hold.
I have said that the habits of the spotted munia are those of the
amadavat; what was said of the latter applies to the former, with one
exception. The spotted munia is no songster. Those who keep the bird must
have seen him go through all the motions of singing, with a considerable
display of energy, but scarcely a sound seems to issue. You may perhaps
hear the feeblest noise, like that made by a wheezy and decrepit
mosquito. When you see the bird’s mandibles moving nineteen to the dozen
with scarcely a sound issuing, you are inclined to think that he is
either playing dumb crambo or that he has taken leave of his senses.
Nothing of the kind. The bird is singing his top notes, which are
doubtless greatly appreciated by his mate. Sound is, as we all know in
this scientific age, vibration appreciable to the ear. Air is the usual
vibrating medium. Only certain vibrations are perceptible to the human
auditory organ. Those having a recurrence of below thirty or above
sixteen thousand per second do not produce the sensation of sound to the
average human ear. There are thus numbers of vibrations continually going
on which are lost to us; to this category belong the vibrations in the
air produced by the vocal cords of the spotted munia. The ear of a bird
is constituted very differently from that of man, so that it is not
surprising if birds can hear certain sounds imperceptible to us human
beings. I may here say that the range of the human ear varies greatly in
different individuals. Some men can hear vibrations of which the
recurrence is but fifteen in the second, while others are said to
appreciate notes caused by forty thousand vibrations per second. I have a
friend who cannot hear a black partridge when it is calling; its notes
are too high for the unusually limited range of his ear. I do not know if
there are any people to whom the note of the nutmeg bird sounds quite
loud; if there be, and these lines meet their eye, I hope they will give
their brethren of more limited capacity the benefit of their experience.
THE DID-HE-DO-IT
Mr. “did-he-do-it” is a dandy of the first water. I should like to add
“and so is his wife,” for she dresses exactly as he does, and is every
bit as particular regarding her personal appearance, but owing to the
peculiarity of our Anglo-Saxon tongue, it is incorrect to apply the term
“dandy” to a lady, and there appears to be no feminine equivalent of it.
I must therefore be content to say that Mrs. Did-he-do-it is a dressy
little person. Before describing the attire of the Did-he-do-it let me
say that the bird is correctly styled the red-wattled lapwing.
Ornithologists used to call it _Lobivanellus goensis_, but this was found
to be a bit of a mouthful for even an ornithologist; accordingly the bird
is now named _Sarcogrammus indicus_ for short.
The Did-he-do-it belongs to the noble family of plovers. Its head, neck,
and upper back are black, and the under parts are white. A broad white
band runs down each side of the neck from the eye to join the white of
the under parts. The wings are of a beautiful greenish-bronze hue; the
legs are bright yellow. The beak is crimson-red, as is the forwardly
pointing wattle which forms so conspicuous a feature of the bird’s
physiognomy. The lapwing is thus an easy bird to identify. Even if you
cannot see him, you know he is there the moment you hear his loud, shrill
“Did he do it, pity to do it.” The only bird with which he can possibly
be confounded is his cousin, the yellow-wattled lapwing (_Sarciophorus
malabaricus_). This latter, however, has a yellow wattle and one syllable
less in its cry.
The Did-he-do-it is a bird which frequents open plains in the
neighbourhood of water. I have never seen it perched on a tree, and as it
does not possess the luxury of a hind toe, I imagine that, like the old
lady after a rough Channel crossing, it likes to feel itself on “_terra
cotta._”
This bird is not likely to be seen within municipal limits, but it is
fairly abundant outside Madras. It feeds chiefly upon insects and small
crustacea. It is not a gluttonous fowl. “Eha” declares that you never
find it where there is food and that it does without sleep, since you
never catch it napping. Jerdon, however, informs us that in the South of
India it is said to sleep on its back with its legs in the air—a
distinctly undignified position for a dandy. It sleeps thus so as to be
able to catch on its toes the sky in case this should happen to fall
down. As “Eha” says, the chief point about this truly native yarn is that
it is impossible to contradict it, for who has seen a lapwing asleep?
The nesting habits of the Did-he-do-it are most interesting. Strictly
speaking, it does not build a nest. It scrapes a cavity, about a quarter
of an inch deep, in some stony place. This is the nest. Round it there
are a few pieces of _kankar_ or some twigs; whether these are brought
thither by the bird, or have merely been brushed there in the making of
the cavity, I know not. Very frequently the nest is situated in the
ballast of the railway line. Sometimes it is so placed that the footboard
of every carriage passes over the head of the sitting bird. There is no
accounting for tastes! Four eggs are usually laid; they are much more
pointed at one end than at the other, and are invariably placed in the
nest so as to form a star, the blunt ends projecting outwards and the
thin ends nearly meeting at the centre.
Lapwings’ eggs are protectively coloured. Being laid in the open and not
hidden away in a nest, it is important that they should not be
conspicuous, otherwise they would soon be espied and devoured by some
egg-eating creature. Thus they are coloured so as to assimilate with
their surroundings. The ground colour is greenish and is boldly splotched
with sepia, some of the splotches being darker than others. The eggs are
dull and not glossy, hence are very difficult to distinguish from the
stones which lie round about them. From the above description it will be
seen that the Did-he-do-it’s egg is very like that of his cousin the
English plover, whose eggs are held to be so great a delicacy. Why these
eggs are so much esteemed I do not know. I suspect that it is because
they are difficult to find, and so costly. If tripe and onions cost fifty
shillings a pound, this dish would probably form the _pièce de
résistance_ of every millionaire’s banquet.
The eggs of the Did-he-do-it, then, are interesting as forming perfect
examples of protectively coloured objects. As I have previously remarked,
the theory of protective colouration has my deepest sympathy. It is an
unfortunate jade upon which every biologist seems to think that he is
entitled to take free rides; the result is that the poor beast’s ribs are
cutting through its skin! For example, every bird’s egg is supposed to be
protectively coloured—even the gorgeous shining blue egg laid by the
seven sisters, which is, in truth, about as much protectively coloured as
the I Zingari Cricket Club blazer is. The majority of eggs are laid in
nests which are either covered in or more or less well concealed among
foliage, hence there is no necessity for them to be protectively
coloured. Dame Nature is free to exercise on them to the uttermost her
artistic temperament, with the result that there are few things more
beautiful than a collection of birds’ eggs.
So well do the eggs of the lapwing assimilate with their surroundings,
that, if you would discover a clutch of them, your only chance is to
watch the actions of the possessors of the nest. But the Did-he-do-it is
a wily bird, and if you are not very cute he will live up to his name by
“doing you in the eye.” He does not, like babblers and bulbuls, make a
tremendous noise as you approach the nest. He assumes a nonchalant, I
might say jaunty, air, hoping thereby to put the intruder off the scent.
The other day I had the pleasure of circumventing a couple of lapwings.
Feeling tolerably certain that a pair had a nest on a flat piece of
ground near a canal bank, I determined to find that nest. My wife
accompanied me. On arriving at the spot we took cover under some trees
and scanned the horizon with field-glasses, but saw no trace of a
lapwing. I began to think I had made a mistake. After a time we walked on
towards the canal; when we had gone some three hundred yards my wife
noticed a bird on a ridge by the canal. By the aid of glasses I saw it
was a Did-he-do-it. We both dropped down and watched. The bird had
“spotted” us, for he had assumed the air of an old sailor who is smoking
a pipe over a mug of beer, the air of a man without a care in the world.
Presently he quietly disappeared behind the little ridge. We then made a
big detour so as to reach the other side of this. Having arrived there we
sat behind a tree. The lapwing was now eyeing us suspiciously. We
affected to take no notice of him. Presently a second Did-he-do-it came
out from behind a clump of low plants only to disappear into it almost
immediately, and then ostentatiously reappear after a few seconds. Had we
not known the wiles of the lapwing we should have located the nest behind
that clump. But we knew better and waited. One of the birds again
disappeared behind the clump, but emerged at the other side and strolled
along very slowly; presently it came to some stones, where it stood
motionless for a few seconds. It then sat down, or rather slowly sank
into a sitting position. There was no doubt that the bird was now on the
nest. We made for it. As we approached, the bird that was not on the nest
flew off, making a noise with the object of putting us off the scent. The
lapwing on the nest quietly got up and strolled off without a sound. On
arriving at the place where she had been sitting we found three eggs. I
took one of them for a lady who was anxious to have one. Meanwhile both
birds had flown away without making any noise. Having examined the nest,
we returned to our watching place. In about ten minutes the bird was
again sitting quite happily. She had not missed the egg.
COBBLER OR TAILOR?
The disagreement between the popular and the scientific name of the
tailor-bird (_Orthotomus sutorius_) must, I suppose, be attributed to the
fact that the average ornithologist is not learned in the Classics. I
freely admit that I did not notice the discrepancy until it was pointed
out to me. _Orthotomus sutorius_ means, not the tailoring, but the
cobbling _Orthotomus_. It was, I believe, Forester who, considerably over
a century ago, gave the bird the specific name which it now possesses, or
rather the allied name, _sutoria_. If he wrote this in mistake for
_sartoria_, the error was a stroke of genius, since the bird should
certainly be called the cobbler rather than the tailor. The so-called
sewing of the nest is undoubtedly a great performance for a little bird
that does not possess a workbox. Nevertheless, if the _dirzie_ who squats
in the verandah did not work more neatly than the tailor-bird he would
soon lose his place. _Orthotomus sutorius_ does not sew leaves one to
another, it merely cobbles them together, much as the “boy” cobbles
together the holes in his master’s socks.
When last I wrote about the tailor-bird, I had honestly to admit that I
did not know how the bird did its work. My attitude towards its sewing
was then that of the child who sings—
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
To-day I can boast with the learned astronomer—
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
Now we all know what you are!
for I have found out how the bird does its sewing.
Some months ago Mr. G. A. Pinto, a very keen ornithologist, informed me
that a tailor-bird built regularly every year in the verandah in front of
his drawing-room window. He told me that he had never thought of watching
the stitching operation, and was much surprised when I informed him that,
so far as I knew, no one had ever observed the complete process. He said
that as the bird would undoubtedly begin building shortly, he would
follow the whole process from the other side of the window. He was as
good as his word. It is thanks to his patient watching that I am in a
position to pen this article. Towards the end of May the hen tailor-bird
began “prospecting” for a likely site, for the hen alone works at the
nest, and selected a _Dracæna_ plant on the left-hand side of the
entrance to the verandah. One of the leaves of the plant was so curved
that its terminal half was parallel with the ground. Upon this she
commenced operations. The first thing she did was to make with her sharp
little beak a number of punctures along each edge of the leaf. In this
particular case the punctures took the form of longitudinal slits, owing
to the fact that the veins of the _Dracæna_ leaf run longitudinally. In
leaves of different texture the punctures take other shapes. Having thus
prepared the leaf, she disappeared for a little and returned with a
strand of cobweb. One end of this she wound round the narrow part of the
leaf that separated one of the punctures from the edge; having done this,
she carried the loose end of the strand across the under surface of the
leaf to a puncture on the opposite side, where she attached it to the
leaf and thus drew the edges a little way together. She then proceeded to
connect most of the other punctures with those opposite to them, so that
the leaf took the form of a tunnel converging to a point. The under
surface of the leaf formed the roof and sides of the tunnel or arch.
There was no floor to this, since the edges of the leaf did not meet
below, the gap between them being bridged by strands of cobweb. This was
a full day’s work for the little bird, and more than sufficient to
disqualify her for membership in any trade union.
She next went on to line with cotton this _cul-de-sac_ which she had made
in the leaf. She, of course, commenced by filling the tip, and the weight
of the lining soon caused the hitherto horizontal leaf to hang downwards,
so that it eventually became almost vertical, with the tip pointing
towards the ground. When lining the nest the bird made a number of
punctures in the leaf, through which she poked the lining with her beak,
the object of this being to keep the lining _in situ._ It was Mr. Pinto
who first called my attention to these punctures in the body of the leaf.
He informed me that he had never seen a tailor-bird’s nest in which the
lining did not thus project through holes in the leaf, and that when
searching for such nests he always looked out for this. My subsequent
observations have tended to confirm his statement.
All this time the edges of the leaf that formed the nest had been held
together by the thinnest strands of cobweb, and it is a mystery how these
can have stood the strain. However, before the lining was completed, the
bird proceeded to strengthen them by connecting the punctures on opposite
edges of the leaf with threads of cotton. Her _modus operandi_ was to
push one end of a thread through a puncture on one edge and the other end
through a puncture on the opposite edge of the leaf. The cotton used is
soft and frays easily, so that that part of it which is forced through a
tiny aperture issues as a fluffy knob, which looks like a knot and is
usually taken for such. As a matter of fact, the bird makes no knots; she
merely forces a portion of the cotton strand through a puncture, and the
silicon which enters into the composition of the leaf catches the soft,
minute strands of the cotton and prevents them from slipping.
Every one must have noticed how brittle a dead leaf is. This brittleness
is due to the silicon which is deposited in the epidermis of the leaf.
When the leaf is green the silicon is not so obvious; it is nevertheless
there. Some leaves take up more silicon than others; grasses, for
example, contain so much that many will cut one’s hand if roughly
plucked. I imagine that the tailor-bird usually selects for her nest a
leaf or leaves in which there is plenty of silicon. Thus the bird does
not make a knot as is popularly supposed, nor is there any necessity for
her to do so. Sometimes the connecting threads of cotton are sufficiently
long to admit of their being passed to and fro, in which case the bird
utilises the full length.
I may mention that when the nest, the building of which I have attempted
to describe, was about three parts finished, Mr. Pinto noticed that the
bird had ceased to work at it. He was surprised and disappointed. He then
discovered that the little builder was at work on a _Dracæna_ plant on
the right-hand side of the entrance to the verandah, not two yards
distant from the first nest. He was much astonished at the strange
behaviour of the bird, and still more so when, the next day, she had
resumed work at her first nest, which she completed, leaving the second
unfinished at the stage when the punctures had been made and the edges of
the leaf drawn together by strands of cobweb. Presently an explanation of
the bird’s unusual behaviour occurred to him. His dog which, ordinarily,
is chained up at one end of the verandah, was, on the day the tailor-bird
left her first nest, fastened up in the middle of the verandah, so that
the bird while working at her nest would be within its reach. She
evidently objected to this, so began a new nest; but next day, when the
dog had been removed, she returned to her more advanced nursery. This
accident of chaining up the dog for one day in the middle of the verandah
was particularly fortunate, for it enabled me to examine carefully a nest
in an early state of construction.
This account must, I fear, close with a tragedy. When the little cobbler
had been sitting on her eggs for about ten days one of the garden coolies
broke them, out of mischief, and thought he had done a clever thing. He
is now a sadder if not a wiser rascal!
A CROW IN COLOURS
From bough to bough the restless magpie roves,
And chatters as she flies.
The magpie has been well called a crow in gay attire. The two species are
related, and, as regards character, they are “birds of a feather.” Both
are bold, bad creatures, both rogues, thieves, and villains, and, as
such, both appeal to me. The magpie with which we are familiar in England
can scarcely be called an Indian bird. It does disport itself in happy
Kashmir, and has been seen in the uninviting tract of land over which the
Khan of Khelat presides. But India, as defined in the Income Tax Act,
extends neither to Kashmir nor to Baluchistan, hence _Pica rustica_ may
decline to be considered an Indian subject. In this land of many trials
his place is taken by his cousins the tree-pies. One of these—the Indian
tree-pie (_Dendrocita rufa_)—is distributed throughout the plains of
India, at least, so the books tell us. As a matter of fact, I have never
seen the bird in or about Madras. This is curious, for Madras is a garden
city (I speak not of Georgetown), and the bird ought to revel in the
well-wooded compounds which beautify the capital of the Southern
Presidency. Lest its absence from Madras be attributed to the profession
tax, let me say that the best legal authorities are of opinion that the
bird would not be liable to pay the tax. Not that it would make any
difference if the bird were liable. If I know him aright, he would say to
the importunate tax collector, “Go and get your hair cut,” or words to
that effect. Nor is there, so far as I can see, anything in the
much-abused climate of Madras to frighten away the bird. Perhaps the
doves are too much for him. If there be one thing more than another
calculated to disturb the easily upset equilibrium of the gentle dove it
is the sight of a tree-pie. In those places where it occurs you may, any
day of the week, see one of these long-tailed rascals being pursued and
buffeted by a pair of irate and hysterically screaming doves. In this
particular case the doves have some excuse for their anger. The tree-pie,
or the Indian magpie as Jerdon calls him, is, to use a colloquialism,
dead-nuts on a new-laid egg for his breakfast, and, as doves always
display their oological productions on a shakedown in a tree, and as I
defy even a museum ornithologist to discover any trace of protective
colouration about the aforesaid oological treasures, we cannot be
surprised if the tree-pie thinks that doves lay eggs for his especial
benefit. Even if the tree-pie does not happen to have been breakfasting
off their eggs the doves have ample excuse for chastising him, for does
not tradition tell us that Noah’s curse is upon the bird? The rascal
flatly refused to enter the Ark with the other birds, so that the
Patriarch had actually to send Japhet to catch it!
Unfortunately, the tree-pie does not draw the line at eggs. It is said
that it makes no bones about devouring a young bird. I have never seen
the creature commit this enormity, but Jerdon is my authority for the
fact that “Mr. Smith” has known a bird to enter a covered verandah of a
house and nip off half a dozen young geraniums, visit a cage of small
birds, begin by stealing the grain, and end by killing and eating the
birds, and repeating these visits daily until destroyed. _Facilis est
descensus Averni._
This is only one side of the bird’s character. I have seen a tree-pie
literally obey the Biblical doctrine of turning the smitten cheek to the
smiter; nor, so far as I know, did it, like the well-brought-up boy,
after having allowed its second cheek to be smitten, take off its coat
and thrash the smiter. The bird in question sat motionless on a branch
with a seraphic smile on its face, and appeared to be ignorant of the
fact that two little furies, in the shape of fantailed flycatchers, were
making puny pecks at its plumage.
But before discoursing further upon the merits and demerits of our crow
in colours, let me describe him. What applies to him applies to her. To
the human eye there is no external difference between the two sexes. This
by way of introduction. The tree-pie is a foot and a half long, one foot
being tail and the remaining inches body. The head, neck, and breast are
sooty brown, and the greater part of the remaining plumage is reddish
fawn. The wings are brown and silver-grey. The tail is ashy grey broadly
tipped with black. It is impossible to mistake a tree-pie; there is no
other bird like it. Its flight is very characteristic, consisting of half
a dozen rapid flaps of the wing followed by a little sail. The two middle
tail feathers are much longer than the others, the pair next to the
middle ones are the second longest, and the outer ones shortest of all.
The bird, like all others, spreads out its tail during flight, and the
expanded tail gives it a curious appearance.
The Indian tree-pie, as its name implies, dwells principally in trees,
and spends most of its time in picking insects off the leaves and
branches. When fruit is in season, it feeds largely on that. It moves
with great agility from branch to branch, but it frequently descends to
the ground to feed and drink. It does not, I think, ever accompany
cattle, as does our poor, persecuted magpie at home. It is a sociable
bird and is frequently seen in little companies of six or seven.
Like all socially inclined birds, it is very conversational. It has a
great variety of notes, many of which are harsh and angry-sounding,
others are whistling, metallic calls, acceptable to the human ear. The
commonest of these sounds something like _coch-lee, coch-lee_. If, in a
place where magpies abound, you hear any new and strange cry, you are
tolerably safe in attributing it to one of those birds.
The Indian pie is not so expert a nest-builder as its European cousin.
This latter, it will be remembered, builds a large domed structure of
prickly twigs with an entrance at one side, well protected by thorns. I
have not been able to discover why this bird is at such pains to protect
the entrance to its nursery. It is so aggressive and pugnacious that no
sane thing in feathers would dream of attempting to rob its nest. One
ornithologist has put forth the brilliant suggestion that the protection
is against its brother magpies. I cannot accept this, for I take it as an
axiom that where one magpie can enter, there can another. We must also
bear in mind that the Indian species manage to thrive very well in spite
of their roofless nests.
UP-TO-DATE SPECIES MAKING
The ornithological world is peopled by two classes of human beings. There
are those who study nature inside the museum with the microscope and the
scalpel; and there are those who love to observe birds in the open and
study their habits. The former, if kept in their place, perform a very
useful function, for they co-ordinate and elaborate the observations of
the field naturalist. They should be most useful servants to him.
Unfortunately these museum men are growing very powerful, and, like trade
unions, are beginning to dictate to their masters. Indeed, they bid fair
to become the masters and turn the field naturalists into their slaves.
The chief aim of the arm-chair or museum ornithologist appears to be the
multiplication of new species. Nowadays more species seem to be brought
into being by these men than by natural selection. When they are not
manufacturing new species, they are tampering with those that already
exist.
I have repeatedly had occasion to speak of the marvellous, kaleidoscopic
changes undergone by ornithological terminology—changes which are the
despair of the field naturalist. I am not a statistician, but at a rough
guess I should say that every species of bird has its name changed about
once in each decade. The object of having a classical terminology is that
naturalists of all countries shall have a common name for every bird and
beast, and thus not be at cross-purposes when conversing or
corresponding. But this object is most successfully defeated when the
classical name is continually undergoing alteration. It is practically
impossible for any one but the professional ornithologist to keep pace
with these changes. A poor dilettante like myself has not a look in. For
example, I received by the last mail[1] the latest issue of the
Avicultural Society’s Magazine and noticed in it an article on the
collared turtle-dove of Burma. Wondering what this bird might be, I
looked at its scientific name and found it to be _Turtur decaocta_. I
looked this up in both Jerdon and the _Fauna of British India_, but could
not find it; nor could I see any mention of the collared turtle-dove. On
reading through the paper I found, to my astonishment, that the bird
referred to was our familiar friend the common or garden Indian
ring-dove, which for years has been called _Turtur risorius_. _Risorius_
was a name good enough for Jerdon, Hume, Vidal, Legge, Barnes, Reid,
Davison, and a hundred other good ornithologists; but because, forsooth,
one Salvadori would like a change, we shall, I suppose, be obliged to
adopt the latest new-fangled appellation.
The museum ornithologist has yet another craze. He sees that there must
be some limit to the present multiplication of species, so he has hit
upon the brilliant idea of making sub-species. Just as the inhabitants of
every town and village have little local peculiarities, so have birds of
the same species which live in different provinces. The latest idea is to
make each of these a different sub-species with a special name of its
own. In the near future the scientific name of every bird will be
composed of three parts, the generic, the specific, and the sub-specific.
Thus Mr. T. H. Newman has discovered that the skin round the eye of the
ring-dove of Burma is not whitish, as it is in India, but yellow; Mr.
Newman therefore manufactures a new sub-species, which he calls _Turtur
decaocta xanthocyclus_ as opposed to the Indian bird which he calls
_Turtur decaocta douraca_. We may consider ourselves lucky that he has
not made a new species of the Burmese bird!
This is not an isolated case. Almost every unfortunate species in the
universe is being split up into a dozen or more sub-species. Any local
variation in the colour of the plumage is considered sufficient
justification for the formation of a sub-species, and we shall
undoubtedly, ere long, hear of sub-sub-species!!
The hopeless thing is that any Juggins can make new sub-species. It is as
easy as falling out of a tree. Let me show how it is done. Take the
common sparrow. This pushing little bird, this “feathered Hooligan,” as
Mr. Finn calls him, is found all over the world, and every one is able to
recognise the sparrow wherever he meets him as the same bird that insults
people in London. But the sparrows of each country have their little
peculiarities. For example, the cock sparrow in India has more white on
his neck than his brother in England. Hence we may make a sub-species of
the Indian bird and call him _Passer domesticus indicus_.
Now, close and patient observation during a prolonged sojourn in Madras
has convinced me that the sparrow in the Southern Presidency (I will no
longer call it the Benighted Presidency, for experience has shown me that
there are other parts of India far more benighted) is quite twenty per
cent. more impudent than the sparrows in Northern India. Hence we have no
option but to make a sub-sub-species of him. Let us call him _Passer
domesticus indicus maderaspatensis_. We may go even a step further. The
sparrows that hold chorus along the ledges of the iron rafters of the
Connemara Hotel are far more insulting and exasperating than any other
sparrows I have set eyes upon. This surely is quite sufficient
provocation for making a sub-sub-sub-species of those birds. I propose to
call them _Passer domesticus indicus maderaspatensis connemara
hotelwalla_—a name which I am sure will be received with acclamation both
by sparrows and human beings.
But enough of this foolery. The multiplication of species is really a
very serious matter, for it is likely to deter sane persons from taking
up the most delightful of studies. If the ornithological societies of
every country in the world would combine to suppress the evil, it could
easily be put down. But there is, I fear, no likelihood of such
combination, because these societies are composed mostly of museum
ornithologists, and it is too much to expect of these men that they will
voluntarily suppress their chief enjoyment in life. To persuade them to
act in this altruistic manner it will be necessary to offer them a _quid
pro quo_. The only _quid_ that suggests itself to me is to invite each of
them to name a bird after himself. Let the name of every known species (I
mean proper and indisputable species) be put in a hat and let each member
draw one out. The bird he draws will henceforth be called after him. If
any birds are left undrawn after every man has shed his name on one
species, the remainder could be balloted for, and thus some lucky dogs
would be able to give their name to two birds. When this is once done, it
should be made an offence punishable with death to change the specific
name of any feathered thing. Newly discovered birds and beasts could, as
heretofore, be named after the happy discoverer. This proposal will, if
adopted, cure the evil. My point is that it does not matter a jot what a
bird be called; the important thing is to give it a fixed and immutable
name, so that we poor field naturalists shall know where we are.
[1]Written towards the end of 1906.
HONEYSUCKERS
Honeysuckers are birds that have adopted the manner of living of the
butterfly, and a charming mode of life it is. To flit about in the
sunshine and drink sweet draughts of the nectar that lies hidden away at
the base of the petals of flowers is indeed an idyllic existence.
The sunbird, as the honeysucker is frequently called, is provided with a
curved beak and a long tubular tongue to enable it the better to rob
cup-like blossoms of their honey. The bird must perforce be very small
and light, or it would find it impossible to reach the nectar of many
flowers. As a matter of fact, it is almost as light as air, so is able to
support itself on one flower when drinking honey from another. Sometimes,
if no perch be available, the little honeysucker will hover in the air on
rapidly vibrating wings and thus extract the sweets from a flower. In
this attitude it looks very like a butterfly. I may here mention that
sunbirds do not live exclusively upon honey: they vary this diet with
minute insects which they pick off flowers and leaves.
[Illustration: LOTEN’S SUNBIRD. (ARACHNECHTHRA LOTENIA)]
Honeysuckers are frequently called humming-birds by Anglo-Indians. This
is not correct. Humming-birds are confined to the New World, and are
smaller and more ethereal than our little honeysuckers, but their methods
of feeding are so similar that the mistake is a pardonable one.
As every one knows, butterflies and bees, in return for the honey they
receive, render service to the flowers by carrying the pollen from the
stamen of one to the stigma of the other and thus bring about
cross-fertilisation, which most botanists believe to be essential to the
well-being of a species. Honeysuckers probably perform a similar service,
for, as they flit from flower to flower, their little heads may be seen
to be well dusted with yellow pollen.
Sunbirds are found all over India, but they are most plentiful in the
South, being essentially tropical birds; they are merely summer visitors
to the Punjab; when the short, cold winter days come, they leave that
province and betake themselves to some milder clime.
Three species may be seen in our Madras gardens—Loten’s, the purple, and
the yellow honeysucker.
Of the cocks of the first and second species (_Arachnechthra lotenia_ and
_A. asiatica_) it may perhaps be said that they are clothed in purple and
fine linen, for their plumage is a deep, rich purple with a sheen and a
gloss like that on a brand-new silk hat. Sometimes the bird looks black,
at others green, and more frequently mauve, according to the intensity of
the light and the angle at which the sun’s rays fall upon it. It is not
very easy to distinguish between these two sunbirds unless specimens are
held in the hand, when the violet-black abdomen of the purple species can
be easily distinguished from the snuff-brown lower parts of Loten’s.
However, the latter has a much longer and stouter beak, and is very
abundant in Madras, while the purple bird is comparatively rare, so that
the Madrassi is fairly safe in setting down all the purple birds he sees
as Loten’s honeysuckers. If, however, he espies a purple sunbird, with an
unusually short bill, a bird that sings like a canary, he may be certain
that that particular one is _A. asiatica_. If the cock Loten’s sunbird is
clothed in purple and fine linen, that of the yellow species (_A.
zeylonica_) may be said to be arrayed in a coat of many colours, each of
which is so beautiful as to defy imitation by the painter. There is a
patch on the crown which appears metallic lilac in some lights and
emerald-green in others. His neck and upper back are dull crimson, the
lower back, chin, and throat are brilliant metallic purple. The tail and
wing feathers are dark brown. There is a maroon collar below the throat,
and the plumage from this collar downwards is bright yellow. Verily,
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
[Illustration: THE YELLOW SUNBIRD. (ARACHNECHTHRA ZEYLONICA)]
The hens of all three species are homely-looking birds, difficult to
distinguish one from the other. The upper plumage of each is dingy brown
and the lower parts dull yellow. Many ornithologists declare that sexual
dimorphism, such as is here displayed, is due to the greater need of the
hen for protection when sitting on the eggs. These people allege that if
the hens of brightly plumaged species were as showy as the cocks, they
would be conspicuous objects when brooding, and so fall easy victims to
birds of prey. This is a theory typical of the arm-chair naturalist, or
of him who studies nature through the grimy panes of a museum window.
Like all such theories, it is tempting at first sight, but is untenable
because it fails to take cognisance of facts with which every
field-naturalist should be acquainted. In the first place, birds of prey
rarely attack stationary objects: they look out for moving quarry.
Secondly, the cock of many species, such as the paradise flycatcher
(_Terpsiphone paradisi_), although he is far more showy than the hen,
sits on the eggs in the open nest quite as much as she does. In this case
what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if she needs
protective colouring, so does he. It is true that the cock sunbird never
takes a turn on the nest; he is not a family man, but a gay young spark,
who goes about bravely attired, with his hand upon the handle of his
sword, ready to draw it upon the least provocation. A more pugnacious
little bird does not exist. While the hen is laboriously building the
wonderful little nest, he spends his time in drinking and revelry, with
an occasional visit to the growing nursery to criticise its construction.
Hence it might seem that, in the case of the sunbird, the above-mentioned
explanation of the sexual dimorphism is the true one. Unfortunately, the
nest is not an open one, but a little mango-shaped structure with an
entrance at the side, so that the hen when sitting in it is not visible
from above. In this case, therefore, as in so many others, we must seek a
new explanation of this difference in the appearance of the cocks and
hens.
The nest is in shape and size like a mango. It hangs down from the end of
a branch, or any other convenient object. It is composed of dried grass,
leaves, cocoons, bits of paper, and any kind of rubbish, held together by
means of cobweb and some glutinous substance. There is an entrance at the
side, over which is a little porch that serves to keep out rain and sun,
but this porch is seen in every nest, even when the bird builds, as it
very frequently does, in a verandah. A sunbird recently made its nest in
the verandah of a friend of mine; the latter came to me and expressed his
contempt for the intellect of the little architect, since she had been
fool enough to construct a porch, although the nest was built under
cover. He forgot that the building of nests is largely an instinctive
act, that each bird builds on a fixed plan, learned by it in “the school
of the woods.”
The nest is cosily lined with cotton down. No attempt is made to conceal
it; nevertheless it frequently escapes the notice of human beings,
because it does not look like a nest; one is apt to mistake it for a mass
of dried grass and rubbish that has become caught in a branch. A sunbird
in my compound completely covered her nest with the paper shavings that
had once formed the packing for a tin of biscuits. The _khansamah_, when
opening the tin, had, after the manner of his kind, pitched the shavings
out of the window of the cook-house.
[Illustration: NEST OF LOTEN’S SUNBIRD]
It is doubtful whether predacious creatures mistake the sunbird’s nest
for a mass of rubbish; but it is so well placed that they cannot get at
it. It is invariably situated sufficiently far above the ground to be out
of reach of a four-legged animal; it hangs from an outstanding branch so
that no crow or kite can get a foothold anywhere near it, and the
squirrel who ventured to trust himself on to the nest would, I believe,
look very foolish when attacked by the owners.
As is usually the case with birds that build covered nests, the hen is
not at all shy. If her nursery happens to be in a verandah, she will sit
in it with her head out of the window, and watch with interest the owners
of the bungalow taking afternoon tea three feet below her.
A HEWER OF WOOD
Not the least of the many benefits which birds confer upon man is the
unceasing warfare which the majority of them wage upon insects. Insects
may be said to dominate the earth; they fill every nook and cranny of it,
preying upon all other living things which they outnumber. If this is the
state of affairs when hundreds of millions of insects are devoured daily
by their arch-foes, the fowls of the air, what would it be were there no
birds? The earth would certainly not be inhabited by men.
Most insectivorous birds specialise, that is to say, lay themselves out
to catch a particular class of insect. Swifts, swallows, and flycatchers
have developed phenomenal mastery over the air, so prey upon flying
insects. Mynas, hoopoes, “blue jays,” magpie-robins, and others feed upon
the hexapod hosts that crawl on the ground. Not a few birds confine their
attention to the creeping things that inhabit the bark of trees. Such are
the wryneck, the tree-creeper, and the woodpecker. Of these the
woodpecker is chief. A mighty insect hunter is he, one who tracks down
his quarry and drags him out of his lair. How must the insects which lie
hidden away in the crevices of the bark tremble as they hear this
feathered Nimrod battering at the walls of their citadel!
No bird is better adapted than the woodpecker to the work which nature
has given him. He is a perfect hunting machine, constructed for work in
trees. Note the ease with which he moves over the upright trunk. His
sharp claws can obtain a foothold on almost any surface. I have seen a
golden-backed woodpecker hunting insects on a smooth well-wheel!
His tail, which is short and composed of very stiff feathers, acts almost
like a third leg. The bristle-like feathers stick in the crevices of the
bark and enable the bird to maintain his position while he hammers away
with might and main. His head is his hammer and his beak his chisel. The
chisel is fixed rigidly in the hammer so that none of the force of the
blow is lost. It is exhilarating to watch a woodpecker at work. He stands
with his legs wide apart, the tip of his tail pressed firmly against the
bark, and puts all he knows into each stroke, drawing his head back as
far as it will go and then letting drive. The manner in which his strokes
follow one another puts me in mind of the clever way in which workmen
drive an iron bar into a macadamised road by raining upon it blows with
sledge-hammers. Almost before the hammer of the first striker is off the
head of the bar the second has struck it, this is immediately followed by
the hammer of the third, then, without a pause, the first hammerer gets
his second blow home, and so they continue until a halt is called. As a
small boy I would stand for hours watching the operation. I am ashamed to
do so now, so have to content myself with observing woodpeckers at work!
There are few things more fascinating to watch than an operation in which
skill and brute force are deftly combined.
Even more useful than the beak as a weapon is the woodpecker’s tongue.
This is such an important organ that its owner is known in some parts of
England as the tongue bird. It is so long that there is a special
apparatus at the back of the bird’s head for stowing it away. Its surface
is studded with backwardly pointing bristles and the whole covered with
sticky saliva. When the woodpecker espies a crack in the bark it inserts
into it the long ribbon-like tongue. To this the luckless insects stick
and are ruthlessly dragged out to their doom.
The commonest woodpecker in India is the beautiful golden-backed species
(_Brachypternus aurantius_). The head and crest of the cock are bright
crimson, the upper back is a beautiful golden yellow, hence the popular
name of the bird. The lower back and tail are black; the wing feathers
are black and golden yellow, spotted with white, and the sides of the
head show a white background on which there is a network of black lines
and streaks.
The hen differs from the cock in having the top of the head black with
small white triangular spots.
The golden-backed woodpecker is one of our noisiest birds. It constantly
utters its loud screaming call, which is similar to that of the
white-breasted kingfisher. Its flight, like that of most, if not all
woodpeckers, is laborious and noisy, the whir of its wings being audible
at a considerable distance. The bird gives one or two vigorous flaps of
its wings and thus moves in an upward direction, then it sails and sinks;
a few more flaps again send it upwards, and so it continues until it
reaches the tree trunk for which it is bound.
I do not think that the woodpecker ever takes a sustained flight. It is
seen at its best when on the stem of a tree, over which it moves with
wonderful ease in a series of silent jerks, like a mechanical toy. It
always keeps its head pointing heavenwards and hops or jerks itself
upwards, downwards, or sideways, with equal ease, just as though it went
by clockwork. It sometimes ventures on the ground, from which it digs out
insects. On the earth it progresses in the same jerky manner.
I have never seen a woodpecker sitting like an ordinary bird on a perch.
It is often seen on branches, but always lengthwise, never sitting across
the branch. It can move along the under surface of a horizontal bough as
easily as a fly walks on the ceiling.
I sometimes wonder how woodpeckers roost. Do they sleep hanging on to the
trunk of some tree, do they sit lengthwise on a branch as a nightjar
does, or do they repair to some hole? I should be inclined to favour the
last of these alternatives but for the fact that woodpeckers seem to
excavate a new nest every year. This would not be necessary if each bird
had a hole in which it slept at night.
Sometimes the bird digs out the whole of its nest, but this is not usual.
The woodpecker belongs to the “labouring classes,” and, true to the
traditions of its caste, it is averse to work, so generally utilises a
ready-made cavity. It taps away at tree after tree until it comes upon a
place in a trunk that sounds hollow; it then proceeds to excavate a neat,
round passage leading to this hollow. In this ready-made cavity it
deposits its white eggs, not troubling to add any lining to the nesting
chamber.
Woodpeckers in England suffer much at the hands of rascally starlings.
These latter nest in holes, but not of their own making. If they cannot
find any ready-made hollow they listen for the hammering of a woodpecker.
They wait until he has completed the nest, and then take possession while
his back is turned. When the rightful owner returns the starling looks
out of the entrance with finely simulated indignation and asks the
woodpecker what he means by intruding. In vain does the latter
expostulate. _J’y suis, j’y reste_ is the attitude of the starling. The
result is that our feathered carpenter, not being over-valorous, retires
and proceeds to hew out another nest. Woodpeckers in India do not suffer
such treatment, for starlings do not breed in this country. Their
cousins, the mynas, are not so impudent. The only Indian birds which nest
in holes, and have sufficient impudence to eject a woodpecker, are the
green parrots; but these breed in January, so that their family cares for
the year are over long before the woodpecker begins nest building.
A FEATHERED SPRINTER
Which is the most difficult bird to shoot? You may put this question to a
dozen sportsmen; probably no two will name the same bird, and each will
be able to give excellent reasons why the particular fowl he mentions is
the hardest to hit. The reason for this diversity of opinion is simply
that there exists no bird more difficult to shoot than all others. Even
as beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, so does the
difficulty, or otherwise, of shooting any particular species depend upon
the idiosyncrasies of the would-be slayer. To some shooters all birds,
with the possible exception of the coot, are difficult to bring down,
while others are able to make every flying thing appear an easy mark.
To my way of thinking the chukor (_Caccabis chucar_) takes a lot of
hitting, but this species receives much help on account of its
mountainous habitat. It is difficult to hit even a hoary old peacock if
the bird gets up when you, already pumped to exhaustion by a stiff climb,
are engaged in scrambling from one terraced field to another with your
gun at “safe.” The chukor, thanks to the fact, conclusively proved by our
friend Euclid, that any two sides of a triangle are greater than the
third, enjoys so great an advantage over the wingless _shikari_ that it
would be a contemptible creature were it not difficult to shoot. Were I
the leader of a covey of chukor, I should thoroughly enjoy an attempt to
shoot me. Having taken up a strategic position near the summit of a steep
hill, I should squat there in full view until the sportsman had by
laborious effort climbed to a spot some hundred and twenty yards from
where I was sitting; I should then gracefully retire with my retinue
across the _khud_ to the opposite hill, and watch with interest the
shooter clamber down one limb of an isosceles triangle and swarm up the
other. Some time before he had completed the operation I should again
proceed to give him a practical demonstration of the fact that the base
of certain triangles is considerably shorter than the sum of the other
two sides.
[Illustration: LOTEN’S SUNBIRD (HEN) ABOUT TO ENTER NEST]
If you take away from the chukor his natural advantages I am inclined to
think that the grey partridge (_Francolinus pondicerianus_) is the more
difficult bird to shoot. This species is common in most parts of India,
yet I do not remember ever having heard of any one making a big bag of
grey partridge. Some there are who say that the bird is not worth
shooting. If these good folk mean that the shooting of the partridge
involves so large an expenditure of ammunition as to deter them from the
undertaking I am inclined to agree with them. Given a fair field in the
shape of a plain well studded with prickly pear, there is, in my opinion,
no bird more difficult to hit than the grey partridge. It is, like all
game birds proper, a very rapid flier for a short distance. But it is not
so much this which makes it hard to shoot as the rapidity with which it
can run along the ground and the close manner in which it lies up.
According to Mr. Lockwood Kipling, the grey partridge, as it runs,
“suggests a graceful girl tripping along with a full skirt well held up.”
In a sense the simile is a good one, for the lower plumage of the
partridge is curiously “full,” and so does make the bird look as though
it were holding up its skirts. But until graceful young ladies are able
to gather up their ample skirts and sprint the “hundred” two or three
yards inside “level time,” it will be inaccurate to compare the tripping
gait of the one to the speedy motion of the other. The grey partridge is
a winged sprinter, a feathered Camilla. It can for a short distance hold
its own comfortably against a galloping horse. Frequently have I come
upon a covey, feeding in the open and giving vent to the familiar call,
and have immediately proceeded to stalk it in the hopes of obtaining a
couple of good shots. Before getting within range, one of the birds
invariably “spots” me and gives the alarm. The calling immediately ceases
and the partridges walk briskly to cover. The instant they disappear I
dash towards the cover, hoping to surprise and flush them, but they run
three yards to my two, and by the time I reach the bushes into which they
betook themselves they are laughing at me from afar.
Then the way in which a partridge will sometimes lie up in comparatively
thin cover is remarkable. One day, when shooting snipe at sunrise, I
surprised a partridge feeding in a field. I fired, but apparently did not
hit the bird, for it disappeared into a clump of palm trees and prickly
pear. Taking up a position close to this clump, I instructed my beaters
to throw stones into it. This they did, but half a dozen stones, to say
nothing of as many chunks of clay and the most frantic yells and shouts,
elicited no response from the partridge. I therefore moved on, and the
moment I had turned my back on the clump the bird flew out! This is
typical of my experience as a partridge shooter; the birds almost
invariably get up from cover at a moment when I cannot possibly take a
shot at them. Well might I sing with Cowper—
I stride o’er the stubble each day with my gun
Never ready to shoot till the covey is flown.
For these reasons partridge shooting is to me a particularly exasperating
form of sport. There are few things more annoying than to hear—“the
partridge burst away on whirring wings,” from a bush on which you have
just turned your back after having thrown into it half the contents of a
ploughed field!
I am not a bloodthirsty individual, and enjoy watching birds through a
field-glass quite as much as, if not more than, shooting them with a gun,
but there is something in the call of the grey partridge which makes me
want to shoot him. His shrill “pateela, pateela, pateela,” seems to be a
challenge. Grahame sings—
Cheerily
The partridge now her tuneless call repeats.
For “cheerily” write “cheekily” and you have a good description of the
call of our Indian grey partridge, which may be heard in Madras every
morning during the winter months.
This bird does not build an elaborate nest. There is no necessity for it
to do so. A nest is a nursery in which young birds are for a time
sheltered from the dangers that beset them in the world. When they have
developed sufficiently to be able to look after themselves they leave the
nest.
It is one of the characteristics of the gallinaceous family of birds,
which includes grouse, poultry, pea- and guinea-fowl, pheasants, turkeys,
and quail, that their young are able to run about almost immediately
after issuing from the egg. They are born covered with down, and are thus
at first very unlike their parents. They are in reality larvæ, that is to
say, embryonic forms which are able to fend for themselves with little or
no assistance from their parents. They change into the adult form, not
hidden away in a nursery, but in the open world.
The nest, then, of the partridge is a very insignificant affair. It is
usually a depression in the ground, so shallow as to be barely
perceptible, and always well concealed in a bush or tuft of grass.
Sometimes the eggs are laid on the bare soil, but more usually the
depression is lined with grass or leaves. Occasionally the lining is so
thick as to form a regular pad. From six to nine whitish eggs are laid.
These do not match the ground or material on which they lie, hence cannot
be considered as examples of protective colouring. Their safety depends
on the fact that they are hidden away under a bush or tuft of grass. The
hen, too, is a very close sitter, and her plumage assimilates well with
the surroundings of the nest.
A BIRD OF CHARACTER
I have hinted more than once at the possibility of there being some
understanding between the architect of my bungalow and the feathered
folk. On this hypothesis alone am I able to account for the presence of a
rectangular hole in the porch, about eight feet above the level of the
ground, a hole caused by the deliberate omission of one or two bricks.
The scramble for this cavity by those species of birds which build in
holes is as great as that of Europeans to secure bungalows in a
Presidency town. Last year a pair of spotted owlets (_Athene brama_)
secured the prize and reared up a noisy brood of four. These were
regarded with mingled feelings by the human inhabitants of the bungalow.
On the one hand, a bird more amusing than the clownish little owlet does
not exist; on the other, it is excessively noisy. Each member of the
family talks gibberish at the top of its voice, sixteen to the dozen, and
as all will persist in speaking at once, the result is a nocturnal chorus
that will bear comparison with the efforts of the cats which enliven the
Londoner’s back yard.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN SPOTTED OWLET. (ATHENE BRAMA)]
This year a couple of mynas (_Acridotheres tristis_) secured the highly
desirable nesting site. Immediately on entering into possession they
proceeded to cover the floor of the cavity with a collection of rubbish,
composed chiefly of rags, grass, twigs, and bits of paper. There was no
attempt at arranging this rubbish, it was bundled pell-mell into the hole
and four pretty blue eggs were laid on top of it.
One might suppose that the more intelligent the bird the greater the
degree of architectural skill it would display. This, however, is not the
case. Were it so, crows, mynas, and parrots would build palatial nests.
Mynas do not always nestle in holes in buildings; they are content with
any kind of a cavity, whether it be in a building, a tree, or a sandbank.
In default of a hole they are content with a ledge, provided it be
covered with a roof. A few years ago a pair of mynas reared up a brood on
a ledge in the much-frequented verandah of the Deputy Commissioner’s
Court at Fyzabad.
To return to the nest in my porch. The eggs in due course gave rise to
four nestlings of the ordinary ugly, triangular-mouthed,
alderman-stomached variety. When they were nearly ready to leave the nest
I took away two of them by way of rent for the use of my bungalow. This
action was in complete accord with oriental custom. In India the landlord
has, from time immemorial, taken from his tenants a portion of their
produce as rent or land revenue. The Congress will doubtless declare that
in levying 50 per cent. of the family brood I assessed the family too
highly; but I defy even a Bengali orator to take 33 per cent. of four
young mynas. I might, it is true, have assessed the rent at 25 per cent.,
but the life of a solitary myna cannot be a very happy one, so I took
two, a cock and a hen.
To the ordinary observer the cock myna is as like the hen as one pea is
like any other pea. To one, however, who has an eye for such things, the
bigger head and more massive body of the cock render him easily
recognisable when in company with his sisters. The brood consisted of two
cocks and two hens, so that I made a fair division. Some there are who
may question the ethics of my action. I would remind such that,
incredible as it may seem, the parent birds, in all probability, did not
miss the two young ones. Birds cannot count. Even the wily crow is unable
to “spot” the extra egg which the koel has surreptitiously introduced
into the nest. It is, of course, possible that although those mynas could
not count, they missed the two young birds to the extent of noticing that
something was wrong with their brood. If they did all I can say is that
they concealed their feelings in an admirable manner, for they continued
to feed the remaining young as though nothing had happened. If it be
thought incredible that the young birds were not missed, is it not
equally hard to believe that not one of the lower animals can tell the
difference between two and three? If a dog has three bones before him and
you remove one of them, he will not miss it unless he sees you remove it!
A _chaprassi_ was appointed to nurse my two young mynas, with
instructions to keep them until they should become somewhat more
presentable. At the end of three weeks they were adjudged fit to appear
in public, being somewhat smaller and rather lanky editions of their
parents, with the patch behind the eye white instead of yellow. Having
been taken from the nest they were perfectly tame, showing no fear of
man, and readily accepting food from the hand.
Young nestlings display no fear of man, and do not appear to mind being
handled by a human being; but as they grow older they learn to fear all
strange creatures, hence it is that captive birds taken from the nest are
always tamer than those which are caught after they are fledged. It was
amusing to see the way in which my young mynas ran towards the
_chaprassi_ when he called “Puppy, puppy.” “Puppy” is apparently a term
applied by native servants indiscriminately to any kind of pet kept by a
_sahib_.
Mynas make excellent pets because they are so alert and vivacious, and,
above all, because they have so much character.
A myna is a self-assertive bird, a bird that will stand no nonsense.
I know of few things more amusing than to witness a pair of mynas give a
snake a bit of their minds as they waltz along beside it in a most daring
manner.
Owing to the self-assertion of the myna he is apt to be quarrelsome.
Street brawls are, I regret to say, by no means uncommon. In these two or
three mynas attack one another so fiercely that they get locked together
and roll over and over—a swearing, struggling ball of brown, yellow, and
white.
The myna, although by no means a songster, is able to emit a great
variety of notes, all of which must be familiar to every Anglo-Indian.
A bird which can produce a large number of sounds is almost invariably a
good mimic, and the common myna is no exception to this rule. In this
respect, however, he does not compare favourably with the grackles or
hill-mynas, as they are commonly called. These can imitate any sound,
from the crack of a whip and the exhortations of a bullock-cart driver to
the throat-clearing operation in which our Indian brethren so frequently
indulge.
SWIFTS
Swifts are extraordinary birds; there are no others like unto them; they
are the most mysterious of the many mysterious products of natural
selection; their athletic feats transcend the descriptive powers of the
English language. What adjective is there of suitable application to a
bird that speeds through the air without an appreciable effort at the
rate of a hundred miles an hour, that traverses a thousand miles every
day of its existence?
These wonderful birds are everywhere common, yet much of their life
history requires elucidation.
Probably not one man in fifty is able to distinguish between a swallow
and a swift. Some think that “swift” and “swallow” are synonymous terms,
while others believe that a swift is a kind of black swallow. As a matter
of fact, the swift differs more widely from the swallow than the crow
does from the canary. There is, it is true, a very strong professional
likeness between the swift and the swallow, but this likeness is purely
superficial; it is merely the resemblance engendered by similar modes of
obtaining a livelihood. Both swallows and swifts feed exclusively on
minute insects which they catch upon the wing, hence both have a large
gape, light, slender bodies, and long, powerful wings. But speedy though
it be, the swallow is not in the same class with the swift as a flyer.
When both birds are in the hand nothing is easier than to tell a swift
from a swallow or a martin. The latter have the ordinary passerine foot,
which consists of three forwardly directed toes and a backwardly directed
one. This foot enables a bird to perch, so that one frequently sees
swallows seated on telegraph wires. But one never sees a swift on a
perch, because all its four toes point forward. It cannot even walk. It
spends its life in the air. It eats and drinks on the wing, it does
everything, except sleeping and incubating, in the air.
But it is not often that one has a swallow or swift in the hand; it is
difficult to get near enough to them to put salt on the tail, so that it
is necessary to have some means of distinguishing them when sailing
through the air. There is a very marked difference in the manner in which
these birds use their wings. This is inimitably described by Mr. E. H.
Aitken: “As a swallow darts along, its wings almost close against its
sides at every stroke, and it looks like a pair of scissors opening and
shutting. Now a swift never closes its wings in this way. It whips the
air rapidly with the points of them, but they are always extended and
evenly curved from tip to tip like a bow, the slim body of the bird being
the arrow.” As a swift speeds through the air it looks something like an
anchor, with a short shaft and enormous flukes. If this be borne in mind,
it is scarcely possible to mistake a swift for a swallow. Swifts are
abundant in Calcutta, but one is not likely to come across a swallow
there except when the moon happens to be blue.
The two swifts commonly seen in Calcutta are the Indian swift (_Cypselus
affinis_) and the palm swift (_C. batassiensis_).
The latter need not detain us long. It is a small and weak edition of the
former. It builds a cup-shaped nest on the under side of the great
fan-like leaves of the toddy palm.
The Indian swift is, in size and appearance, much like the swift which
visits England every summer, except for the fact that it has a white
patch on the lower part of the back. The chin is white, but all the rest
of the plumage, with the exception of the above-mentioned patch, is black
or smoky brown.
This bird nests in colonies in the verandahs of houses and inside
deserted buildings. The nest is a cup-shaped structure, usually built
under an eave in the angle which a roof-beam makes with the wall. Thus
the swift finds, ready-made, a roof and a couple of walls, and has merely
to add the floor and remaining walls, in one of which it leaves a hole by
way of entrance to the nursery. Thus the swift reverses the usual order
of things, which is to erect a nest on some foundation such as a branch
or ledge.
As we have seen, all four toes of the swift are forwardly directed and
each is terminated by a sharp hook-like claw. Thus the swift is able to
cling with ease to such a vertical surface as that of a wall, and is
therefore quite independent of any ledge or perch. The nest is a
conglomeration of grass, straw, and feathers, which are made to adhere to
one another, and to the building to which the nest is attached, by the
cement-like saliva of the bird.
Some species of swift build their homes entirely of their glutinous
saliva, and so manufacture “edible birds’ nests.” The Indian swift,
however, utilises all manner of material by way of economising its
saliva.
Nest building is a slow process. Each tiny piece of material has to be
separately stuck on to the structure, and the saliva, which is, of
course, liquid when first secreted, takes about five minutes to dry.
During the whole of this time the bird remains motionless, holding _in
situ_ whatever it is adding to the structure.
I once timed a pair of swifts at work, and found that on an average they
took forty-five minutes in bringing each new piece of material. Much of
this time was undoubtedly spent in seeking for food, for so active a bird
as the swift must have an enormous appetite, and, as it feeds on the
minutest of insects, must consume thousands of them in the course of the
day, each of which has to be caught separately. But, even allowing for
this, the rate at which the material is added is very slow. Some
naturalists declare that the swift is unable to pick anything off the
ground. If this be so, the labour of obtaining material must be great,
for the creature must fly about until it espies a feather or piece of
straw floating in the air.
I am not yet in a position to say whether it is really impossible for the
bird to pick anything from off the ground. I have never seen it do so,
and it is a fact that the birds will, when building, eagerly seize
anything floating in the air. On the other hand, the helplessness of the
swift when placed upon the ground has been much exaggerated. It is said
that the bird, if put upon a flat surface, is unable to rise and will
remain there until it dies. Quite recently some Indian swifts were
brought to me and I placed one of them on my desk. In less than twenty
seconds the bird was flying about in the room. Then, again, the grasping
powers of its hook-like claws have been somewhat magnified. The bird in
question made several unsuccessful attempts to cling on to the
whitewashed wall, and eventually fell to the floor, where it was seized
and then liberated in the open. It flew off none the worse for its
adventure. Nevertheless, its claws are very sharp; the bird in question
stuck them quite unpleasantly into me when I held it. A swift can
certainly cling to any vertical surface that is the least rough.
Unlike most birds, swifts use their nests as houses and sleep in them at
night. One frequently hears issuing from the rafters in the dead of night
the piercing scream so characteristic of swifts. This disposes of the
silly story, so prevalent, that at evening time the swifts mount into the
higher layers of the atmosphere and there sleep on the wing.
In conclusion, I must mention the characteristic flight of swifts just
before sundown. The birds close the day in what has been called “a
jubilant rout”; as if they had not already taken sufficient exercise,
they fly at a breakneck pace round about the building in which their
nests are placed, dodging in and out of the pillars of the verandah, and
fill the air with their shivering screams. This seems to be a
characteristic of swifts wherever they are found.
BIRDS AS AUTOMATA
The sudden change that comes over the nature of most birds at the nesting
season is, perhaps, the most wonderful phenomenon in nature. Active,
restless birds, which normally spend the whole day on the wing, are
content to sit motionless in a cramped position upon the nest for hours
together. Birds of prey, whose nature it is to devour every helpless
creature that comes within their grasp, behave most tenderly towards
their young, actually disgorging swallowed food in order to provide them
with a meal. Timid birds become bold. Those which under ordinary
circumstances will not permit a human being to approach near them, will
sometimes, while brooding, actually allow themselves to be lifted off the
nest.
At the breeding season intelligence, which counsels self-preservation,
gives way before the parental instinct, which causes birds to expose
themselves to danger, and, in some cases, even to sacrifice their lives
for the sake of their offspring.
From the construction of the nest until the time when the young ones are
fledged the actions of the parent birds are, at any rate in the
neighbourhood of the nest, those of automata, rather than of creatures
endowed with intelligence.
On this hypothesis alone are many of the actions of nesting birds
comprehensible.
That the construction of the nest is in the main an instinctive habit and
not the result of intelligence is proved by the fact that a bird which
has been hatched out in an incubator will, at the appointed season, build
a nest. If birds were not guided by instinct they would never take the
trouble to do such a quixotic thing. What benefit can they derive from
laboriously collecting a number of twigs and weaving them into a nest?
It is, of course, natural selection that has originated this instinct;
for those species in which the parental instinct is not developed, or in
which there is not some substitute for it, must inevitably perish. When
once this instinct has taken root natural selection will tend to
perpetuate it, since those species which take the best care of their
young are those which are likely to survive in the struggle for
existence.
Many instances can be adduced to show how automatic are the actions of
birds at the nesting season.
It sometimes happens that a bird lays an egg and then proceeds to build a
nest on top of it.
Again, some birds do not know their own eggs. A whole clutch of different
ones may be substituted for those upon which the bird is sitting and the
bird will not discover the change.
The well-known bird-photographer, Mr. R. Kearton, was desirous of
obtaining a good photograph of a sitting thrush, and as he was afraid
that her eggs would be hatched before a fine, sunny day presented itself,
had some wooden dummies made. These he painted and varnished to look like
those of the thrush, and put them in the nest, wondering whether the bird
would be deceived. He need not have wondered; she would probably have sat
upon the shams even had they not been coloured.
Upon another occasion Mr. Kearton replaced some starling nestlings by his
wooden eggs, and waited to see what would happen. “In a few minutes,” he
writes, “back came the starling with a rush. She gazed in wonder at the
contents of the nest for a few seconds, but, quickly making up her mind
to accept the strangely altered condition of things, she sat down on the
bits of painted wood without a trace of discontent in either look or
action. Putting her off again, I reversed the order of things and waited.
Upon returning, the starling stared in amazement at the change that had
come over the scene during her absence; but her curiosity soon vanished,
and she commenced to brood her chicks in the most matter-of-fact way.”
Then Mr. Kearton took out the chicks and put his fist into the nest, so
that the back of his hand was uppermost. The starling actually brooded
his knuckles. We must, of course, remember that a starling’s nest is in a
hole, where there is but little light. But, provided the starling could
not see him, I believe that she would have brooded his knuckles in broad
daylight.
Crows, the most intelligent of birds, will sit upon and try to hatch golf
balls and ping-pong balls. One famous kite in Calcutta sat long and
patiently in a vain attempt to make a pill-box yield a chick, while
another member of this species subjected a hare’s skull to similar
treatment. Upon one occasion I took a robin’s egg that was quite cold and
placed it among the warm ones in a blackbird’s nest. The hen came and
brooded the egg along with her own without appearing to notice the
addition, although it was much smaller than her eggs and of a totally
different colour.
In the same way, if a set of nestlings of another species be substituted
for those already in the nest, the parent birds will usually feed the new
family without noticing the change. Instinct teaches a bird to brood all
inanimate objects it sees in the nest and to feed all living things,
whether they be its own offspring or not, and many birds blindly obey
this instinct. It is, of course, to the advantage of the species that
this should be so. For it is only on very rare occasions that foreign
objects get into a nest, and nature cannot provide for such remote
contingencies.
Similarly, instinct will not allow a bird to pay any attention to objects
outside the nest, even though these objects be the bird’s own offspring.
As everybody knows, the common cuckoo nestling ejects its foster-brethren
from the nest, and if the true parents were able to appreciate what had
happened, how much sorrow among its victims would the cuckoo cause! As a
matter of fact, no sorrow at all is caused. Incredible as it may seem,
the parent birds do not miss the young ones, nor do they appear to see
them as they lie outside the nest. In this connection I cannot do better
than quote Mr. W. H. Hudson, who was able to closely observe what
happened when a young cuckoo had turned a baby robin out of the nest.
“Here,” writes Hudson, “the young robin when ejected fell a distance of
but five or six inches, and rested on a broad, light green leaf, where it
was an exceedingly conspicuous object; and when the mother robin was on
the nest—and at that stage she was on it the greater part of the
time—warming that black-skinned, toad-like, spurious babe of hers, her
bright, intelligent eyes were looking full at the other one, just beneath
her, which she had grown in her body and had hatched with her warmth, and
was her very own. I watched her for hours; watched her when warming the
cuckoo, when she left the nest, and when she returned with food and
warmed it again, and never once did she pay the least attention to the
outcast lying there close to her. There on its green leaf it remained,
growing colder by degrees, hour by hour, motionless, except when it
lifted its head as if to receive food, then dropped it again, and when at
intervals it twitched its body as if trying to move. During the evening
even these slight motions ceased, though the feeblest flame of life was
not yet extinct; but in the morning it was dead and cold and stiff; and
just above it, her bright eyes upon it, the mother robin sat on the nest
as before warming the cuckoo.”
Even those actions of nesting birds which appear to be most intelligent
can be shown to be merely automatic. Take, for example, the curious habit
of feigning injury, which some birds have, when an enemy approaches the
young, in order to distract attention from them to itself and thus enable
them to seek cover unobserved. This surely seems a highly intelligent
act. But birds sometimes act thus before the eggs are hatched, and by so
doing actually attract attention to the eggs. This action is purely
instinctive, and is perpetuated and strengthened by natural selection
because it is beneficial to the race.
We have seen how at the nesting season all a bird’s normal actions and
instincts are subordinated to those of incubation. It is therefore but
reasonable to suppose the incubating bird to be in a very peculiar and
excitable state, a state bordering on insanity.
A bird in this condition might be expected to go into something
resembling convulsions on the approach of an enemy, and, provided its
acts under such circumstances tended to help the offspring to escape, and
were at the same time not sufficiently acute to cause the mother bird to
fall a victim to the enemy, natural selection would tend to perpetuate
and fix such actions.
Want of space prevents further dilation upon this fascinating subject.
To sum up the conclusions I desire to emphasise. A bird has during the
greater part of its life only to look after itself, and the more
intelligent it be the better will it do this, hence natural selection
tends to increase the intelligence of birds. But, at certain seasons, it
becomes all-important to the species that the adults should attend to
their young, even at risk to themselves. To secure this Nature has placed
inside birds a force, dormant at most times, which at periodic intervals
completely overrides all normal instincts, a force which compels parent
birds to rivet their attention on the nest and its contents. Thus the
sudden conversion of birds into automata is a necessity, not a mere whim
of Dame Nature. The instinct is not of very long duration; for as soon as
the young are able to fend for themselves, the parents sometimes behave
in what seems to human beings a most unnatural way: they drive off their
offspring by force. As a matter of fact, this behaviour is quite natural;
it is dictated by Nature for the benefit of the species. Strong as the
maternal instinct is, it is liable to be overridden by stronger
instincts, such as that of migration. When the time for the migratory
journey comes round, the parent birds will desert, without apparently a
pang of remorse, or even a thought, the broods for whose welfare they
have been slaving day and night. This desertion of later broods by
migratory birds is far commoner than is generally supposed. In 1826 Mr.
Blackwell inspected the house-martins’ nests under the eaves of a barn at
Blakely after the autumnal migration of these birds. Of the twenty-two
nests under the eaves inspected on 11th November, no fewer than thirteen
were found to contain eggs and dead nestlings.
PLAYING CUCKOO
Ornithological experience led me some time back to the belief that at the
nesting season a bird becomes a creature of instinct, an organism whose
actions are, for the time being, those of a machine, a mere automaton.
This view, which has been set forth in the preceding article, is not held
by all naturalists. I therefore determined to undertake a systematic
series of experiments with a view to putting it to the test. In other
words, I decided to play cuckoo. I selected the Indian crow (_Corvus
splendens_) as the subject of my experiments, because it is the most
intelligent of the feathered folk. If it can be proved that when on the
nest the actions of this bird are mechanical, it will follow that the
less intelligent birds are likewise mere automata when incubating.
Another reason for selecting the crow as my victim is that I have been
investigating the habits of the koel (_Eudynamis honorata_), which is
parasitic on the crow, and in so doing have had to visit a large number
of crows’ nests.
The crow lays a pale blue egg blotched with brown, while the egg of the
koel is a dull olive-green also blotched with brown. It is considerably
smaller than the crow’s egg. I have seen dozens of koel’s eggs, but never
one that a human being could possibly mistake for that of a crow, yet our
friend _Corvus_ is unable to detect the strange egg when deposited in the
nest and sits upon it. It is not that birds are colour-blind. The koel is
able to distinguish its own egg from that of the crow, for, after it has
deposited its egg, it frequently returns to the nest and removes one or
more of the crow’s eggs! I am convinced that ordinarily a crow would have
no difficulty in distinguishing between the two kinds of egg; but at the
nesting time it throws most of its intelligence to the winds and becomes
a puppet in the hands of its instincts, which are to sit upon everything
in the nest.
I have myself placed koel’s eggs in crows’ nests, and in every case the
crow has incubated the eggs. On one occasion I came upon a crow’s nest
containing only two koel’s eggs. As the nest was some way from my
bungalow and in an exposed situation, I knew that, the moment I left, it
would be robbed by some mischievous native boy, so I took the eggs and
placed them in a crow’s nest in my compound. This already contained three
crow’s eggs, two of which I moved, substituting the koel’s eggs for them.
The crow’s eggs had only been laid three or four days, but the koel’s
eggs were nearly incubated, since both yielded chicks on the third day
after I placed them in the nest. If nesting crows think, that pair must
have been somewhat surprised at the speedy appearance of the chicks!
In all, I have placed six koel’s eggs in four different crow’s nests, and
as I have already said, in no single instance did the trick appear to be
detected. In the majority of cases, I did not trouble to keep the number
of eggs in the nest constant. I merely added the koel’s egg to those
already in the nest.
But I have put my theory to a much more severe test. In a certain crow’s
nest containing two eggs I put a large fowl’s egg. This was
cream-coloured and fully three times the size of the crow’s egg, yet
within ten minutes the crow was sitting comfortably on the strange egg.
She did not appear to notice the considerable addition to her clutch. She
subsequently laid three more eggs, so that she had six eggs to sit upon,
five of her own and the large fowl’s egg! Day after day I visited the
nest and watched the progress of the strange egg. On the twentieth day
the chick inside was moving, but when I went to the nest on the
twenty-first day I discovered that some one had climbed the tree, for
several branches were broken. Two young crows had been taken away and the
fowl’s egg thrown upon the ground. There it lay with a fully formed black
chicken inside! I have that chicken in a bottle of spirit. Subsequent
inquiry showed that the _dhobi’s_ son had taken it upon himself to spoil
my experiment. However, it went sufficiently far to prove that crows may
one day become birds of economic value; why not employ them as
incubators? Had the crow come across that chick’s egg anywhere but in its
nest, it would undoubtedly have made its breakfast off it.
I repeated the experiment in another nest. This time the chick hatched
out. When it appeared the rage of the crows knew no bounds. With angry
squawks the scandalised birds attacked the unfortunate chick, and so
viciously did they peck at it that it was in a dying state by the time my
climber reached the nest.
With a view to determining at what stage the incubating instinct secures
its dominance, I placed another fowl’s egg in a crow’s nest that was
almost ready to receive eggs, wondering whether the presence of this egg
would stimulate the crow to lay, without troubling to give the final
touches to the nest. The bird devoured the egg. It is my belief that the
acts of a nesting bird do not become completely automatic until it has
laid an egg in the nest. If one visits a crow’s nest which is in course
of construction, the owners will as likely as not desert it; but I have
never known a crow desert its nest when once it has laid an egg—provided,
of course, he who visits the nest leaves any eggs in it.
In another nest containing two crow’s eggs I placed a golf ball; on
returning next day I found the crow sitting tight upon her own two eggs
and the golf ball!
But in another case, where I had found two eggs and substituted for them
a couple of golf balls, the crow refused to sit. I suppose the idea was,
“I may be a bit of a fool when I am nesting, but I am not such a fool as
all that!” I once came across a young koel and a crow’s egg in a nest. I
removed the former and placed it in a crow’s nest containing four crow’s
eggs. The owner of the nest showed no surprise at the sudden appearance
of the koel, but set about feeding it in the most matter-of-fact way. The
young koel was successfully reared; it is now at large and will next year
victimise some crow. I may say that no human being could possibly fail to
distinguish between a young koel and a young crow. When first hatched the
koel has a black skin, the crow a pink one. The mouth of the crow
nestling is an enormous triangle with great fleshy flaps at the side; the
mouth of the koel is much smaller and lacks the flaps. The feathers arise
very differently in each species, and whereas those of the crow are
black, those of the koel are tipped with russet in the cock and white in
the hen.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN PADDY BIRD. (ARDEOLA GRAYII)]
In another nest containing a young koel (put there by me) and two crow’s
eggs, I placed a paddy bird’s (_Ardeola grayii_) egg, hoping that the
gallant crow would hatch it out and appreciate the many-sidedness of her
family. She hatched out the egg all right, at least I believe she did. I
saw it in the nest the day before the young paddy bird was due; but when
I visited the nest the following morning neither egg nor young bird was
there. It would seem that the crow did not appreciate the appearance of
the latest addition to the family and destroyed it. It is, of course,
possible that the young koel declined to associate with such a neighbour
and killed it; but I think that the crow was the culprit, for I had
previously placed a paddy bird nestling, four days old, in a crow’s nest
containing only young crows, and the paddy bird had similarly
disappeared.
These, then, are the main facts which my game of cuckoo has brought to
light. They are not so decisive as I had expected. They seem to indicate
that the actions of birds with eggs or young are not quite so mechanical
as I had supposed. Were they not largely mechanical a crow would never
hatch out a koel’s egg, nor would it feed the young koel when hatched
out; it would not incubate a fowl’s or a paddy bird’s egg, and it would
assuredly decline to sit upon a golf ball. On the other hand, were the
acts of nesting birds altogether mechanical, the young paddy birds would
have been reared up, and the substitution of two golf balls for two eggs
would not have been detected. There is apparently a limit to the extent
to which intelligence is subservient to blind instinct.
THE KOEL
Anglo-Indians frequently confound the koel with the brain-fever bird.
There is certainly some excuse for the mistake, for both are cuckoos and
both exceedingly noisy creatures; but the cry of the koel (_Eudynamis
honorata_) bears to that of the brain-fever bird or hawk-cuckoo
(_Hierococcyx varius_) much the same relation as the melody of the
organ-grinder does to that of a full German band. Most men are willing to
offer either the solitary Italian or the Teutonic gang a penny to go into
the next street, but, if forced to choose between them, select the
organ-grinder as the lesser of the two evils. In the same way, most
people find the fluty note of the koel less obnoxious than the shriek of
the hawk-cuckoo.
The latter utters a treble note, which sounds like “Brain fever.” This it
is never tired of repeating. It commences low down the musical scale and
then ascends higher and higher until you think the bird must burst. But
it never does burst. When the top note is reached the exercise is
repeated.
The koel is a bird of many cries. As it does not, like the brain-fever
bird, talk English, its notes are not easy to reproduce on paper. Its
commonest call is a crescendo _kuil, kuil, kuil_, from which the bird
derives its popular name. This cry is peculiar to the cock. The second
note is, to use the words of Colonel Cunningham, “an outrageous torrent
of shouts, sounding like _kūk, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū, kŭū_, repeated at
brief intervals in tones loud enough to rouse the ‘Seven Sleepers.’” The
koel is nothing if not impressive. He likes to utter this note just
before dawn, when all the world is still. As the bird calls chiefly in
the hot weather, when it frequently happens that the hour before sunrise
is almost the only one in the twenty-four in which the jaded European can
sleep, this note is productive of much evil language on the part of the
aforesaid European.
The koel’s third cry is well described by Cunningham as a mere cataract
of shrill shrieks—_heekaree, karees_. This is heard mostly when the hen
is fleeing for dear life before a pair of outraged crows. So much for the
voice of the koel, now for a description of the singer. The cock is a
jet-black bird with a green bill and a red eye. The hen is speckled black
and white, with the eye and beak as in the cock. Add to this the fact
that the koel is a little larger than the “merry cuckoo, messenger of
spring” which visits England, and it is impossible not to recognise the
bird.
This cuckoo, like many of its relatives, does not hatch its own eggs. It
cuckolds crows. This is no mean performance, for the crow is a suspicious
creature. It knoweth full well the evil which is in its own heart, and
so, judging others by itself, watches unceasingly over its nest from the
time the first egg is deposited therein until the hour when the most
backward young one is able to fly. Now, a koel is no match for a crow in
open fight, hence it is quite useless for the former to attempt by means
of force to introduce its egg into the crow’s nest. It is obliged to
resort to guile. The cock entices away the crows, and while they are
absent the hen deposits her egg.
Crows appear to dislike the cry of the koel quite as much as men do. But
whereas man is usually content with swearing at the noisy cuckoo, crows
attack it with beak and claw whenever an opportunity offers. This fact is
turned to account by the koel. The cock alights in a tree near a crow’s
nest and begins to call. The owners of the nest, sooner or later, “go
for” him. He then takes to his wings, continuing to call, so as to induce
the crows to prolong the chase. As he is a more rapid flier than they, he
does not run much risk. While the irate corvi are in pursuit, the hen
koel, who has been lurking around, slips into the nest and there lays her
egg. If she is given time she destroys one or more of those already in
the nest. She does this, not because the crows would detect the presence
of an additional egg, but in order that her young, when hatched, will not
be starved owing to the large number of mouths to feed.
Crows, although such clever birds, are, as we have seen, remarkably
stupid at the nesting season. They are unable to distinguish the koel’s
egg from their own, although the former is considerably smaller, with an
olive-green background instead of a bluish one; and when the young koel
emerges from the egg, they are unable to differentiate between it and
their own offspring, although baby koels are black and baby crows pink,
when first hatched out. The koel nestling has one point in common with
young crows, and that is a large mouth of which the inside is red. This
is opened wide whenever a parent approaches, so that the latter sees
nothing but a number of yawning caverns; thus there is some excuse for
its failure to distinguish between the true and the spurious nestlings.
To return to the koel who is laying her egg in the momentarily deserted
nest. She does not carry her egg thither in her beak as the common cuckoo
is said to do, but sits in the nest and lays it there. Sometimes the
crows return before she is ready and, of course, attack her, but as she
can fly faster than they, they do not often succeed in harming her,
although there are instances on record of crows mobbing female koels to
death. It will thus be seen that cuckolding crows is dangerous work. The
life of the cuckoo is not all beer and skittles, and the birds seem to
feel the danger of their existence, for at the breeding season they
appear to be in a most excited state, and are manifestly afraid of the
crows. This being so, I am inclined to think that the latter are
responsible for the parasitic habit of the koel. It is not improbably a
case of the biter bit. Crows are such aggressive birds that they are
quite capable of evicting any other bird from its nest if this be large
enough to suit their purpose. Now suppose a koel to be thus evicted by
force when ready to lay; it is quite conceivable that she might make
frantic efforts to lay in her rightful nest, and if she succeeded, and
the crows failed to detect her egg, they would hatch out her offspring.
If the koels which acted thus managed to have their offspring reared for
them, while those that attempted to build fresh nests dropped their eggs
before the new nurseries were ready, natural selection would tend to weed
out the latter and thus the parasitic habit might arise, until eventually
the koel came to forget how to build a nest.
In this connection it is important to bear in mind that the nearest
relatives of the koel are non-parasitic. It is therefore not improbable
that in the koel the parasitic habit has an independent origin.
This instinct has undoubtedly been evolved more than once. It does not
necessarily follow that similar causes have led to its origin in each
case.
The suggestion I have made is made only with reference to the koel, which
differs from other cuckoos in that it dupes a bird stronger and bigger
than itself. But this is a digression.
If the koel have time, she destroys one or more of the existing eggs, and
will sometimes return later and destroy others. Although the crow cannot
distinguish between her own and koel’s eggs, the koel can. I have come
across several crows’ nests which each contained only two koel’s eggs.
The young koel is a better-behaved bird than some of its relations, for
it ejects neither the eggs still in the nest when it is hatched nor its
foster-brethren. But the incubating period of the koel is shorter than
that of the crow, so that the koel’s egg is always the first to hatch
out. The koel seems never to make the mistake of depositing its egg among
nearly incubated ones. Thus the young koel commences life with a useful
start on its foster-brethren. It soon increases this start, as it grows
very fast, and is ready to fly before the earliest feathers of its
foster-brothers are out of their sheaths.
It does not, however, leave its foster-parents when able to fly. It sits
on the edge of the nest and makes laudable, if ludicrous, efforts at
cawing. The crows continue feeding it long after it has left the nest,
looking after it with the utmost solicitude. A young koel is somewhat
lacking in intelligence; it seems unable to distinguish its
foster-parents from any other crow, for it opens its mouth at the
approach of every crow, evidently expecting to be fed.
The natives of the Punjab assert that the hen koel keeps her eye on the
crow’s nest in which she has laid her egg or eggs during the whole of the
time that the young cuckoo is in it, and takes charge of her babe after
it leaves the nest. This assertion appears to be incorrect. I have never
seen a koel feeding anything but itself. Moreover, the koel lays four or
five eggs, and these are not usually all deposited in one nest. It would
therefore be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for the hen to
keep an eye on each of her eggs.
In view of the hatred which crows display towards koels in general,
naturalists have expressed surprise that the young koels are not mobbed
directly they leave the nest. Their plumage differs in no way from that
of the adult. It has been suggested that young koels retain the crow
smell for a considerable time after they are fledged. This I cannot
accept. The olfactory organ of birds is but slightly developed. Indeed, I
am inclined to wonder whether birds have any sense of smell. The truth of
the matter is that crows look after their foster-children most carefully
for several weeks after they have left the nest, and see that no strange
crow harms them.
THE COMMON DOVE OF INDIA
The dove family ought to have become extinct ages ago, if all that
orthodox zoologists tell us about the fierce struggle for existence be
true. They form a regular “Thirteen Society.” They do everything they
should not do, they disobey every rule of animal warfare, they fall
asleep when sitting exposed on a telegraph wire, they build nests in all
manner of foolish places, their nests are about as unsafe as a nursery
can possibly be, and they flatly decline to lay protectively coloured
eggs—their white eggs are a standing invitation to bird robbers to
indulge, like the Cambridge crew of 1906, in an egg diet; yet, in spite
all of these foolhardy acts, doves flourish like the green bay tree. This
is a fact of which I require an explanation before I can accept all the
doctrines of the Neo-Darwinian school.
There are so many species of dove in India that when speaking of them one
must perforce, unless one be writing a great monograph, confine oneself
to two or three of the common species. I propose to-day to talk about our
three commonest Indian doves, that is to say, the spotted dove (_Turtur
suratensis_), the Indian ring-dove (_Turtur risorius_), and the little
brown dove (_Turtur cambayensis_). I make no apology for discoursing upon
these common species. I contend that we in India know so very little
about even our everyday birds that it is a needless expenditure of energy
to seek out the rarer species and study their habits; we have plenty to
learn about those that come into our verandahs and coo to us.
The curious distribution of our common Indian doves has not, so far as I
know, been explained. In very few places are all three common. One or
other of them is usually far more abundant than the others, and this one
is usually the spotted dove. It is the commonest dove of Calcutta, of
Madras, of Travancore, of Tirhoot, of Lucknow, but not of Lahore or
Bombay or the Deccan. Why is this? Why is it that, whereas the Deccan is
literally overrun by the ring- and the little brown dove, one can go from
Bombay to Malabar without meeting one of these species, but seeing
thousands of the spotted dove?
The only explanation that I can offer of this phenomenon is that the
spotted dove is the most pugnacious and the most pushing; that where he
chooses to settle down he ousts the other species of dove more or less
completely; but he, fortunately for the other species, does not choose to
settle down in all parts of India. He objects to dry places. Hence he is
not seen at Lahore or in the Deccan, or in the drier parts of the United
Provinces, such as Agra, Muttra, Etawah, and Cawnpore.
This is only a theory of mine, and a theory in favour of which I am not
able to adduce very much evidence, since my personal knowledge of India
is confined to some half-a-dozen widely separated places. Moreover, this
theory does not explain the absence of the spotted dove from Bombay. I
should be very glad to know if there are any other moist parts of India
where the spotted dove is not the most abundant of the cooing family.
The nest of the dove is a subject over which most ornithologists have
waxed sarcastic. A more ramshackle structure does not exist; yet the
absurd thing is that doves are most particular about the materials they
use.
The other day I watched, with much amusement, a little brown dove at work
nest building. It was constructing a shake-down in a small Lonicera bush.
Now, obviously, since the nest is just a few twigs and stalks thrown
together, any kind of short twig or stem will serve for building
material. This, however, was not the view of the dove. If that creature
had been constructing the Forth Bridge it could not have been more
particular as regards the materials it picked up. It strutted about the
ground, taking into its bill all manner of material only to reject it,
until at last it picked up a dead grass stalk and flew off with it in
triumph!
Presumably doves take the same trouble in selecting a site for their
nest, nevertheless they sometimes eventually choose the most impossible
spot. Thus Mr. A. Anderson has recorded the existence of a nest of a pair
of little brown doves that “was placed close to the fringe of the
_kunnaut_ of his tent on one of the corner ropes, where it is double for
some six inches and there knotted. The double portion was just broad
enough, being three inches apart, to support the nest with careful
balancing; the _knot_ acted as a sort of _buffer_ and prevented the twigs
from sliding off, which most assuredly would otherwise have been the
case, for the rope just there was at an angle of 45°.”
Those foolish birds were not permitted to bring up their young, because
the tent had to be struck before the eggs were laid.
In Lahore a favourite nesting site for the little brown dove is on the
top of the rolled-up portion of the verandah _chik_. As the _chik_ is
composed of stout material, the rolled-up portion forms an excellent
platform some four inches broad. But as the doves nest just as the
weather is beginning to grow warm, the little home is apt to be somewhat
rudely broken up. One pair, however, has this year successfully reared up
two young hopefuls in a nest on this somewhat precarious site. The doings
of these form the subject of the next article.
I once came across a nest of this little dove in a low, prickly bush
beside a small canal distributory, three miles outside Lahore. The dove
appeared to have used as the foundation for its nest an old one of the
striated bush babbler (_Argya caudata_). (I object to calling this bird
the common babbler, since, like common sense, it is not very common.) In
the same bush, at the same level, that is to say, about a yard from the
ground and only a couple of feet from the dove’s nest, was that of a
striated bush babbler containing three dark blue eggs. This is a case
upon which those who believe that eggs laid in open nests are
protectively coloured would do well to ponder.
There, side by side, in precisely the same environment, were two
nests—one containing white and the other dark blue eggs. Obviously both
sets of eggs could not be protectively coloured; as a matter of fact,
both clutches of eggs were conspicuous objects. It not infrequently
happens that the Indian robin (_Thamnobia cambayensis_), which lays white
eggs thickly spotted with reddish brown, brings up a family in a disused
nest of a striated bush babbler’s. The eggs of this latter are dark blue.
It is surely time that zoologists gave up throwing at us their
everlasting theory of protective colouring. If this were a _sine qua non_
of the safety of birds’ eggs, then the whole dove tribe would, long ago,
have ceased to exist.
This family presents the ornithologist with yet another problem in
colouration. In every species, except the red turtle-dove (_Oenopopelia
tranquebarica_), both sexes are coloured alike. In this latter, however,
there is very pronounced sexual dimorphism. The ruddy wing feathers of
the cock enable one to distinguish him at once from his mate and from
every other dove. Now the habits of this dove appear to be exactly like
those of all other species. It constructs the same kind of nest and in
similar situations; why then the sexual dimorphism in this species and in
no other species? If the lady rufous turtle-dove likes nice ruddy wings,
and thus the red wing has been evolved in the cock bird, why has she too
not inherited it? I presume that even the most audacious Neo-Darwinian
will not talk about her greater need of protection when sitting on the
nest, for if she needs protection, how much more so do her white eggs?
Further, it is my belief that the cock bird takes his turn in the
incubation.
It must not be thought that I am needlessly poking fun at modern
biologists. I merely desire to call attention to the unsolved problems
that confront us on all sides, and to protest against the dogmatism of
biology which declares that the Darwinian theory explains the whole of
organic nature. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that the field
naturalist cannot but feel that natural selection is turning out rather a
failure.
In conclusion, one more word regarding the red turtle-dove. Its
distribution has not been carefully worked out, and what we do know of it
is not easy to explain. Hume says that it breeds in all parts of India,
but is very capriciously distributed, and he is unable to say what kind
of country it prefers, and why it is common in one district and rare in a
neighbouring one in which all physical conditions appear identical.
It is very common in the bare, arid, treeless region that surrounds the
Sambhur Lake. It is common in some dry, well-cultivated districts, like
Etawah, where there are plenty of old mango groves. It is very common in
some of the comparatively humid tracts, like Bareilly, and again in the
_sal_ jungles of the Kumaun _Bhabar_ and the Nepal _Terai_. On the other
hand, over wide extents of similar country it is scarcely to be seen.
Doubtless there is something in its food or manner of life that limits
its distribution, but no one has yet been able to make out what this
something is.
DOVES IN A VERANDAH
The office building in which for some time past I have rendered service
to a paternal government was once a tomb. That it is now an office is
evidence of the strict economy practised by the Indian Administration.
Since the living require more light than the dead, skylights have been
let into the domed roof. In these the brown rock-chat (_Cercomela fusca_)
loves to sit and pour forth his exceedingly sweet little lay, while his
spouse sits on four pale blue eggs in a nest on a ledge in a neighbouring
sepulchre. But it is not of this bird that I write to-day; I hope to give
him an innings at some future date.
Two little brown doves (_Turtur cambaiensis_) first demand our attention,
since these for a time appropriated my skylights. This species is smaller
than the spotted dove so common in Madras, and, to my way of thinking, is
a much more beautiful bird. Its head, neck, and breast are pale lilac
washed with red. On each side of the neck the bird carries a miniature
chessboard. The remainder of its plumage is brown, passing into grey and
white. The legs are lake-red.
It has a very distinctive note—a soft, subdued musical
_cuk-cuk-coo-coo-coo_. There is no bird better pleased with itself than
the little brown dove. In the month of March the two doves in question
were “carrying on” in my office skylight to such an extent as to leave no
doubt that they had a nest somewhere. I discovered it on the rolled-up
end of one of the bamboo verandah _chiks_. These are not let down in the
cold weather, so that the doves had been permitted to build undisturbed.
“Eha” has humorously described a dove’s nest as composed of two short
sticks and a long one; that of the little brown dove is a little more
compact than the typical nest, a little less sketchy, and composed of
grass and fine twigs. There was plenty of room for it on the top of the
rolled-up portion of the _chik_.
When I found the nest there were two white eggs in it. Every species of
dove lays but two eggs. I do not know whether the smallness of the clutch
has anything to do with the helplessness of the young birds when first
hatched. Young doves and pigeons have not, like other baby birds, great
mouths which open to an alarming extent. They feed by putting their beaks
in the mouth of the parent and there they obtain “pigeon’s milk,” which
is a secretion from the crop of the old birds.
Being at that time less versed in the ways of the little brown dove than
I now am, I was under the impression that this nest was in rather a
curious situation, so I determined to obtain a photograph of it with the
young birds. I may here say that I dislike photography, and not without
cause. Some years ago I visited the Himalayan snows, and dragged up a
great camera and a number of plates to an altitude of 12,000 feet. Having
no portable dark room, I endured untold agonies while changing the plates
under the bedclothes. Being anxious lest the light should reach the
exposed negatives, I wrapped them up very carefully, using newspaper,
which was the only wrapping available. When I returned from the
expedition I developed the plates, but lo and behold! instead of snowy
peaks and sunny valleys, advertisements of soaps and pills appeared on
the plates. Why do not books on the camera tell one not to wrap up plates
in newspaper? I made a vow to leave photography to others, and I kept the
vow until I saw those young doves perched so temptingly on the _chik_.
Having risked both life and limb in mounting a chair placed upon a table,
I obtained a “snap” at the nest. On developing the plate everything
appeared with admirable clearness except the nest. There was nothing but
a blur where this should have been; the rest of the _chik_ came out
splendidly. The only explanation of this phenomenon that I can offer is
the natural “cussedness” of the camera. I have now renewed my vow to
eschew photography.
The first young doves were successfully reared. No sooner had they been
driven forth into the world than the parents set about repairing the
nest, for doves are not content with one brood; when once a pair commence
nesting there is no knowing when they will stop. As it was then April and
the sun was growing uncomfortably hot, the letting down of the _chik_
became a matter of necessity, and this, of course, wrecked the nest. I
expected to see no more of the doves. In this I was mistaken. Before long
they were billing and cooing as merrily as before. A little search showed
that this time they had built a nest on the top of the same _chik_—a feat
which I should have thought impossible had I not seen the nest with my
own eyes. Some sacking was attached to the _chik_, and this, together
with the bamboo, presented a surface of about half an inch. On this
precarious foundation the nest rested; the twigs, of course, reached over
to the wall from which the _chik_ was hung. Thus the nest received some
additional support. Needless to say, the young birds had to remain very
still or they would have fallen out of the nest.
The second and the third broods were raised without mishap. One of the
birds of the fourth family was more restless than his brethren had been;
consequently he fell off the nest on to the floor of the verandah. He was
picked up and brought to me. Although not strong enough to walk, or even
stand, he showed unmistakable signs of that evil temper which
characterises all doves, by opening his wings and pecking savagely at my
hand. In spite of this behaviour I set natural selection at naught by
putting him back into the nest. He fell out again next day and was again
replaced. This time he stayed there, and is now probably at large.
When the fifth clutch of eggs was in the nest my _chaprassi_, who, since
I have shown him how to play cuckoo, has been upsetting the domestic
affairs of any number of birds, asked whether he might substitute two
pigeon’s eggs for those laid by the dove. The substitution was duly
effected without rousing any suspicions on the part of the doves. The
young pigeons soon hatched out and were industriously fed by their
foster-parents, nor did these latter appear to notice anything unusual
when the white plumage of the pigeons appeared. Two days before the
changelings were ready to fly a terrific storm arose and so shook the
_chiks_ that the poor pigeons were thrown off and killed. Nothing
daunted, the doves have since successfully reared a sixth family! Can we
wonder that doves are numerous in India?
THE GOLDEN ORIOLE
Dame Nature must have been in a very generous mood when she manufactured
golden orioles, or she would never have expended so much of her
colour-box upon them. Orioles are birds which compel our attention, so
brilliant are they; yet the poets who profess to be the high-priests of
Nature give us no songs about these beautiful creatures; at least I know
of no maker of verse, with the exception of Sir Edwin Arnold, who does
more than mention the oriole. Here then is a fine opening for some
twentieth-century bard!
Two orioles, or mango birds as they are sometimes called, are common in
India. They are the Indian oriole (_Oriolus kundoo_) and the black-headed
oriole (_O. melanocephalus_). The Indian oriole is a bird about the size
of a starling. The plumage of the cock is a splendid rich yellow. There
is a black patch over and behind the eye. There is some black on the
tail, and the large wing feathers are also of this colour. The bill is
pink and the eyes red. In the hen the yellow of the back is deeply tinged
with green.
The black-headed oriole may be distinguished by his black head, throat,
and upper breast. The habits of both species are similar in every
respect. The Indian oriole seems to be merely a winter visitor to Madras,
and it is seen in the Punjab only during the hot weather. In the
intervening parts it may be observed all the year round; hence the
species would appear to perform a small annual migration, leaving the
South in the hot weather. In those parts where orioles are found all the
year round it is not improbable that the birds one sees in the winter are
not those that are observed during the summer.
The oriole is essentially a bird of the greenwood tree; if you would see
him you should betake yourself to some well-irrigated orchard. I have
never seen an oriole on the ground; its habits are strictly arboreal, but
it does not seem to be at all particular about taking cover. It perches
by preference on the topmost bough of a tree, and if this bough be devoid
of leaves, so much the better, for the bird enjoys a more extensive view
of the surrounding country. Very beautiful does such a bird look, sitting
outlined against the sky, as the first rays of the morning sun fall upon
and add fresh lustre to its golden plumage. Orioles feed upon both fruit
and insects, and so cannot be regarded as unmixed blessings to the
agriculturalist.
As I have already said, Dame Nature has been exceedingly kind to this
bird; not content w
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