“What art thou made of?—air or light or dew?
—I have no time to tell you if I knew.
My tail—ask that—perhaps may solve the matter;
I’ve missed three flies already by this chatter.”
I quite agree with Mr. Warde Fowler that wagtails are everything that birds should be. They are just the right size; their shape and form are perfect; they dress most tastefully; they display that sprightliness that one looks for in birds; their movements are elegant and engaging; their undulating flight is blithe and gay; their song is sweet and cheery; they are friendly, and sociable, fond of men and animals, “not too shy, not too bold.” They are, in short, ideal birds.
I know of nothing more enjoyable than to sit watching a wagtail feeding at the water’s edge.
“She runs along the shore so quickly,” writes a long-forgotten author, “that the eye is hardly able to follow her steps, and yet, with a flying glance, she examines every crevice, every stalk that conceals her reposing or creeping prey. Now she steps upon a smoothly washed stone; she bathes and drinks—and how becomingly, and with what an air! The very nicest soubrette could not raise her dress more coquettishly, the best-taught dancer not move with more graceful pas than the pretty bather as she lifts her train and dainty feet. Suddenly she throws herself, with a jump and a bound, into the air, to catch the circling gnat; and now should be seen the beating of wings, the darting hither and thither, the balancing and the shakes and the allegretto that her tail keeps time to. Nothing can surpass it in lightness. In fine, of all the little feathered people, none, except the swallow, is more graceful, fuller of movement, more adroit or insinuating, than the wagtail.”
Wagtails are essentially birds of the temperate zone. They remind us of a fact that we who dwell in the tropics are apt to forget, namely, that there are some beautiful birds found outside the torrid zone.
Fourteen species of wagtail occur in India, but the majority of them leave us to breed. They bring up their families in cool Kashmir, on the chilly, wind-swept heights of Thibet, or even in glacial Siberia, and visit India only in the winter when their native land becomes too frigid even for them.
Many of the migratory wagtails do not show themselves in the southern portion of the peninsula, being rightly of opinion that the climate of Upper India is not far from perfect during the winter months.
There is, however, one species—the most lovable of them all—the pied-wagtail (Motacilla maderaspatensis)—which has discovered that it is possible to live in the plains of India throughout the year; and, having made this discovery, it has decided that the troubles and trials of the hot weather are lesser evils than the inconveniences and perils of the long migratory journey. The head of this species is black, relieved by a white streak running through the eye; the wings and tail are mostly black, and a bib—or is “front” a more correct word?—of similar hue is usually worn. The under parts of the bird are white.
The pied-wagtail is common all over India. It is particularly abundant in the city of Madras, where it is to be seen everywhere—on the house-top, in the courtyard, in shady garden, in open field, and on the river bank in company with the soldiers who solemnly fish in the waters round about the fort.
When in Madras I used to see almost daily one of these birds perched on the telegraph wire that runs across the Cooum parallel with the Mount Road bridge. The bird seemed to spend most of the day in pouring forth its sweet song. When sitting on the wire its tail used to hang down in a most unwagtail-like manner, so that the bird looked rather like a pipit. Pied-wagtails sometimes appropriate suitable parts of the bungalow for nesting sites; when this happens the human occupant has plenty of opportunity of studying their ways.
The remaining thirteen species of wagtails are merely winter visitors to the plains of India. Two or three of these are to be seen feeding, during the cold weather, on every grass-covered field, and at the edge of every jhil. In the latter place wagtails are nothing short of a nuisance to the man who is out after snipe, for they have the habit of rising along with the snipe, and the white outer-tail feathers invariably catch the eye. Many a snipe owes its life to the wagtail.
The four commonest of the migratory wagtails are, I think, the white (Motacilla alba), the masked (M. impersonata), the grey (M. melanope), and the grey-headed wagtail (M. borealis). The two latter are characterised by much bright yellow in the lower plumage, which the first two lack; but I am not going to attempt to achieve the impossible by trying to describe the various species of wagtail. Owing to the fact that these birds, like ladies of fashion, are continually changing their gowns, it is very difficult to state the species to which an individual belongs without examining that individual feather by feather. You may see a dozen wagtails of the same species catching insects on your lawn, each of which differs markedly from all his companions. Most of us are satisfied with the knowledge that a given bird is a wagtail, and are able to enjoy the poetry and grace of its motion without troubling our heads about its scientific name.
Butastur teesa used to be called the white-eyed buzzard, but one day a worthy ornithologist discovered that the bird was not the genuine article, that its legs and its eggs betrayed the fact that it is not a true buzzard. Therefore a new name had to be found for the bird. In their search for this, naturalists have not met with great success. Indeed, the last state of the bird is worse than the first, for it is now known as the white-eyed buzzard-eagle. To the adjectival part of the name no one can take exception, because the white eye and a whitish patch of feathers on the back of the head are the most remarkable features of a rather ordinary-looking fowl. The name “buzzard-eagle,” however, is most misleading. Although, as I have previously had occasion to state, eagles are not quite the noble creatures the poets have made them out to be, to suggest that Butastur teesa is one of them is to insult the whole aquiline community. Eagles, notwithstanding the fact that they sometimes eat carrion, attack, each according to the size of its talons, quarry of considerable size, and are, in consequence, the terror of other birds. As Phil Robinson says of them, “they stand in the sky as the symbol of calamity. When they stoop to the earth it is a vision of sudden death.” To speak thus of Butastur teesa would be, as Euclid says, absurd. The white-eyed buzzard is almost contemptible as a bird of prey; he is a raptorial degenerate, a mere loafer.
In India one often sees a white-eyed buzzard, some mynas, a pair of doves, several bee-eaters, one or two king crows, and a roller, sitting, all in a row, on a telegraph wire within a few yards of one another; the first and the last, as likely as not, on the tops of the telegraph poles, looking like pillar saints. Contrast this state of affairs with what happens when a hawk or a falcon appears on the scene. “Take to woodland,” writes Phil Robinson, “and fill it with your birds of beauty and of song; put your ‘blackbird pipers in every tree,’ and have linnets ‘starting all along the bushes.’ Let melody burthen every bough and every cloud hold a lark. Have your doves in the pines, and your thrushes in the hawthorn; spangle your thistle-beds with restless goldfinches, and your furze with yellowhammers. The sun is shining brightly, and the countryside seems fairly overflowing with gladness. But with a single touch you can alter the whole scene; for let one hawk come skimming round that copse yonder, and the whole woodland is mute in the moment. Here and there shrill warning cries of alarm, and here and there a bird dipping into the central covert of the brake. But for the rest there might not be one winged thing alive in all the landscape. The hawk throws a shadow of desolation as it goes, its wings scatter fears on either side; silence precedes it and gloom pursues.”
Small birds fear the hawk and despise the teesa, because they know that the former is as swift and energetic as the latter is slow and lazy. But it is not easy to understand why the white-eyed buzzard does not prey upon wild birds, because its wings are, in proportion to its size, longer than those of most birds of prey. It is not that Butastur considers birds unfit to eat. On the contrary, says Mr. C. H. Donald, “that he would love to catch a bird for his dinner is proved by the fact of his coming down to a bird behind a net as soon as he sees it, but I suppose experience has taught him that it is no use his trying to catch one in its wild state, and in full possession of its wings and feathers, and, consequently, he never tries.” Thus, we have no alternative but to regard the white-eyed buzzard as a degenerate, a bird that might starve in the midst of plenty.
When a hungry Butastur sees flitting all around him potential meals in the shape of small birds, his feelings must be akin to those of the impecunious man in the comic song who, as he contemplates the insurance policy on the life of his shrewish wife, cries out: “Stone broke with fifty quid staring me in the face!” The white-eyed buzzard has perforce to feed upon very humble quarry, upon the creeping and crawling things, upon beetles and insects, with an occasional rat or frog. His usual method of capturing his prey is very similar to that of the shrike, or butcher-bird, or, to come nearer home, to that of the true buzzards. He takes up a position on a bare branch of a tree, a telegraph pole, a fence, or other point of vantage, such as a heap of kankar, and there waits patiently until some small creature wanders by. On to this he quietly drops, secures it in his feeble talons, and returns to the perch to devour his quarry and thus bring to a close one of nature’s little tragedies, of which millions are being daily enacted. After he has finished his dinner he loves to sit awhile, as the nursery rhyme tells us we should do, and quietly digest what he has eaten. I once disturbed a Butastur that had just finished a heavy meal in the shape of a frog, with the result that the bird “brought up” the frog!
Sometimes the white-eyed buzzard beats over the ground in search of its quarry, but this is not his usual modus operandi. If you would see the white-eyed buzzard, go into an open place and watch for a brown bird a little larger than a crow, sitting motionless on some point of vantage, like Patience on a monument. By its sluggish habits, its small size, its white eye, and the whitish patch at the back of its head, you may recognise it. It utters a peculiar plaintive screaming call, which is heard mostly at the nesting season. “In February and March,” writes Mr. Donald, “just before the breeding season, these birds may be frequently seen soaring high up in the heavens, and giving vent to their plaintive call, and might be taken for falcons if it were not for their much more rounded wings. When at a height their breasts appear dark and their wings (lower surface) very light and silvery.”
Needless to say, the nest of this species is not a very skilfully constructed affair. It is not more beautiful than a dak bungalow, but, like the latter, serves the purpose for which it is built. It is very like that of the common crow—a loosely-put-together collection of sticks, devoid of anything in the form of lining, and placed fairly high up in the fork of a tree. The tree selected is usually one with rather dense foliage, and one of a clump or row, in preference to a solitary tree; nevertheless, I have seen a nest in an isolated tree. The eggs, which are greyish white, are not laid until some time after the nest has been made ready. Teesas are very noisy at the nesting season; the sitting hen utters constantly a mewing cry, which renders the nest easy to locate; but her vocal efforts pale into insignificance before those of the young hopefuls. These, to quote Mr. Benjamin Aitken, “keep up an incessant screaming for days before and after they leave the nest; so that you cannot pass within two hundred yards of a brood of nearly fledged or newly fledged birds without being made painfully aware of their existence and good spirits.”
Lest the title of this chapter should lead the reader to indulge in expectations that will not be realised, let me hasten to say that, in my opinion, hawking is a much overrated pastime. This statement will, of course, rouse the ire of the keen falconer, who will tell me that hawking is the sport of kings, and that it has no equal. To such a defence of the sport the obvious reply is that it has almost entirely died out in England, and that in India, where there is every facility for it, very few Europeans care to indulge in it. In Persia and India falconry is carried on in precisely the same way as it used to be in England. There can be little doubt that the sport originated in the East, and was introduced into the British Isles in Anglo-Saxon times. The hoods, the jesses, the lures, the gauntlets that are used in India to-day are exactly like those portrayed in old English hawking prints.
Hawks fall into two classes, according to the method of catching their quarry. These may be compared respectively to sprinters and long-distance men among human athletes. They are known to falconers as the short-winged or yellow-eyed hawks and the long-winged or dark-eyed hawks. The former adopt what I may perhaps call slap-dash methods. A furious rush is made at the quarry, and if this be not secured at the first onslaught the chase is given up. The second class adopts the slow but sure method. The falcon, having sighted its quarry, settles down to a long pursuit, keeps on and on until it finds itself above its victim, on to which it stoops. The second class of raptorial birds, which includes all the falcons, affords the better kind of sport, because the following of the chase entails some hard riding. For falconry of this kind a stretch of flat, open country is a sine qua non, and, as this is comparatively easy to find in India, one would naturally expect that the long-winged form of falconry would be the most popular among Indians. But this is not so. In Northern India, at any rate, that species of falconry that does not involve hard riding on the part of the falconer is the most practised. The goshawk (Astur palabarius) is the hawk most commonly used.
Perhaps the best method of conveying an idea of falconry to one who has not witnessed the sport is to describe a day’s actual experience. The month is December, and the place Oudh. This means a sunny but perfectly cool day, so that riding, even when the sun is at its zenith, is delightful. Our party consists of an Indian gentleman—a Sikh and a large land-holder—who owns the hawks, and three Europeans all well mounted, also the chief falconer, indifferently mounted, who carries on his gloved forearm a goshawk. Then there are two other falconers on foot, one carrying a goshawk and the other a sparrow-hawk (Accipiter nisus). Half a dozen beaters and three mongrel terriers complete the party. The sparrow-hawk is hooded, while the goshawk is not, being of a less excitable nature. The hood is a leather cap, constructed so as to cover up the wearer’s eyes but not her beak. The hood terminates in a point like a helmet. In the summit some plumes are stuck, so that the hooded bird has a fantastic appearance. Sparrow-hawks and peregrines are made to wear these hoods when taken out, until the falconer espies quarry, when he unhoods his hawk and lets the ends of the jesses go. The jesses are short straps made of soft leather, which all trained hawks and falcons always wear. The goshawks are both females. In all species of the raptores—listen to this, ye suffragettes!—the female is larger and bolder than the male, and hence is more highly esteemed by the falconer. The female goshawk is known as a baz, and is worth anything up to Rs. 150, while the male, called the jurra, will never fetch more than Rs. 80. The goshawks whose exploits I am about to recount cost Rs. 80 and Rs. 60 respectively. They have been trained more especially to take peafowl.
The party sets out in a southerly direction across an uneven plain, much intersected by dried-up water-courses. There is no cultivation on the plain, which is to a large extent covered with long sarpat grass and other xerophilous plants. We move along in an irregular line, the dogs and beaters doing their best to put up game. Suddenly a quail rises. “Let loose the sparrow-hawk,” cries the Sirdar. But, alas, the man carrying that bird has lagged behind, so the quail escapes. I may here say that on nine occasions out of ten when out hawking the man with the proper hawk is not where he should be. We continue our course, and presently come to a narrow river running through a deep nullah. Here two or three cormorants come flying overhead. They are forthwith “spotted” by the goshawks, which have all the time been eagerly looking about them in all directions. Having seen the cormorants, they begin tugging excitedly at their jesses. The falconers liberate the goshawks, and away they go in pursuit. After flying about eighty yards, first one goshawk, then the other, gives up the chase, and each repairs to the tree that happens to be nearest it. Then the falconers go up and show the birds pieces of meat, in order to entice them back to the fist. One baz immediately flies to the bait. Not so the other. She sits perched in her tree with an air of j’y suis, j’y reste. In a few seconds some crows catch sight of her and proceed to mob her by flying around her and squawking loudly. However, not one of them dares to touch her. Presently she too flies to her trainer, and the party moves on.
We next ford the river. On the far side the country is still more rugged, but contains more trees. Presently there is a great commotion in the thicket, and up gets a great peacock. The goshawks are again released and give chase. They fly low and make straight for the peacock, upon which they gain rapidly. We ride hard after them. After a flight of perhaps two hundred yards the hawks, when close up to the object of their chase, give up the pursuit, and fly to trees hard by. I ask their owner why they did not secure the peacock. He replies: “They would have taken it had it been a hen. They are not used to the male bird. Alas, my best hawk, which would take the cock, died last week!” Let me here remark that I have never yet come across a falconer whose best hawk had not recently died. This is the inevitable excuse for the apparently invariable failure of the falcon to secure its quarry. To cut a long story short, neither of those goshawks secured anything that day. Later, the sparrow-hawk was sent after an unfortunate myna (Acridotheres tristis), which it secured after a chase of perhaps a dozen yards. Its talons struck the myna in the neck, and it soon killed it, not, however, before the poor little creature had emitted some heart-rending shrieks. The goshawk must occasionally catch something, or it would not fetch so large a price, and would not be so popular a bird with falconers in Northern India, but I imagine that on most days the hawking party returns without having secured anything.
Let me now give a brief account of hawking with the Bhairi, or peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus). The scene, this time, is a huge expanse of flat plain in the Punjab, near the River Jhelum. The hawks belong to a European. We have ridden for several hours, not having succeeded in putting up quarry of any kind. As the falconer seems to have anticipated this, and as he has with him on trial a new peregrine, which he wants to see at work, an unfortunate crow, which was captured in the morning and has been carried round in a bag with us, is let go. He flies in a very stiff manner. When he has flown some eighty yards the peregrine is unhooded and let go after him. She at once flies upwards, and in a few seconds is above the crow, who, seeing her, drops to the ground and lies there on his back prepared to show fight. The falcon stoops at him, but seems to be afraid to tackle him on the ground. The falconer then runs up to him and tries to make him get up; but he refuses, so he is picked up and thrown into the air. The falcon at once stoops at him, but before she reaches him the crow has again dropped to the ground, and still the falcon refuses to close with him. “That bird is of no use,” is the comment of my host, an assertion which I do not feel inclined to contradict.
The only other kinds of falconry I have witnessed are those with hawk-eagles (Spizaëtus nepalensis), shikras (Astur badius), and merlins (Æsalon regulus). Hodgson’s hawk-eagle is so large a bird that to watch him dashing after his quarry is a fine sight. It is said that this species can be trained to capture chinkara (Gazella bennetti). However, I have only seen it in pursuit of a hare that had been previously caught and then let loose. The hawk-eagle overtook this before it had gone fifty yards.
Hawking with the shikra is, in my opinion, very poor sport, for this little bird of prey makes but one dash at its quarry, and at once desists if this does not enable it to overhaul it. It is usually flown at quails or mynas. While waiting for its victim it is carried on the hand, but is not hooded. When one of the kind of bird to which it has been trained is flushed, the hawker takes the shikra in his hand, holds it between his thumb and fingers, and then throws it like a javelin in the direction of its quarry. Thus it enjoys the benefit of a flying start, but, notwithstanding this, it generally fails to make a catch.
The contest between a merlin and a hoopoe is an exceedingly pretty sight. The hoopoe is not a very rapid flier, but he is a past master in the art of jinking and dodging, and the manner in which he times the onslaught of the merlin, and jerks himself a couple of inches to right or to left, is a sight for the gods. The merlin, thus cheated of his victim, is carried on by sheer force of momentum some sixty yards before he can turn for another dash at the hoopoe. Meanwhile the latter is steadily flapping towards cover. The merlin is no more successful in his second dash, nor in his third or his fourth; on each occasion the hoopoe escapes, apparently by the proverbial hair’s-breadth. A single merlin is usually not clever enough to capture the wily hoopoe, but when two of them act in concert they usually succeed in doing so.
Such, then, is falconry as I have seen it. I concede that my experience has not been great, but I have witnessed enough to enable me to understand how it is that shooting has almost entirely displaced it as a pastime.
The training of hawks is, of course, most interesting, and must be a very fascinating pursuit to those engaged in it. When once the hawk or falcon has been trained, it appears to me that the best of the fun is over.
The going out in search of quarry seems only an excuse for spending a day in the open on horseback under very pleasant conditions.
Even as the earth is overrun by dacoits, robbers, and highwaymen in all places where the arm of the law is not far-reaching and hard-striking, so is the air infested with bandits. These feathered marauders fall into three classes, according to the magnitude of their quarry. There are, first, the eagles, falcons, and hawks, which attack creatures of considerable size. Then follow the shrikes or butcher-birds—pocket editions of the raptores—which prey upon the small fry among reptiles, mammals, and birds, also upon the larger insects. Lastly come the fly-catchers, which content themselves with microscopic booty, with trifles that the larger birds of prey do not deem worthy of notice. These last are able to swallow their victims bodily. Not so the shrikes and birds of prey, whose quarry has to be devoured piecemeal, to be captured, killed, then torn to pieces.
Similarity of calling not infrequently engenders similarity of appearance. Swifts and swallows afford a striking instance of this. Alike externally, they are widely separated morphologically. So is it with the shrikes and the raptores. The earlier naturalists were misled by this outward likeness, and, in consequence, classed the swifts with the swallows and the shrikes with the falcons.
Many are the points of resemblance between the greater and the lesser bandits of the air. The ferocity of their mien is apparent to the most casual observer. Michelet speaks of the eagle as having a “repulsively ferocious figure, armed with invincible talons, and a beak tipped with iron, which would kill at the first blow.” Even more sinister is the aspect of the shrike. The broad black streak that runs from the bill to the nape of the neck serves to accentuate the fierce expression of the eye. The American naturalist Burroughs speaks of the shrike as a “bird with the mark of Cain upon him, . . . the assassin of the small birds, whom he often destroys in pure wantonness, or to sup upon their brains.”
Much has been written about the cruelty of birds of prey. Their calling is indeed a barbarous one; they undoubtedly inflict much pain; but these are not reasons why they should be spoken of as villains of the deepest dye, as criminals worthy of the noose. The bird of prey kills his quarry because it is his nature to do so. He regards his victims as so many elusive loaves of bread, made for his consumption, to be obtained for the catching. The fly-catcher holds similar views regarding his quarry. We should bear in mind that the average insectivorous bird kills in the course of his life a vastly greater number of living things than does the eagle. The robin, for example, has been known to devour two and a half times its weight in earthworms in a single day. Were the daily tale of its victims placed end to end they would form a wriggling line fourteen feet in length. Yet writers abuse the fierce and vicious eagle, while they belaud the gentle and good robin. Thus Michelet writes with typical romantic fervour: “These birds of prey, with their small brains, offer a striking contrast to the numerous amiable and plainly intelligent species which we find among the smaller birds. The head of the former is only a beak; that of the latter has a face. What comparison can be made between these giant brutes and the intelligent, all-human bird, the robin redbreast, which at this moment hovers about me, perches on my shoulder or my paper, examines my writing, warms himself at the fire, or curiously peers through the window to see if the spring-time will not soon return?”
Writing of this description is possibly very magnificent, but it is not natural history. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If it is wicked of the falcon to devour a duck, I fail to see that it is virtuous of the robin to gobble up a worm.
But to return to the shrike. His beak is very falcon-like. The short, arched, upper mandible, with its pointed, downwardly-directed tip and strong projecting tooth, is a weapon admittedly adapted to the tearing-up of raw flesh. The butcher-bird waits for his quarry much as the buzzard does, sitting immobile on the highest branch of a bush or low tree, whence he scans the surface of the earth. Something moving on the ground arrests his attention. In an instant he has swooped and seized a grasshopper. A second later he is back on his perch, grasping his victim. I have already stated that shrikes feed upon small mammals, birds and reptiles, and large insects. These last make up by far the greater portion of his menu. Often have I watched the smaller species of Indian shrike obtaining a meal, but never have I seen any of these capture anything larger than an insect. Mr. W. Jesse says of the Indian grey shrike (Lanius lahtora)—the largest of our species: “It feeds on crickets, locusts, lizards, and the like. It may occasionally seize a sickly or a young bird, but I have never actually seen it do so.” Other observers have been more fortunate. Thus “Eha” says: “Sometimes it sees a possible chance in a flock of little birds absorbed in searching for grass seeds. Then it slips from its watch-tower and, gliding softly down, pops into the midst of them without warning, and strikes its talons into the nearest.” Similarly Benjamin Aitken writes: “The rufous-backed shrike, though not so large as the grey shrike, is a much bolder and fiercer bird. It will come down at once to a cage of small birds exposed at a window, and I once had an amadavat killed and partly eaten through the wires by one of these shrikes which I saw in the act with my own eyes. The next day I caught the shrike in a large basket, which I had set over the cage of amadavats. On another occasion I exposed a rat in a cage for the purpose of attracting a hawk, and in a few minutes found a Lanius erythronotus fiercely attacking the cage on all sides.”
I am disposed to regard such cases as the exceptions which prove the rule that the food of, at any rate, the smaller species of shrike, consists mainly of insects. This would explain why so few shrikes’ “larders” are discovered in India. Every popular book on natural history describes how the butcher-bird, having killed his victim, impales it upon a thorn, and leaves it there to grow tender preparatory to devouring it. I have not been lucky enough to come across one of these larders. Other naturalists have been more fortunate, and we may take it as an established fact that even the smaller Indian species of butcher-birds sometimes impale their victims on thorns. The existence of such larders is easily accounted for. When the little butcher captures a victim so large that it has to be torn to pieces before consumption, he has to find some method of fixing it while tearing it up. He is not heavy enough to pin it to the ground with his talons, as a raptorial bird does, so must perforce utilise the fork of a tree or a large thorn. Having taken his fill, he flies away, leaving the remains of his dinner impaled on the thorn, where it is discovered by some enterprising ornithologist.
Fifteen species of Lanius are described as existing in India. Of these the three most commonly seen are the rufous-backed, the bay-backed, and the grey species.
The rufous-backed shrike (Lanius erythronotus) is the only butcher-bird that is abundant on the Bombay side. It is about the size of a bulbul. It sits bolt upright, with tail pointing to the ground, and in this attitude watches for its quarry. It has a grey head, with a conspicuous broad black band—the mark of the butcher-bird community—running through the eye. Its back is reddish brown. It has a white shirt-front, which makes it easy to see; moreover, it always sits on an exposed perch. To mistake a shrike is impossible. There is no other fowl like unto it.
The bay-backed species (L. vittatus) is a somewhat smaller bird, but is very like erythronotus in appearance. It may, however, be distinguished at a glance when on the wing by the white in the wings and tail.
The third common species—the Indian grey shrike (L. lahtora)—has the whole of the back grey, and thus is recognisable without difficulty.
The nest of the butcher-bird is an untidy, cup-shaped structure, from which pieces of rag frequently hang down. As often as not it is built in a thorny tree, and, by preference, pressed up close against the trunk. Baby shrikes make their début into the world during the hot weather.
One evening in August I was “on the prowl” with a pair of field-glasses, when I came across a tree from which emanated the twittering of many green bee-eaters (Merops viridis). As the sun was about to set, it was evident that these alluring little birds were getting ready to go to sleep. Most birds seem to roost in company. They do so presumably for the sake of companionship, warmth, and, perhaps, protection. To my mind there is no sight more amusing than that of a number of little birds going to bed, so I turned aside to watch these emerald bee-eaters. The tree in question was an isolated one, growing at the side of a field. I do not know its name, but it was about twenty feet high, with fairly dense foliage, the leaves being in colouring and shape not unlike those of the rose. The bee-eaters in the tree were making a great noise; all were twittering at the top of their musical little voices, and, as there were certainly more than forty of them, to say nothing of some other birds, the clamour may be imagined. From a little distance it sounded like the calling of many cicadas. The birds were evidently busy selecting perches on which to pass the night, and there was, as there seems always to be on such occasions, a certain amount of squabbling. I was going to say “fighting,” but perhaps that would be too strong a word to use for this scramble for places. At times, indeed, the scramble would develop into a fight, and two birds emerge snapping at one another. Once outside they would desist from fighting and return to the tree. Occasionally a bee-eater would dart out of the tree, and make a sally after some flying insect, and, having caught it with a loud snap of its mandibles, return to the tree and disappear into the “leafy bower.” While this was going on amid the foliage, fresh bee-eaters kept coming in from a distance, mostly in pairs. These all made direct for the tree, evidently knowing it well.
I crept up to within about six yards of the dormitory, so as to witness as much as possible of what was going on amongst the leaves.
Some of the birds looked as though they had settled down for the night, since they were quite quiet. Two, in particular, had taken up a position, side by side, close up against one another on a somewhat isolated bough. They sat there quite still except for an occasional turn of the head, which seemed to express surprise and annoyance at the clamour of their fellows. Several other individuals had settled down in the same manner, in rows of two or more, huddled as close as possible together, each row being on a separate branch.
I noticed one line of eight bee-eaters, squeezed up against one another, and very pretty did the eight little heads look. But these rows were subjected to constant disturbance, and were continually being broken up and re-formed. The disturbances came both from within and from without. One of a row, usually the outside one (outside berths are not appreciated by the bird-folk), would suddenly determine to better his position, which he would seek to do by hopping on to his neighbour’s back, and trying to wedge himself in between him and the next bird. This would be resented by the aforesaid neighbour, who would try to shake off the intruder, and the struggle that ensued would, as often as not, result in the break-up of the whole row. Birds that had not already found suitable perches would join rows already in existence. This was a constant source of disturbance. Perhaps four bee-eaters would be sitting on a bough which their weight caused to hang horizontally, then a fifth bird would take it into his little head to alight at the extreme tip of the branch, and bear it down to such an extent that those already on it had to grip hard to maintain their equilibrium. It must be very disconcerting and annoying to a sleepy little bird when the angle of its perch is suddenly changed by fifteen or twenty degrees!
While I was watching all this some village boys caught sight of me, and, with the curiosity so characteristic of the Punjabi, came up to see what I was looking at. Shortly after their arrival one of them showed his country manners by clearing his throat with such violence as to frighten all the bee-eaters out of the tree in which they were settling down for the night! Some flew to a neighbouring tree, but the majority circled in the air with loud twitterings. Within less than three minutes, however, all were back again, trying to find suitable perches. Before they had half settled down a boy again disturbed them. This was obviously done to annoy me, so I sent the urchins about their business. All the bee-eaters were back again almost immediately. By this time the sun had disappeared below the horizon, a fact which the birds seemed to appreciate, judging by the celerity with which they settled down. It soon grew so dark that I could scarcely distinguish the birds from the foliage which they resemble so much in hue. But for the black streak through the eye I should not have been able to do so. I now crept up under the tree, and was able, by looking up, to distinguish little groups of bee-eaters huddled together. I noticed several couples, two rows of three, four rows of four, and one of five. The tails projected from behind, and by counting these I was able to determine the number in a row. I noticed that the tails were not parallel; some were crossed by others, showing that the birds do not roost so closely packed as they appear to be when looked at from the front. Birds are composed largely of feathers, so that it is easy for them to have the appearance of being packed like sardines in a tin when in reality they have plenty of room.
All the birds in a row faced the same way, but some rows looked one way and others another.
Bee-eaters do not sleep with the head under the wing, as some birds do, but are content to allow it to drop into their downy shoulders.
The little company did not all roost at the same elevation, but none slept on the lowest branches, nor could I distinguish any on the highest boughs. I should say that all the birds roost in the middle zone of the tree. The branches selected were not necessarily those where the foliage was thickest, nor, so far as I could make out, where the sleeping birds would be best protected from dew and rain. As it rained very heavily in the night in question, some of those bee-eaters must have had a nocturnal shower-bath.
It is the misfortune of owls that they are universally unpopular. They are heartily detested by their fellow-birds, who never miss an opportunity of mobbing them. They are looked upon with superstitious dread by the more ignorant classes all the world over. Jews and Gentiles, Christians and heathens, alike hate them. Owls are thought to be “death birds,” “foul precursors of the fiend,” “birds whose breath brings sickness, and whose note is death,” death’s dreadful messengers, Satan’s chapprassis, the devil’s poultry. Poets join with the vulgar plebs in showering abusive epithets upon them. Owls are gibbering, moping, dull, ghastly, gloomy, fearful, cruel, fatal, dire, foul, baleful, boding, grim, sullen birds, birds of mean degree and evil omen. The naturalist is, however, above the vulgar and ill-founded prejudice against the “sailing pirates of the night.” To him, owls are birds of peculiar fascination and surpassing interest. They are of peculiar fascination because he has learned comparatively little about their habits. We day folk have but a slender knowledge of the lives of the creatures of the night. To most of us owls are voces, et præterea nihil—voices which are the reverse of pleasant. Owls are of surpassing interest to the naturalist on account of their perfect adaptation to a peculiar mode of life.
The owl is a bird of prey which seeks its quarry by night, a “cat on wings,” as Phil Robinson hath it. A master of the craft of night-hunting must of necessity possess exceptional eyesight. His sense of hearing too must be extraordinarily acute, for in the stillness of the night it is the ear rather than the eye that is relied upon to detect the presence of that which is sought. Another sine qua non of owl existence is the power of silent progression. Were the flight of owls noisy, like that of crows and other large birds, their victims would hear them coming, and so be able to make good their escape. He who hunts in the night has to take his quarry by surprise. Everyone must have noticed the great staring orbs of the owl. Like the wolf in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, it has large eyes in order the better to see its victim. The eye of the owl is both large and rounded, and the pupil is big for the size of the eye in order to admit as much moonlight as possible. The visual organs of the owl are made for night work, and so are unsuited to the hours of sunlight. Ordinary daylight is probably as trying to the owl as the glare of the noonday sun in the desert is to human beings. But it is not correct to speak of the owl as blind during the day. He can see quite well. He behaves stupidly when evicted from his shady haunts in the daytime because he is momentarily blinded, just as we human beings are when we suddenly plunge from the darkened bungalow into the midday sun of an Indian June. I have seen owls of various species either sitting on a perch or flying about quite happily at midday.
The chief reason why most owls are so strictly nocturnal is because they are intensely unpopular among the birds of the day. These give them a bad time whenever they venture forth. In this the crows take the lead. Crows, like London cads, are intensely conservative. They hate the sight of any curious-looking or strangely dressed person. Put on a Cawnpore tent club helmet, and walk for a mile in the East End of London, and you will learn the kind of treatment to which owls are subjected by their fellow-birds when they venture forth by day. Mr. Evans, writing of the owl in his volume, The Songs of Birds, says: “There is some sad secret, which we do not know, which no bird has yet divulged to us, and which seems to have made him an outcast from the society of birds of the day. He is branded with perpetual infamy.” I trust that Mr. Evans will not take it ill if I state that there is no secret in the matter. Diurnal birds are not aware that the country is full of owls, so that when one of these appears they regard it as an intruder, a new addition to the local fauna, to extirpate which is their bounden duty. When a cockatoo escapes from its cage the local birds mob it quite as viciously as they do the owl.
Another peculiarity of the owl lies in the position of its eyes. These are forwardly directed. In most birds the eyes are placed at the side of the head, so that owls alone among the feathered folk can truly be said to possess faces. The position of a bird’s eyes is not the result of chance or accident. A creature whose eyes are forwardly directed can see better ahead of him than he could were they placed at the sides of the head, but he cannot see what is going on behind his back. Animals whose eyes are at the side of the head have a much wider range of vision, for the areas covered by their visual organs do not overlap. Such creatures cannot see quite so well things in front of them, but can witness much of what is going on behind them. They are therefore better protected from a rear attack than they would be did their eyes face forwards. The result of this is that, if we divide birds and beasts into those which hunt and those which are hunted, we notice that in the latter the tendency is for the eyes to be placed at the sides of the head. They thereby enjoy a wider range of vision, while in the former the tendency is for the eyes to be so situated as to enable them best to espy their quarry. Compare the position of the eyes in the tiger and the ox, in the eagle and the sparrow. The tiger and eagle have little fear of being attacked, so have thrown caution to the winds and concentrated their energies to equipping themselves for attack. In owls the eyes are more forwardly directed than in the diurnal birds of prey, because they have to hunt their quarry under more difficult conditions. Even when its ears inform the owl that there is some creature near by, it requires the keenest eyesight to detect what this is. The position of a bird’s eyes is determined by natural selection. With colour and such-like trifles natural selection has but little to do. It works on broad lines. It determines certain limits within which variations are permissible; it does not go into details. So far as it is concerned, an organism may vary considerably, provided the limits it defines are not transgressed. This statement will not meet with the approval of ultra-Darwinians, but I submit that it is nevertheless in accordance with facts. If we try to account for every trivial feature in every bird and beast on the principle of natural selection, we soon find ourselves lost in a maze of difficulties.
It is because the eyes of owls are forwardly-directed that they are such easy birds to mob. They can see only in one direction—a limitation which day-birds have discovered. The result is that when the owls do venture forth during the daytime, they come in for rough handling. The position of the eyes in the owl would lead us to infer that the bird has but few enemies to fear, and, so far as I am aware, there is no creature which preys on them, except, of course, the British gamekeeper. Why, then, are owls not more numerous than they are in those countries where there are no gamekeepers to vex their souls? The population of owls must of course be limited by the abundance of their quarry. But there is more than enough food to satisfy the hunger of the existing owls. What, then, keeps down their numbers? Mr. F. C. Selous has asked a similar question with regard to lions in Africa. Even before the days of the express rifle lions were comparatively scarce, while the various species of deer roamed about the country in innumerable herds. The answer must, I think, be found in the intensity of the struggle for existence. Nature balances things with such nicety that the beasts of prey have their work cut out to secure their food. The quarry is there in abundance; the difficulty is to catch it. If this be so, it follows that the weaker, the less swift, the less skilled of the predaceous creatures must starve to death. In that case the lot of birds and beasts of prey is a less happy one than that of their victims. These latter are usually able to find food in abundance, and death comes suddenly and unexpectedly upon them when they are in the best of health. How much better is such an end than death due to starvation?
In most birds the opening of the auditory organ is small; in owls it is very large and is protected by a movable flap of skin, which probably aids the bird in focussing sounds. In many species of owl the two ear-openings are asymmetrical and differ in shape and size. This arrangement is probably conducive to the accurate location of sound. Want of space debars me from further dilating upon the wonderful ear of the owl.
In conclusion, mention must be made of the flexible wing feathers, and their soft, downy edges. Air rushing through these makes no sound. Hence the ear may not hear, but