Some American millionaires are said to sleep for only three hours out of the twenty-four. I do not believe this; I regard the story as a fabrication of the halfpenny paper. But, even if it be true, the night heron (Nycticorax griseus) is able to eclipse the performance. That bird only sleeps when it has nothing better to do. It looks upon sleep as a luxury, not a necessity. As its name implies, it is a creature of the night; but it is equally a day bird. You will never catch it napping. Just before sunset, when the crows, wearied by the iniquities they have wrought during the day, are wending their way to the corvine dormitory, the night herons sally forth from the trees (“roosts” would be a misnomer for them) in which they have spent the day and betake themselves, in twos and threes, to the water’s edge. As they fly they make the welkin ring with their cries of waak, waak, or quaal, quaal—sounds which may be likened to the quacking of a distressed duck. Having arrived at their feeding-ground, they separate and proceed to catch fish and frogs in the manner of the orthodox heron. After an all-night sitting, or rather standing, in shallow water, they return to their day quarters, where they are popularly supposed to sleep. They may possibly spend the day in slumber when they have neither nests to build nor young to feed. I am not in a position to deny this, never having visited a heronry on such an occasion. I speak, however, as one having authority when I say that all through the nesting season the night heron works harder during the hours of daylight than the British workman does. At the present time (April) thirty or forty night herons are engaged in nesting operations in the tall trees that grow on the islands in the ornamental pond that graces the Lahore Zoological Gardens, and as I visit those gardens almost daily I have had some opportunity of observing the behaviour of our night bird during the daytime. I may here say that night herons seem very partial to Zoological Gardens, inasmuch as they also resort to the Calcutta “Zoo” for nesting purposes. This is, of course, as it should be. Every well-conditioned bird should bring up its family in a “zoo” by preference. Had birds the sense to understand this, many of them would be spared the miseries of captivity.
Before discoursing upon its nesting habits it is fitting that I should try to describe the night heron, so that the bird may be recognised when next seen. I presume that everyone knows what a heron looks like, but possibly there exist persons who would be at a loss to say wherein it differs from a stork or a crane. It may be readily distinguished from the latter by its well-developed hind toe. Storks and herons are perching waders, while cranes do not trust themselves to trees because they cannot perch, having no hind toe to grasp with. The heron’s bill is flatter and more dagger-shaped than that of a stork. Moreover the former possesses, inside the middle claw, a little comb, which the stork lacks. The heron flies with neck drawn in, head pressed against the back, and beak pointing forwards. It never sails in the air, but progresses, like the flying-fox, with a steady, continuous flapping motion. So much for herons in general. To those who would learn more of these and other long-legged fowls I commend Mr. Frank Finn’s excellent little book, entitled How to Know the Indian Waders.
The night heron is considerably smaller than the common heron—the heron we see in England, and larger than the Indian paddy bird—the ubiquitous fowl that looks brown when it is standing and white when it is flying. The head and back of the night heron are black, the remainder of the upper plumage is grey, the lower parts are white. There are two or three long, white, narrow feathers, which grow from the back of the head and hang down like a pigtail. The eye is rich ruby-red. Young night herons are brown with yellowish spots, and the eye is deep yellow.
Any resident of Madras may see this species if he repair to the Redhills Tank. One of the islands in that tank supports a considerable population of night herons and little cormorants. The former nest in the trees on the island in July. The place is well worth visiting then. As the boat carrying a human being approaches the islet, all the night herons fly away without a sound. They love their young, but not so much as they love themselves, so they leave their offspring at the first approach of the human visitor and remain away until he turns his back on their nesting-ground. A night heron never allows his valour to get the better of his discretion. The nest is a platform of twigs placed anywhere in a tree. Four pale greenish-blue eggs are laid. A heronry is a filthy place. The possessors are, like our Indian brethren, utterly regardless of the principles of sanitation. The whole island will be found white with the droppings of the birds, and the unsavoury smell that emanates therefrom would do credit to a village inhabited by chamars. Although they are evil-tempered, cantankerous creatures, night herons always nest in company. It is no uncommon thing to find half a dozen nests in the same tree, so that the sitting birds are able to compare notes while engaged in the duties of incubation. Both the parent birds take part in nest construction, and, as they work by day, it is quite easy to watch the process. They wrench small branches from trees, and, as they have only the beak with which to grasp these, they find twig-gathering hard work. When a twig has been secured it is dropped on to the particular part of the tree in which the bird has thought fit to build. Forty or fifty twigs dropped haphazard in a heap constitute the nest. The birds make a great noise while engaged in building. Quarrels are of frequent occurrence. It sometimes happens that two birds want the same twig; this invariably gives rise to noisy altercation. The crows too are provocative of much bad language on the part of the night herons. Whenever any of the crows of the neighbourhood has nothing else to do, he says to a kindred spirit: “Come, let us worry the night herons.” Whereupon the pair—Arcades ambo—go and pretend to show the herons how to build a nest.
When, my friends, you consider the untidiness and filthiness of the heron’s nest, you will be able to appreciate to the full the audacity of the latest falsehood circulated by the plume trade—to wit, the egret plucks out its nuptial plumes, which constitute the “osprey” of commerce, and weaves these into the nest to make it more cosy; and, after the young ones are fledged, some honest fellow visits the nest and disentangles the plumes therefrom!
A baby heron is a disgustingly ugly creature. It is a living caricature. Patches of long hair-like feathers are studded, apparently haphazard, over its otherwise naked body and give it an indescribably grotesque appearance. It looks like a bird in its dotage. If you lift a young heron out of the nest you will probably find that his “corporation” is distended to bursting-point, and, if you do not handle him carefully, a half-digested frog will, as likely as not, drop out of him!
The farther north one goes the earlier in the year does the night heron breed. In Kashmir the nesting season is in full swing in March. In the Punjab April and May are the nesting months; in Madras the birds do not begin to build until July; and I have seen eggs at the end of August. It is my belief that the night heron is a migratory bird. During the winter months not a single specimen of that species is to be seen in or about Lahore, but they migrate there regularly every April. They disappear again to I know not where when they have reared up their young.
Birds may be divided into two classes—those which build nests and those which do not. To the latter belong the parasitic starlings and cuckoos, which drop their eggs in the nests of other birds; those, such as plovers, which lay their eggs on the bare ground; and those which deposit them in holes, in the earth, in trees, in banks, or in buildings, as, for example, the Indian roller or blue jay (Coracias indica).
Intermediate between the birds that build nests and those which do not—for there are no sudden transitions, no sharply defined lines of division in nature—are those birds which merely furnish, more or less cosily, the ready-made holes in which they deposit their eggs. The common myna (Acridotheres tristis) affords a familiar instance of this class of birds. Some of the nest-builders are really excavators; they dig out their nests in a tree or bank. The woodpeckers and the bee-eaters are examples of these. The rest of the nest-builders actually construct their nurseries. These buildings are of various degrees of complexity. Crows, doves, birds of prey, herons, and a few other families are content with a mere platform of sticks and twigs, which rests in the fork of a tree, or on a ledge or other suitable surface. The birds which build primitive nests of this description are not put to the trouble of seeking or manufacturing any cohesive materials. It is only when the nest takes some definite shape and form that means have to be found of binding together the materials of which it is composed, and of attaching the whole to that which supports the nest. In such cases the component materials are either woven or cemented together. It is among the woven nests that we find the highest examples of avian architecture. The homes of the weaver-bird (Ploceus baya) and of the Indian wren-warbler (Prinia inornata) are constructed with a skill that defies competition. But it is not with these wonderful nests that we are concerned to-day. It must suffice to say that woven nests have to be supported; they cannot float in the air. There are various methods of supporting them. The nest may be firmly wedged into a forked branch. It may be bound to its supports, as in the case of the nest of the king crow (Dicrurus ater). The supporting branches may be worked into its structure, as is done by Prinia inornata. The nest may hang, as does that of Ploceus baya. It may be cemented to its support, as in the case of the nests of the various swifts; or it may rest on supporting fibres which are slung on to a forked branch, just as a prawn net is slung on to its frame. The golden oriole (Oriolus kundoo) resorts to this ingenious device.
Coming now to those nurseries in which the building materials are cemented together, we must first consider the nests of the swallows and swifts. These birds secrete a very sticky saliva, which quickly hardens when it is exposed to the air. This constitutes an excellent cement. Watch a swift working at its nest under the eaves of a house. It flies to it with a feather or piece of straw carried far back in the angle of its mouth, hangs itself by means of its four forwardly directed toes on to the half-completed nest, which is stuck on to the wall of the house, and, having carefully placed the feather or straw in the required position, holds it there until the sticky saliva it has poured over it has had time to harden and thus firmly glue the added piece of material to the nest. The bits of straw, feathers, etc., may be said to constitute the bricks, and the saliva the cement of the swift’s nest. Some swifts build their nests exclusively of their saliva. These constitute the “edible birds’ nests” of commerce, and may be likened to houses built entirely of cement. The martin (Chelidon urbica), the common swallow (Hirundo rustica), and the wire-tailed swallow (H. smithii) construct their nests of clay and saliva. They repair to some puddle and there gather moist clay, which they stick on to some building, so as to form a projecting saucer-shaped shelf. In this the eggs are laid. But nature has not vouchsafed sticky saliva to all birds, so that many of them have to find their cement just as they have to seek out the other building materials they use.
The chestnut-bellied nuthatch (Sitta castaneiventris), which nestles in holes in trees, fills up all but a small part of the entrance with mud “consolidated with some viscid seed of a parasitical plant.”
The hornbills close up the greater part of the orifice of the hole in which they nest with their droppings mixed with a little earth.
Hume informs us the rufous-fronted wren-warbler (Franklinia buchanani) utilises a fungus as its cement. “In all the nests that I have seen,” he writes, “the egg-cavity has been lined with something very soft. In many of the nests the lining is composed of soft, felt-like pieces of some dull salmon-coloured fungus, with which the whole interior is closely plastered.”
The cement which is most commonly used is cobweb. I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that cobweb enters extensively into the structure of the nests of more than one hundred species of Indian birds. What birds would do without our friend the spider I cannot imagine.
The nest of some birds is literally a house of cobwebs. The beautiful white-browed fan-tail fly-catcher (Rhipidura albifrontata) is a case in point. Its nursery is so thickly plastered with cobweb as to sometimes look quite white. It is a tiny cup that rests on a branch of a bush or small tree, and is composed of fine twigs and roots, which are cemented to the supporting branch and to one another by cobweb. This the bird takes from the webs of those trap-door spiders which weave large nets on the ground.
Utterly regardless of the feelings of the possessor of the web, the fly-catcher takes beakful after beakful of it, and smears it over the part of the branch on which the nest will rest. It then sticks to this some dried grass stems or other fine material, next adds more cobweb, and continues in this manner until the neat little cup-shaped nest is completed. This, as I have already said, is thickly coated exteriorly with cobweb to give it additional strength.
The sunbirds or honeysuckers make nearly as extensive use of cobweb in nest construction as do the fan-tailed fly-catchers. Loten’s honeysucker (Arachnechthra lotenia) seeks until it finds a large spider’s web stretched horizontally across some bush; it then proceeds to build its nursery in the middle of this. As the material is added the nest grows heavier, and thus depresses the middle of the web until it at last assumes the shape of a V, in the angle of which the mango-shaped nest is situated. The nursery is thus suspended from the bush by the four corners of the cobweb.
A spider’s web looks such a flimsy affair that it does not seem possible that it could support a nest peopled by a number of birds. Sometimes the nest derives additional support by being attached to other branches. Moreover, a tiny creature such as a sunbird is almost as light as the proverbial feather. Then cobweb is exceedingly elastic, and, considering its attenuity, is able to support a surprising amount of weight. It occasionally happens that the common garden spider (Epeira diadema) is not able to find a point d’appui to which it can attach the lower part of its web; it then utilises a stone (which may be as much as a quarter-inch in each dimension) as a plummet to make the nest taut. This comparatively heavy stone hangs by a single thread.
I have sometimes amused myself by testing the strength of a strand of cobweb stretched across a path, by hanging bits of match or other light material on it. In one experiment a gossamer thread, thirty feet in length, stretched across a road, bore the weight of five blades of grass which were hung upon it. The sixth blade proved to be the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
The strength of cobweb is proved by the fact that many of the birds that build hanging nests use it as cement to attach them to the supports from which they are suspended. The Indian white-eye (Zosterops palbebrosa) fixes its tiny oriole-like nest to the supporting branches, not by fibres, but by cobweb. In the same way the yellow-eyed babbler (Pyctorhis sinensis), whose nest is shaped like an inverted cone, attaches this by cobweb to the stems of the crop in which it is situated.
The common honeysucker (Arachnechthra asiatica), whose nest looks like a tangle of dried twigs and other rubbish, uses much cobweb in the construction thereof. The little nursery is suspended by means of cobweb from some projecting branch of a bush, and the various materials which compose it are stuck together with spider’s web; but in this case some sticky resinous substance is usually used in addition to the cobweb.
The tailor-bird (Orthotomous sutorius) always uses cobweb to draw together the edges of the leaf or leaves that compose its nest. Having made a series of punctures along the edges of the leaf to be utilised, it procures some cobweb, and, having attached it to one edge of the leaf, carries the strand across to the other edge and, before attaching it to this, pulls it so tightly as to draw the two edges together. When the nest has taken its final shape the bird strengthens the first attenuated strands of cobweb by adding more cobweb or some threads of cotton.
Many birds which weave their nests plaster the exterior more or less thickly with cobweb so as to add strength to the structure.
It would be wearisome to detail all the kinds of nest into the composition of which cobweb enters. Sufficient has been said to show that this very useful substance is the favourite cement of bird masons.
There exist in the Indian Empire no fewer than fifty-one species of fly-catcher. This fact speaks volumes for the wealth of both the bird and the insect population of India. Fly-catchers are little birds that feed exclusively on insects, which they secure on the wing. Their habit is to take up a strategic position on some perch, usually the bare branch of a tree, whence they make sallies into the air after their quarry. Having secured the object of their sortie—and this they never fail to do—they return to their perch. A fly-catcher will sometimes make over a hundred of these little flights in the course of an hour; the appetite of an insectivorous bird appears to be insatiable. All fly-catchers obtain their food in this manner, but all birds which behave thus are not members of the fly-catcher family. As fly-catchers are characterised by rather weak legs, and, in consequence, do not often descend to the ground, they are of necessity confined to parts of the country well supplied with trees. Thus it comes to pass that the great majority of fly-catchers are found only in well-wooded hill tracts. Four or five species, however, occur commonly in the plains. With two of these—the glorious paradise fly-catchers (Terpsiphone) and the very elegant fan-tail fly-catchers (Rhipidura)—I have dealt in my former books. I therefore propose to confine myself to some of the many other species. Of these last, the brown fly-catcher (Alseonax latirostris) is the one most frequently met with in the plains. This is the most inornate of all the fly-catchers. As its name implies, brown is its prevailing hue. Its lower parts are, indeed, whitish, and there is an inconspicuous ring of white feathers round the eye, but everything else about it is earthy brown. It is the kind of bird the casual observer is likely to pass over, or, if he does happen to observe it, he probably sets it down as one of the scores of warblers that visit India in the cold weather. It is only when the bird makes a sudden dash into the air after an insect that one realises that it is a fly-catcher. The brown fly-catcher is an Ishmaelite. It seems never to remain for long in one place, and, although it may be seen at all times of the year, its nest does not appear ever to have been found in this country.
A more ornamental fly-catcher which occasionally visits the plains is the grey-headed fly-catcher (Culicapa ceylonensis). In this species the head, neck, and breast are ash-coloured, the wings and tail are dark brown, the back greenish yellow, and the lower parts dull yellow. This fly-catcher is common both in the Nilgiris and the Himalayas. It has the usual habits of the family. Like the majority of them it is no songster, although it frequently emits a cheeping note. Its nest is a very beautiful structure, a ball of moss which is attached to a moss-covered tree or rock, more often than not near a mountain stream.
Fly-catchers usually nidificate in the neighbourhood of water, because that element favours the existence of their insect food.
Siphia parva—the European red-breasted fly-catcher—is a species which visits the plains of India in the cold weather, but not many individuals penetrate so far south as Madras. This bird is easily recognised, since the cock bears a strong likeness to the familiar English robin red-breast. I may here mention that an allied species—the Indian red-breasted fly-catcher, S. hyperythra—summers in Kashmir and winters in Ceylon, but, curiously enough, it has not been recorded from the plains of India. It would thus seem to fly from Kashmir to Ceylon in a single night. Even so, it would be very extraordinary if an occasional individual did not fail to perform the whole journey in so short a space of time; therefore, this species should be watched for in South India in spring and autumn. It is easily distinguished from allied species by a black band which surrounds the red breast and abdomen.
As it is impossible to detail in one brief essay all the species of fly-catcher found in the Indian hills, I propose merely to mention those that are most common in the Nilgiris and the Himalayas, and then to make a few observations on fly-catchers in general. In addition to the fan-tail, the grey-headed and the brown fly-catchers, the following species are abundant in the Nilgiris: Tickell’s blue fly-catcher (Cyornis tickelli), the Nilgiri blue fly-catcher (Stoparola albicaudata), and the black and orange fly-catcher (Ochromela nigrirufa). In the Himalayas, the paradise fly-catcher is common in summer at lower altitudes. Above 6000 feet elevation the following are the species most commonly seen: the grey-headed fly-catcher, the white-browed blue fly-catcher (Cyornis superciliaris), and the beautiful verditer fly-catcher (Stoparola melanops), which is no mean songster.
Fly-catchers form a most interesting group of birds. It is, I maintain, quite impossible for any man possessed of a logical mind to contemplate this family without discovering that the theory of natural selection is utterly inadequate to account for the variety of animal life that exists upon the earth. The habits of practically all the fly-catchers are identical. They all dwell in an arboreal habitat; nevertheless, the various species display great dissimilarity in outward appearance. Some species are brightly plumaged, others are as dully clad as a bird can possibly be. Some have crests and long tails, others lack these ornaments. The adult cock paradise fly-catcher, with his long, white, satin-like tail feathers, is the most striking of birds, while the brown fly-catcher is less conspicuously attired than a hen sparrow. This is not the only difficulty presented to the theory of natural selection by fly-catchers. In some species, as, for example, the paradise fly-catcher, the sexes are altogether dissimilar in appearance, while in others the most practised eye cannot distinguish between the cock and the hen. Nor does there appear to be any connection between nesting habits and the presence or absence of sexual dimorphism. The fan-tail fly-catchers, in which the sexes are alike, and the paradise fly-catchers, in which they differ widely, both build little cup-shaped nests in the lower branches of trees, and in both the cock shares with the hen the duty of incubation. Again, the verditer and the white-browed blue fly-catchers build their nests in holes in trees; yet in the former both sexes are blue, while in the latter the cock only is blue.
Further, in the fly-catchers we see every gradation of sexual dimorphism, from a difference so slight as to be perceptible only when the sexes are seen side by side, to a difference so great as to make it difficult to believe that the sexes belong to one and the same species. It must, therefore, be obvious to any sane person that neither natural nor sexual selection can be directly responsible for the colouration of many species of fly-catcher.
Another interesting characteristic of the fly-catchers is the total absence of green in the plumage of any of them. They are birds of a variety of colours; they display many shades of blue, yellow, orange, red, grey, and brown, also black and white; but not one carries any green feathers. Yet they are essentially arboreal birds, so that green would be a very useful colour to them from the point of view of protection from enemies. From the fact, then, that none of the fly-catchers are green, we seem to be compelled to infer that there is something in their constitution that prevents green variations appearing in their plumage.
In conclusion, note must be made of the fact that fly-catchers, although they subsist almost entirely upon insect diet, appear but rarely to devour butterflies. I have watched fly-catchers closely for several years, and have on two occasions only seen them chase butterflies or moths. Five years ago in Madras I observed a paradise fly-catcher chasing a small butterfly, and recently, in the Himalayas, I saw a grey-headed fly-catcher drop down from a tree and seize a moth that was resting in the gutter. The reason why fly-catchers do not often attack butterflies is obvious; these insects offer very little meat and a great deal of indigestible wing surface. Nevertheless, the theory of protective mimicry is almost exclusively illustrated by examples taken from butterflies. In theory, these creatures are so relentlessly persecuted by insectivorous birds that in order to escape their foes many edible butterflies mimic the appearance of unpalatable species. Unfortunately for theory, few creatures in practice seem to attack butterflies when on the wing, which is just the time when the “mimicry” is most obvious.
The elegant little fly-catchers, then, are birds which mock Darwin, laugh at Wallace, and make merry at the expense of Muller and Bates!
Fly-Catchers, although they subsist almost entirely on insects, are by no means the only insectivorous creatures in existence. They merely form a considerable branch of the Noble Society of Insect Hunters.
If there exist any philosophers in the insect world they must find the uncertainty of life a fitting theme on which to lavish their philosophical rhetoric. Consider for a moment the precariousness of the life of an insect! There exist in India probably over three hundred species of birds which live almost exclusively upon an insect diet. Think of the mortality among insects caused by these birds alone, by the mynas, the swifts, the bee-eaters, the king crows, et hoc genus omne. Then there are insectivorous mammals, to say nothing of man who yearly destroys millions of injurious and parasitic hexapods. Fish too are very partial to insects, while for spiders, frogs, and lizards, life without insects would be impossible. Nor do the troubles of insects end here, they are preyed upon by their own kind, and, strange phenomenon, some plants entrap and destroy them. But we Anglo-Indians cannot afford to sympathise with the insects. In spite of the high mortality of the hexapod tribes, they flourish like the green bay-tree. So prolific are they that, notwithstanding the fact that millions are daily destroyed by their foes, the life of human beings in India becomes a burden on account of the creeping things. In the monsoon the insects tax man almost to the limits of his endurance—they teaze, bite, and worry his person, they destroy his worldly goods, and, not content with this, find their way into his food and drink. For this reason I feel very kindly disposed to the frogs, the lizards, and the fly-catching birds.
It is worth coming to India if only to see a frog or toad at work. Go at sunset, during a break in the rains, on to the chabutra, and place a lamp near you. Thousands of insects of all shapes and sizes are attracted by the light. In their wake come the toads. A toad always looks blasé. His stupid appearance and sluggish movements give him this air. Watch him as he hops into the zone of light. He advances to within an inch of a resting insect, and, before you can say “Jack Robinson,” the creature has flown into his mouth! The toad takes another hop, and a second insect follows the example of the first; then another and another! Have the insects all suddenly gone mad? Are they bewitched, mesmerised by the ugly face of the toad? Nothing of the kind. The insects have not jumped into the amphibian’s mouth at all. The toad has a long tongue attached at the front end to its mouth. This tongue is covered with sticky saliva and is capable of being protruded and retracted with lightning rapidity. In other words, the toad’s tongue is just a fly-paper, capable of the most perfect manipulation. The unsuspecting insect is resting, and hears not the silent approach of its enemy. Suddenly it is caught up by a great sticky tentacle, then comes oblivion. The toad’s tongue has shot forth and back again so quickly as to be imperceptible to the human eye.
The lizard obtains its food in a similar way. It enters the bungalow and lies up during the day behind a picture. As soon as the lamps are lighted it comes forth as hungry as the proverbial hunter. In a single night it devours hundreds of insects. I have watched a lizard feeding in this way until he had consumed so many insects that he could scarcely move: and doubtless he would have continued his gluttonous meal but for the fact that he had become as slow as Mark Twain’s jumping frog after it had partaken copiously of shot! The lizard cannot shoot out his tongue to the extent that the frog can, so he has to make a dash at each insect before swallowing, and, to his credit, it must be said that he rarely lets a victim escape him unless, of course, he has over-eaten himself.
Although I am very fond of the nimble little gecko, I must admit that he is an out-and-out glutton. Sometimes his gluttony leads him to try to capture quarry beyond his capacity. Let me relate an amusing little incident that I recently witnessed. The scene was my dressing-table, and the time 9 p.m. in the month of August; the day I forget. It matters not. A large stag-beetle was crawling laboriously across the dressing-table. Upon this table was an ordinary looking-glass, under which a lizard had taken up his habitation. From his point of view the position was a good one, for the lamp overhead attracted to the table a number of insects which the lizard could watch from under the base of the glass.
The lizard caught sight of the beetle and began to stalk it. Surely, I thought, the lizard will not try to devour that beetle, which is nearly half as big as himself; but, as he emerged from under the glass, I saw that he meant business. Slowly but surely he gained upon the slow-moving beetle. Having arrived close up behind it, he shot forth his sticky tongue. The next moment the beetle found itself lying on a spot eight inches from where it had a second before stood, and the lizard was trembling in his lair. The reptile had apparently expected to find the beetle as soft and luscious as a strawberry, so the instant his tongue felt the hard, chitinous integument of the beetle he drew that organ back pretty smartly. But his tongue was so sticky that the beetle stuck to it for a moment, and so was thrown backwards over the reptile’s head. The lizard was startled at what had happened, so instinctively took cover. The insect too was scared nearly out of its wits, and did what most frightened insects do, that is to say, retracted its legs and remained perfectly motionless. When, however, several minutes passed and nothing happened, the beetle grew bold, and putting forth its legs, began again to crawl on its way. Directly it moved the lizard put himself on the qui vive, and even went so far as again to follow it, but, profiting by his recent experience, did not attempt a second time to swallow it. Thus the beetle passed off the stage.
Seeing that this particular lizard was not over sharp, I determined to play a little practical joke upon it. Taking a piece of black worsted, I rolled it up into a ball about the size of a fine, strapping blue-bottle fly, and, having attached a piece of cotton to it, I dangled this bait before the lizard. I succeeded in “drawing” him. He was on it before I could say “knife.”
In less than a second the worsted was in his mouth, but he dropped it like a hot potato, and then sulked under the looking-glass, apparently greatly annoyed at having been made a fool of twice in succession. The next day I chanced to come upon a toad, busy catching insects. Wondering whether he would be deceived, I threw on to the grass near him the end of a lighted cigarette which I had been smoking. He at once caught sight of it, and sat there looking at it intently for some seconds, and I began to think he would not fall into the trap, but the temptation was too strong, for he shot forth his tongue to seize it. He discovered that the “tongue is an unruly member” as he retracted the smarting organ.
It is therefore clear that some insect-hunters are ever ready to try experiments as regards food.
Fish too, when really hungry, do not appear to exercise much discrimination as to the nature of the “fly” they will take.
The swarming of the “white ants” is a red-letter day for the insect-eating animals, an annual harvest in which they revel. The mynas and the crows do not disdain to partake of this copious meal supplied by nature.
The latter are omnivorous birds; all is grist which comes to their mill—carrion, fruit, locusts, termites, fish, grain, and the crumbs which fall from man’s table.
The mynas too eat a variety of food, but they are first and foremost insectivorous birds. They are never so happy as when chasing grasshoppers on the grass. By preference they accompany cattle, strutting along beside these and catching in their beaks the insects as these latter jump into the air, frightened by the approach of the great quadruped.
The beautiful white cattle egrets (Bubulcus coromandus) in a similar way make buffaloes and kine act as their beaters.
The familiar king crow (Dicrurus ater) adopts two methods of insect-catching. The one he favours most is that of the fly-catcher. Sometimes, however, he attaches himself to a flock of mynas. In such cases he flies to the van of the flock and squats on the ground, regardless of the fact that by so doing his beautiful forked tail gets dusty. As the mynas approach, snatching up grasshoppers, they put up a number of flying insects, and these the king crow secures on the wing. As soon as the last of the mynas has passed by the king crow again flies to the van and repeats the performance.
In India almost every company of mynas has its attendant king crow. Usually the two species are on good terms, but sometimes the king crow gets “above himself,” and then there is trouble. The other day I saw a bank myna (Acridotheres fuscus) hop on to a king crow’s back and administer unto him chastisement in the shape of a couple of vigorous pecks on the back of the head. On being released the king crow did not attempt to retaliate, but flew meekly away.
Among the élite of the insect-hunters we must number the swifts. Strange birds are these. Not once in their lives do they set foot upon the ground. For hours at a time they pursue their speedy course through the thin air, snatching up, as they move at full speed, minute insects.
But even their powerful pinions cannot vibrate for ever, so at intervals they betake themselves to the verandah of some bungalow, and there hang on to the wall close under the roof. Their claws are simply hooks, and this is their rest—clinging to a smooth horizontal wall!
So long is the list of insect-hunters, and so varied are their methods, that I am unable to so much as mention many of them. I must content myself, in conclusion, with noticing the tits, cuckoo-shrikes, minivets, and white-eyes, which flit from leaf to leaf, picking up tiny insects; babblers and laughing thrushes, which spend the day rummaging among fallen leaves for insects; nuthatches and tree-creepers, which run up and down tree-trunks on the hunt for insects; and woodpeckers, which seize, by means of their sticky tongue, the insects they have, by a series of vigorous taps, frightened from their hiding-places in the bark.
Consider these, and you cannot but be impressed with the trials and troubles of an insect’s life!
Every Anglo-Indian is acquainted with the rose-coloured starling (Pastor roseus), although some may not know what to call it. Nevertheless, it is a bird of many aliases; to wit, the rosy pastor, the tillyer, the cholum bird, the jowaree bird, the mulberry bird, the locust-eater, the golabi maina. The head, neck, breast, wings, and tail are glossy black, while the remainder of the plumage is a pale salmon or faint rose-colour. The older the bird the more rosy it becomes, but the great majority are pale salmon, rather than pink.
Rose-coloured starlings are sociable birds. They go about in large companies, which sometimes number several thousand individuals. They are cold-weather visitors to India, spreading themselves all over the peninsula, being most abundant in the Deccan. In the north straggling flocks occur throughout the winter, but it is in April that they are seen in their thousands, preparatory to leaving the country for breeding purposes. These great gatherings tarry for a short time in Northern India while the mulberries and various grain crops are ripening. They seem to subsist chiefly upon these, whence some of their popular names, and the malice which the farmer bears them. They are undoubtedly a very great scourge to the latter, but they are not an unmixed pest, for they are said to devour locusts with avidity when the opportunity presents itself. Now, the slaying of a locust is a work of merit which ought to neutralise a multitude of sins.
The rosy starlings which occur in India are said to nest in Asia Minor. This may be so, but I am inclined to think that there must be some breeding-grounds nearer at hand, for these birds have been observed in India as late as July, and they are back with us again in September. To travel to Asia Minor, construct nests, lay eggs, hatch these out, rear up the young, and return to India with them, all within the space of two months, is an almost impossible feat. It is, of course, probable that the birds which remain in India so late as July do not return as early as September.
The large flocks of rosy starlings are quite a feature of spring in Northern India. On the principle that many hands make light work, a company of these birds experiences no difficulty in speedily thinning a crop of ripening corn. The starlings feed chiefly in the morning and before sunset. During the heat of the day they usually take a long rest, a habit for which the crop-watchers ought to be very thankful. When not feeding, rosy starlings usually congregate in hundreds in lofty trees which are almost bare of foliage. They then look like dried leaves. I have spoken of this as a rest, which is not strictly accurate. They certainly do not feed, but they constantly flit about from branch to branch, and do a great deal of feather preening, and, during the whole day, they give forth a joyful noise. Their note is a sibilant twitter which is not very loud; indeed, considering the efforts put into it, there is remarkably little result, but the notes are so persistent, and so many birds talk at once, that they can be heard from afar. The song of the rosy starling is not musical, not more so than the “chitter, chitter” of a flock of sparrows at bed-time, yet it is not displeasing to the ear. There is an exuberance in it which is most attractive. It cannot be conversational, for all the birds talk at once, and their notes lack expression and variety. Their clamour is not unlike the singing of the kettle as it stands on the hob; in each case the sound is caused by the letting off of superfluous energy. Starlings literally bubble over with animal spirits. There can be no question as to their enjoyment of life.
Rosy starlings are the favourite game birds of the natives of Northern India, for they are very good to eat and easy to shoot. When a thousand of them are perched in a bare tree, a shot fired into “the brown” usually secures a number of victims. It is, therefore, not difficult to obtain a big bag. Needless to say, the natives shoot these birds sitting. The way in which Europeans persist in firing only at flying objects is utterly incomprehensible to the average Indian; he regards it as part of the magnificent madness which is the mark of every sahib. I once asked a native Shikari if he had ever fired at a flying bird. He was a gruff old man, and not afraid to express his feelings. He looked me up and down with eyes filled with withering contempt, and said “What do you take me for? Am I a sahib, that I should waste powder and shot on flying things? I never fire unless I think that by so doing I am likely to bring down at least six birds.”
It is impossible to watch a flock of jowaree birds without being struck by what I may perhaps term their corporate action, the manner in which they act in unison, as though they were well-drilled soldiers obeying the commands of their officer. This phenomenon is observable in most species of sociable birds, but, so far as I am aware, no ornithologist, save Mr. Edmund Selous, has paid much attention to the matter, or attempted to explain it. To illustrate. A flock of rosy starlings will be sitting motionless in a tree giving vent to their twittering notes, when suddenly, without any apparent cause, the whole flock will take to its wings simultaneously, as if actuated by one motive, nay, as if it were one composite individual. Again, a flock will be moving along at great speed, when suddenly the whole company will make a half-turn, and continue the flight in another direction. Yet again, a number of rosy starlings will be speeding through the air when six or seven of them, suddenly and simultaneously, change the direction of their flight, and thus form, as it were, a cross current. How are we to explain these simultaneous changes of purpose? It is not, at any rate, not always, a case of “follow my leader,” for frequently no one individual moves before the others. In some cases at least the change in purpose is not due to any command, no sound being uttered previous to one of these sudden impulsive acts. Mr. Selous seeks to explain the phenomenon by assuming that “birds, when gathered together in large numbers, act, not individually, but collectively, or rather, that they do both one and the other.” According to him, the simultaneous acts in these cases are the result of thought-transference—a thought-wave passes through the whole flock.
Some may be inclined to scoff at this theory, but such will, I think, find it difficult to put forward any other explanation of the difficulty. As Mr. Selous points out, it seems “a little curious that language of a more perfect kind than animals use has been so late in developing itself, but animals would feel less the want of a language if thought-transference existed amongst them to any appreciable extent.” Whether Mr. Selous has hit upon the correct explanation I hesitate to say. There is, however, no denying the fact that flocks of birds frequently act with what he calls “multitudinous oneness.”
Writing of pied starlings (Sturnopastor contra) Colonel Cunningham thus delivers himself: “They are not nearly such attractive birds as the common mynas, for their colouring is coarsely laid on in a way that recalls that of certain of the ornithological inmates of a Noah’s Ark; their heads have a debased look, and they have neither the pleasant notes nor the alluringly familiar ways of their relatives.” The above statement is, in my opinion, nothing short of libel. There are few living things more charming than pied mynas. These birds are clothed in black and white. Now a black and white garment usually looks well whether worn by a human being or an animal. In the case of the pied myna, or ablak as the Indians call it, the black and white are tastefully arranged. The head, neck, upper breast, back, and tail are glossy black, save for a large white patch on the cheek, which extends as a narrow line to the nape, a white oblique wing bar, and a white rump. The lower parts are greyish white. The bill is yellow, of deeper hue at the base than at the tip. I fail to see in what way the head of the pied starling has a debased look; it is typical of its family. The bill, however, is a trifle longer and more slender than that of the common myna. The statement that pied mynas have not the pleasant notes of the common species is the most astounding of a series of astounding assertions; as well might a musician complain that the cathedral organ lacks the fine tones of the street hurdy-gurdy! I like the cheerful “kok, kok, kok, kekky, kekky” of the common myna. I also enjoy listening to the harsh cries with which he greets a foe. India would be a duller country than it is without these familiar sounds, but I maintain that his most ardent admirer can scarcely believe the common myna to be a fine songster. The notes of the pied starling, on the other hand, although essentially myna-like, are really musical. Its lay is that of Acridotheres tristis, purified of all the harshness, with an added touch of melody. Jerdon, I am glad to notice, speaks of its pleasant song, and Finn, who knows the bird well, writes in one place of its beautiful note, and in another says: “It does not indulge in any set song apparently, but its voice is very sweet and flute-like, and it appears not to have any unpleasant notes whatever—a remarkable peculiarity in any bird, and especially in one of this family.” In Northern India the cheerful melody of the pied starlings is one of the most pleasing adjuncts of the countryside.
So jovial a bird is Sturnopastor contra that it is a great pity that his range is comparatively restricted. He would be a great acquisition to Madras and Bombay. Unfortunately, the species is not found in South India, and is almost unknown in the Punjab. Agra is the most westerly place in which I have seen pied mynas. In Burma the species is replaced by an allied form, S. superciliaris, readily distinguished by the possession of a white eyebrow. By the way, I should be very glad if our Wallaceian friends would tell us why it is necessary to its existence that the Burmese species should possess a white eyebrow, while the Indian birds seem to fare excellently without that ornament.
Except at the nesting season, the habits of pied starlings are very like those of the other species of myna. They feed largely on the ground, over which they strut with myna-like gait—no myna would dream of losing its dignity to the extent of hopping. They feed largely on insects, but will also eat fruit. They do not, as a rule, gather together in such large companies as most kinds of starling, but in places where pied mynas exist two of them, at least, usually attach themselves to each flock of the common species.
I am inclined to think that Sturnopastors pair for life, but that does not prevent them from performing the antics of courtship at the nesting season. This is a fact of some importance, for if birds that are mated for life indulge every year in what we call courtship, it is obvious that the commonly accepted explanation of the meanings of the antics of birds at the breeding season is a mistaken one. The accepted interpretation of these facts is that the cocks deliberately set themselves to “kill the girls,” and to this end cut mad capers and perform the other absurdities that characterise the amorous swain. I incline to the view that, although birds select their mates, the songs and the dances and the displays of the males are not so much attempts to captivate the females as expressions of the superabundant energy that literally bubbles over at the breeding season. A ruff when courting is obviously as mad as the proverbial hatter: he will display all his splendours as readily to a stone as to a reeve. At the season of love-making one frequently sees one pied myna—presumably a cock—puff out his feathers and inflate his throat, and then strut after another bird just as the little brown dove (Turtur cambayensis) does when on matrimony intent. At another phase of the courtship of the pied mynas two birds will sit, side by side, on a perch and bow and sing to one another just as king crows (Dicrurus ater) do.
Most species of myna breed early in the hot weather, but the pied mynas invariably wait until the first rain has fallen before they set about the work of nest-building. Colonel Cunningham suggests that the reason for this peculiarity of the pied starling is that, as it does not nestle in a hole but builds in a tree, it requires the green leaves coaxed forth by the rain as a protection to its nest. If the nursery of the pied myna were a neatly constructed cup, something might be said for this idea, but no amount of foliage could hide from view the huge mass of straw and rubbish that does duty for the nest of this species. Pied mynas rely on their pugnacity, and not on concealment, for the protection of the nest. A list of the various materials utilised by nesting Sturnopastors would include almost every inanimate object which is both portable and pliable; feathers, rags, twigs, moss, grass, leaves, paper, bits of string, rope and cotton, hay and portions of skin cast off by snakes, are the materials most commonly employed. The nest is not, as a rule, placed very high up. Sometimes it is situated in quite a low tree. Once when visiting the gaol at Gonda in the rains I observed a pair of pied mynas nesting in a solitary tree which grew in one of the courtyards inside the gaol walls. Like most of its kind, the pied starling displays little fear of man. The eggs of this species are a beautiful pale blue. Blue is the hue of the eggs of all species of myna. The fact that, notwithstanding its open nest, the eggs of the pied myna do not differ in colour from those of its brethren which nestle in holes, is one of the facts that the field naturalist comes across daily which demonstrate how hopelessly wrong is the Wallaceian view of the meaning of the colours of birds’ eggs.