A BIRD CALENDAR FOR NORTHERN INDIA

BY DOUGLAS DEWAR

I am indebted to the editor of The Pioneer for permission to
republish the sketches that form this calendar, and to Mr. A. J.
Currie for placing at my disposal his unpublished notes on the
birds of the Punjab.

Full descriptions of all the Indian birds of which the doings
are chronicled in this calendar are to be found in the four
volumes of the Fauna of British India devoted to birds;
popular descriptions of the majority are given in my Indian
Birds.

HARROW,
    January 1916.

CONTENTS

JANUARY

Take nine-and-twenty sunny, bracing English May days, steal from
March as many still, starry nights, to these add two rainy
mornings and evenings, and the product will resemble a typical
Indian January. This is the coolest month in the year, a month
when the climate is invigorating and the sunshine temperate. But
even in January the sun’s rays have sufficient power to cause
the thermometer to register 70° in the shade at noon,
save on an occasional cloudy day.

Sunset is marked by a sudden fall of temperature. The village
smoke then hangs a few feet above the earth like a blue-grey
diaphanous cloud.

The cold increases throughout the hours of darkness. In the
Punjab hoar-frosts form daily; and in the milder United
Provinces the temperature often falls sufficiently to allow of
the formation of thin sheets of ice. Towards dawn mists collect
which are not dispersed until the sun has shone upon them for
several hours. The vultures await the dissipation of these
vapours before they ascend to the upper air, there to soar on
outstretched wings and scan the earth for food.

On New Year’s Day the wheat, the barley, the gram, and the other
Spring crops are well above the ground, and, ere January has
given place to February, the emerald shoots of the corn attain a
height of fully sixteen inches. On these the geese levy toll.

Light showers usually fall in January. These are very welcome to
the agriculturalist because they impart vigour to the young
crops. In the seasons when the earth is not blessed with the
refreshing winter rain men and oxen are kept busy irrigating the
fields. The cutting and the pressing of the sugar-cane employ
thousands of husbandmen and their cattle. In almost every
village little sugar-cane presses are being worked by oxen from
sunrise to sunset. At night-time the country-side is illumined
by the flames of the megas burned by
the rustic sugar-boilers.

January is the month in which the avian population attains its
maximum. Geese, ducks, teal, pelicans, cormorants, snake-birds
and ospreys abound in the rivers and jhils; the marshes and
swamps are the resort of millions of snipe and other waders; the
fields and groves swarm with flycatchers, chats, starlings,
warblers, finches, birds of prey and the other migrants which in
winter visit the plains from the Himalayas and the country
beyond.

The bracing climate of the Punjab attracts some cold-loving
species for which the milder United Provinces have no charms.
Conspicuous among these are rooks, ravens and jackdaws. On the
other hand, frosts drive away from the Land of the Five Rivers
certain of the feathered folk which do not leave the United
Provinces or Bengal: to wit, the purple sunbird, the bee-eater
and, to a large extent, the king-crow.

The activity of the feathered folk is not at its height in
January. Birds are warm-blooded creatures and they love not the
cold. Comparatively few of them are in song, and still fewer
nest, at this season.

Song and sound are expressions of energy. Birds have more
vitality, more life in them than has any other class of
organism. They are, therefore, the most noisy of beings.

Many of the calls of birds are purposeful, being used to express
pleasure or anger, or to apprise members of a flock of one
another’s presence. Others appear to serve no useful end. These
are simply the outpourings of superfluous energy, the
expressions of the supreme happiness that perfect health
engenders. Since the vigour of birds is greatest at the nesting
season, it follows that that is the time when they are most
vociferous. Some birds sing only at the breeding season, while
others emit their cries at all times. Hence the avian choir in
India, as in all other countries, is composed of two sets of
vocalists—those who perform throughout the year, “the musicians
of all times and places,” and those who join the chorus only for
a few weeks or months. The calls of the former class go far to
create for India its characteristic atmosphere. To enumerate all
such bird calls would be wearisome. For the purposes of this
calendar it is necessary to describe only the common daily
cries—the sounds that at all times and all seasons form the
basis of the avian chorus.

From early dawn till nightfall the welkin rings with the harsh
caw of the house-crow, the deeper note of the black crow or
corby, the tinkling music of the bulbuls, the cheery keky,
keky, kek, kek … chur, chur, kok, kok, kok of
the myna, the monotonous cuckoo-coo-coo of the spotted dove
(Turtur suratensis), the soft subdued cuk-cuk-coo-coo-coo of
the little brown dove (T. cambayensis), the mechanical
ku-ku—ku of the ring-dove (T. risorius), the loud penetrating
shrieks of the green parrot, the trumpet-like calls of the saras
crane, the high-pitched did-he-do-it of the red-wattled
lapwing, the wailing trill chee-hee-hee-hee hee—hee of the
kite, the hard grating notes and the metallic coch-lee,
coch-lee of the tree-pie; the sharp towee, towee, towee
of the tailor-bird, the soft melodious cheeping calls of the
flocks of little white-eyes, the chit, chit, chitter of
the sparrow, the screaming cries of the golden-backed
woodpecker, the screams and the trills of the white-breasted
kingfisher, the curious harsh clamour of the cuckoo-shrike, and,
last but by no means least, the sweet and cheerful whistling
refrain of the fan-tail flycatcher, which at frequent intervals
emanates from a tree in the garden or the mango tope. Nor is the
bird choir altogether hushed during the hours of darkness.
Throughout the year, more especially on moonlit nights, the
shrieking kucha, kwachee, kwachee, kwachee, kwachee of
the little spotted owlet disturbs the silences of the moon. Few
nights pass on which the dusky horned owl fails to utter his
grunting hoot, or the jungle owlet to emit his curious but not
unpleasant turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, turtuck,
turtuck, tukatu, chatuckatuckatuck.

The above are the commonest of the bird calls heard throughout
the year. They form the basis of the avian melody in India. This
melody is reinforced from time to time by the songs of those
birds that may be termed the seasonal choristers. It is the
presence or absence of the voices of these latter which imparts
distinctive features to the minstrelsy of every month of the
year.

In January the sprightly little metallic purple sunbird pours
forth, from almost every tree or bush, his powerful song, which,
were it a little less sharp, might easily be mistaken for that
of a canary.

From every mango tope emanates a loud “Think of me … Never to
be.” This is the call of the grey-headed flycatcher (Culicicapa
ceylonensis), a bird that visits the plains of northern India
every winter. In summer it retires to the Himalayas for nesting
purposes. Still more melodious is the call of the wood-shrike,
which is frequently heard at this season, and indeed during the
greater part of the year.

Every now and again the green barbet emits his curious chuckling
laugh, followed by a monotonous kutur, kutur, kuturuk. At
rare intervals his cousin, the coppersmith, utters a soft wow
and thereby reminds us that he is in the land of the living.
These two species, more especially the latter, seem to dislike
the cold weather. They revel in the heat; it is when the
thermometer stands at something over 100° in the shade
that they feel like giants refreshed, and repeat their loud
calls with wearying insistence throughout the hours of daylight.

The nuthatches begin to tune up in January. They sing with more
cheer than harmony, their love-song being a sharp penetrating
tee-tee-tee-tee-tee.

The hoopoe reminds us of his presence by an occasional soft
uk-uk-uk. His breeding season, like that of the nuthatch, is
about to begin.

The magpie-robin or dhayal, who for months past has uttered no
sound, save a scolding note when occasion demanded, now begins
to make melody. His January song, however, is harsh and crude,
and not such as to lead one to expect the rich deep-toned music
that will compel admiration in April, May and June.

Towards the end of the month the fluty call of the koel, another
hot-weather chorister, may be heard in the eastern portions of
northern India.

Most of the cock sunbirds cast off their workaday plumage and
assumed their splendid metallic purple wedding garment in
November and December, a few, however, do not attain their full
glory until January. By the end of the month it is difficult to
find a cock that is not bravely attired from head to tail in
iridescent purple.

Comparatively few birds build their nests in January. Needless
to state, doves’ nests containing eggs may be found at this
season as at all other seasons. It is no exaggeration to assert
that some pairs of doves rear up seven or eight broods in the
course of the year. The consequence is that, notwithstanding the
fact that the full clutch consists of but two eggs, doves share
with crows, mynas, sparrows and green parrots the distinction of
being the most successful birds in India.

The nest of the dove is a subject over which most ornithologists
have waxed sarcastic. One writer compares the structure to a
bundle of spillikins. Another says, “Upset a box of matches in a
bush and you will have produced a very fair imitation of a
dove’s nursery!” According to a third, the best way to make an
imitation dove’s nest is to take four slender twigs, lay two of
them on a branch and then place the remaining two crosswise on
top of the first pair. For all this, the dove’s nest is a
wonderful structure; it is a lesson in how to make a little go a
long way. Doves seem to place their nurseries haphazard on the
first branch or ledge they come across after the spirit has
moved them to build. The nest appears to be built solely on
considerations of hygiene. Ample light and air are a sine qua
non; concealment appears to be a matter of no importance.

In India winter is the time of year at which the larger birds of
prey, both diurnal and nocturnal, rear up their broods.
Throughout January the white-backed vultures are occupied in
parental duties. The breeding season of these birds begins in
October or November and ends in February or March. The nest,
which is placed high up in a lofty tree, is a large platform
composed of twigs which the birds themselves break off from the
growing tree. Much amusement may be derived from watching the
struggles of a white-backed vulture when severing a tough
branch. Its wing-flapping and its tugging cause a great
commotion in the tree. The boughs used by vultures for their
nests are mostly covered with green leaves. These last wither
soon after the branch has been plucked, so that, after the first
few days of its existence, the nest looks like a great ball of
dead leaves caught in a tree.

The nurseries of birds of prey can be described neither as
picturesque nor as triumphs of architecture, but they have the
great merit of being easy to see. January is the month in which
to look for the eyries of Bonelli’s eagles (Hieraetus
fasciatus); not that the search is likely to be successful. The
high cliffs of the Jumna and the Chambal in the Etawah district
are the only places where the nests of this fine eagle have been
recorded in the United Provinces. Mr. A. J. Currie has found the
nest on two occasions in a mango tree in a tope at Lahore. In
each case the eyrie was a flat platform of sticks about twice
the size of a kite’s nest. The ground beneath the eyrie was
littered with fowls’ feathers and pellets of skin, fur and bone.
Most of these pellets contained squirrels’ skulls; and Mr.
Currie actually saw one of the parent birds fly to the nest with
a squirrel in its talons.

Bonelli’s eagle, when sailing through the air, may be recognised
by the long, hawk-like wings and tail, the pale body and dark
brown wings. It soars in circles, beating its pinions only
occasionally.

The majority of the tawny eagles (Aquila vindhiana) build
their nests in December. By the middle of January many of the
eggs have yielded nestlings which are covered with white down.
In size and appearance the tawny eagle is not unlike a kite. The
shape of the tail, however, enables the observer to distinguish
between the two species at a glance. The tail of the kite is
long and forked, while that of the eagle is short and rounded at
the extremity. The Pallas’s fishing-eagles (Haliaetus
leucoryphus) are likewise busy feeding their young. These fine
birds are readily identified by the broad white band in the
tail. Their loud resonant but unmelodious calls make it possible
to recognise them when they are too far off for the white tail
band to be distinguished.

This species is called a fishing-eagle; but it does not indulge
much in the piscatorial art. It prefers to obtain its food by
robbing ospreys, kites, marsh-harriers and other birds weaker
than itself. So bold is it that it frequently swoops down and
carries off a dead or wounded duck shot by the sportsman.
Another raptorial bird of which the nest is likely to be found
in January is the Turumti or red-headed merlin (Aesalon
chicquera). The nesting season of this ferocious pigmy extends
from January to May, reaching its height during March in the
United Provinces and during April in the Punjab.

As a general rule birds begin nesting operations in the Punjab
from fifteen to thirty days later than in the United Provinces.
Unless expressly stated the times mentioned in this calendar
relate to the United Provinces. The nest of the red-headed
merlin is a compact circular platform, about twelve inches in
diameter, placed in a fork near the top of a tree.

The attention of the observer is often drawn to the nests of
this species, as also to those of other small birds of prey and
of the kite, by the squabbles that occur between them and the
crows. Both species of crow seem to take great delight in
teasing raptorial birds. Sometimes two or three of the corvi
act as if they had formed a league for the prevention of
nest-building on the part of white-eyed buzzards, kites, shikras
and other of the lesser birds of prey. The modus operandi of
the league is for two or more of its members to hie themselves
to the tree in which the victim is building its nest, take up
positions near that structure and begin to caw derisively. This
invariably provokes the owners of the nest to attack the black
villains, who do not resist, but take to their wings. The angry,
swearing builders follow in hot pursuit for a short distance and
then fly back to the nest. After a few minutes the crows return.
Then the performance is repeated; and so on, almost ad
infinitum. The result is that many pairs of birds of prey take
three weeks or longer to construct a nest which they could have
completed within a week had they been unmolested.

Most of the larger owls are now building nests or sitting on
eggs; a few are seeking food for their offspring. As owls work
on silent wing at night, they escape the attentions of the crows
and the notice of the average human being. The nocturnal birds
of prey of which nests are likely to be found in January are the
brown fish-owl (Ketupa ceylonensis) and the rock and the dusky
horned-owls (Bubo bengalensis and B. coromandus). The dusky
horned-owl builds a stick nest in a tree, the rock horned-owl
lays its eggs on the bare ground or on the ledge of a cliff,
while the brown fish-owl makes a nest among the branches or in a
hollow in the trunk of a tree or on the ledge of a cliff.

In the Punjab the ravens, which in many respects ape the manners
of birds of prey, are now nesting. A raven’s nest is a compact
collection of twigs. It is usually placed in an isolated tree of
no great size.

The Indian raven has not the austere habits of its English
brother. It is fond of the society of its fellows. The range of
this fine bird in the plains of India is confined to the
North-West Frontier Province Sind, and the Punjab.

An occasional pair of kites may be seen at work nest-building
during the present month.

Some of the sand-martins (Cotyle sinensis), likewise, are
engaged in family duties. The river bank in which a colony of
these birds is nesting is the scene of much animation. The bank
is riddled with holes, each of which, being the entrance to a
martin’s nest, is visited a score of times an hour by the parent
birds, bringing insects captured while flying over the water.

Some species of munia breed at this time of the year. The red
munia, or amadavat, or lal (Estrelda amandava) is, next to
the paroquet, the bird most commonly caged in India. This little
exquisite is considerably smaller than a sparrow. Its bill is
bright crimson, and there is some red or crimson in the
plumage—more in the cock than in the hen, and most in both sexes
at the breeding season. The remainder of the plumage is brown,
but is everywhere heavily spotted with white. In a state of
nature these birds affect long grass, for they feed largely, if
not entirely, on grass seed. The cock has a sweet voice, which,
although feeble, is sufficiently loud to be heard at some
distance and is frequently uttered.

The nest of the amadavat is large for the size of the bird,
being a loosely-woven cup, which is egg-shaped and has a hole at
or near the narrow end. It is composed of fine grass stems and
is often lined with soft material. It is usually placed in the
middle of a bush, sometimes in a tussock of grass. From six to
fourteen eggs are laid. These are white in colour. This species
appears to breed twice in the year—from October to February and
again from June to August.

The white-throated munia (Uroloncha malabarica) is a dull
brown bird, with a white patch above the tail. Its throat is
yellowish white. The old name for the bird—the plain brown
munia—seems more appropriate than that with which the species
has since been saddled by Blanford. The nest of this little bird
is more loosely put together and more globular than that of the
amadavat. It is usually placed low down in a thorny bush. The
number of eggs laid varies from six to fifteen. These, like
those of the red munia, are white. June seems to be the only
month in the year in which the eggs of this species have not
been found. In the United Provinces more nests containing eggs
are discovered in January than in any other month.

Occasionally in January a pair of hoopoes (Upupa indica)
steals a march on its brethren by selecting a nesting site and
laying eggs. Hoopoes nest in holes in trees or buildings. The
aperture to the nest cavity is invariably small. The hen hoopoe
alone incubates, and as, when once she has begun to sit, she
rarely, if ever, leaves the nest till the eggs are hatched, the
cock has to bring food to her. But, to describe the nesting
operations of the hoopoe in January is like talking of cricket
in April. It is in February and March that the hoopoes nest in
their millions, and call softly, from morn till eve, uk-uk-uk.

Of the other birds which nest later in the season mention must
be made in the calendar for the present month of the Indian
cliff-swallow (Hirundo fluvicola) and the blue rock-pigeon
(Columba intermedia), because their nests are sometimes seen
in January.

FEBRUARY

Even as January in northern India may be compared to a month
made up of English May days and March nights, so may the Indian
February be likened to a halcyon month composed of sparkling,
sun-steeped June days and cool starlit April nights.

February is the most pleasant month of the whole year in both
the Punjab and the United Provinces; even November must yield
the palm to it. The climate is perfect. The nights and early
mornings are cool and invigorating; the remainder of each day is
pleasantly warm; the sun’s rays, although gaining strength day
by day, do not become uncomfortably hot save in the extreme
south of the United Provinces. The night mists, so
characteristic of December and January, are almost unknown in
February, and the light dews that form during the hours of
darkness disappear shortly after sunrise.

The Indian countryside is now good to look upon; it possesses
all the beauties of the landscape of July; save the sunsets. The
soft emerald hue of the young wheat and barley is rendered more
vivid by contrast with the deep rich green of the mango trees.
Into the earth’s verdant carpet is worked a gay pattern of white
poppies, purple linseed blooms, blue and pink gram flowers, and
yellow blossoms of mimosa, mustard and arhar. Towards the end
of the month the silk-cotton trees (Bombax malabarica) begin
to put forth their great red flowers, but not until March does
each look like a great scarlet nosegay.

The patches of sugar-cane grow smaller day by day, and in nearly
every village the little presses are at work from morn till eve.

From the guava groves issue the rattle of tin pots and the
shouts of the boys told off to protect the ripening fruit from
the attacks of crows, parrots and other feathered marauders. Nor
do these sounds terminate at night-fall; indeed they become
louder after dark, for it is then that the flying-foxes come
forth and work sad havoc among fruit of all descriptions.

The fowls of the air are more vivacious than they were in
January. The bulbuls tinkle more blithely, the purple sunbirds
sing more lustily; the kutur, kutur, kuturuk of the green
barbets is uttered more vociferously; the nuthatches now put
their whole soul into their loud, sharp tee-tee-tee-tee, the
hoopoes call uk-uk-uk more vigorously.

The coppersmiths (Xantholaema haematocephala) begin to hammer
on their anvils—tonk-tonk-tonk-tonk, softly and spasmodically
in the early days of the month, but with greater frequency and
intensity as the days pass. The brain-fever bird (Hierococcyx
varius) announces his arrival in the United Provinces by
uttering an occasional “brain-fever.” As the month draws to its
close his utterances become more frequent. But his time is not
yet. He merely gives us in February a foretaste of what is to
come.

The tew of the black-headed oriole (Oriolus melanocephalus),
which is the only note uttered by the bird in the colder months,
is occasionally replaced in February by the summer call of the
species—a liquid, musical peeho. In the latter half of the
month the Indian robin (Thamnobia cambayensis) begins to find
his voice. Although not the peer of his English cousin, he is no
mean singer. At this time of year, however, his notes are harsh.
He is merely “getting into form.”

The feeble, but sweet, song of the crested lark or Chandul is
one of the features of February. The Indian skylark likewise may
now be heard singing at Heaven’s gate in places where there are
large tracts of uncultivated land. As in January so in February
the joyous “Think of me … Never to be” of the grey-headed
flycatcher emanates from every tope.

By the middle of the month the pied wagtails and pied bush chats
are in full song. Their melodies, though of small volume, are
very sweet.

The large grey shrikes add the clamour of their courtship to the
avian chorus.

Large numbers of doves, vultures, eagles, red-headed merlins,
martins and munias—birds whose nests were described in
January—are still busy feeding their young.

The majority of the brown fish-owls (Ketupa ceylonensis) and
rock horned-owls (Bubo bengalensis) are sitting; a few of them
are feeding young birds. The dusky horned-owls (B. coromandus)
have either finished breeding or are tending nestlings. In
addition to the nests of the above-mentioned owls those of the
collared scops owl (Scops bakkamaena) and the mottled wood-owl
(Syrnium ocellatum) are likely to be found at this season of
the year. The scops is a small owl with aigrettes or “horns,”
the wood-owl is a large bird without aigrettes.

Both nest in holes in trees and lay white eggs after the manner
of their kind. The scops owl breeds from January till April,
while February and March are the months in which to look for the
eggs of the wood-owl.

In the western districts of the United Provinces the Indian
cliff-swallows (Hirundo fluvicola) are beginning to construct
their curious nests. Here and there a pair of blue rock-pigeons
(Colombia intermedia) is busy with eggs or young ones. In the
Punjab the ravens are likewise employed.

The nesting season of the hoopoe has now fairly commenced.
Courtship is the order of the day. The display of this beautiful
species is not at all elaborate. The bird that “shows off”
merely runs along the ground with corona fully expanded. Mating
hoopoes, however, perform strange antics in the air; they twist
and turn and double, just as a flycatcher does when chasing a
fleet insect. Both the hoopoe and the roller are veritable
aerial acrobats. By the end of the month all but a few of the
hoopoes have begun to nest; most of them have eggs, while the
early birds, described in January as stealing a march on their
brethren, are feeding their offspring. The 6th February is the
earliest date on which the writer has observed a hoopoe carrying
food to the nest; that was at Ghazipur.

March and April are the months in which the majority of
coppersmiths or crimson-breasted barbets rear up their families.
Some, however, are already working at their nests. The eggs are
hatched in a cavity in a tree—a cavity made by means of the
bird’s bill. Both sexes take part in nest construction. A
neatly-cut circular hole, about the size of a rupee, on the
lower surface or the side of a branch is assuredly the entrance
to the nest of a coppersmith, a green barbet, or a woodpecker.

As the month draws to its close many a pair of nuthatches
(Sitta castaneiventris) may be observed seeking for a hollow
in which to nestle. The site selected is usually a small hole in
the trunk of a mango tree that has weathered many monsoons. The
birds reduce the orifice of the cavity to a very small size by
plastering up the greater part of it with mud. Hence the nest of
the nuthatch, unless discovered when in course of construction,
is difficult to locate.

All the cock sunbirds (Arachnechthra asiatica) are now in the
full glory of their nuptial plumage. Here and there an energetic
little hen is busily constructing her wonderful pendent nest.
Great is the variety of building material used by the sunbird.
Fibres, slender roots, pliable stems, pieces of decayed wood,
lichen, thorns and even paper, cotton and rags, are pressed into
service. All are held together by cobweb, which is the favourite
cement of bird masons. The general shape of the nest is that of
a pear. Its contour is often irregular, because some of the
materials hang loosely from the outer surface.

The nursery is attached by means of cobweb to the beam or branch
from which it hangs. It is cosily lined with cotton or other
soft material. The hen, who alone builds the nest and incubates
the eggs, enters and leaves the chamber by a hole at one side.
This is protected by a little penthouse. The door serves also as
window. The hen rests her chin on the lower part of this while
she is incubating her eggs, and thus is able, as she sits, to
see what is going on in the great world without. She displays
little fear of man and takes no pains to conceal her nest, which
is often built in the verandah of an inhabited bungalow.

As the month nears its end the big black crows (Corvus
macrorhynchus) begin to construct their nests. The site
selected is usually a forked branch of a large tree. The nest is
a clumsy platform of sticks with a slight depression, lined by
human or horse hair or other soft material, for the reception of
the eggs. Both sexes take part in incubation. From the time the
first egg is laid until the young are big enough to leave the
nest this is very rarely left unguarded. When one parent is away
the other remains sitting on the eggs, or, after the young have
hatched out, on the edge of the nest. Crows are confirmed
egg-stealers and nestling-lifters, and, knowing the guile that
is in their own hearts, keep a careful watch over their
offspring.

The kites (Milvus govinda) are likewise busy at their
nurseries. At this season of the year they are noisier than
usual, which is saying a great deal. They not only utter
unceasingly their shrill chee-hee-hee-hee, but engage in many
a squabble with the crows.

The nest of the kite, like that of the corby, is an untidy mass
of sticks and twigs placed conspicuously in a lofty tree. Dozens
of these nests are to be seen in every Indian cantonment in
February and March. Why the crows and the kites should prefer
the trees in a cantonment to those in the town or surrounding
country has yet to be discovered.

Mention has already been made of the fact that January is the
month in which the majority of the tawny eagles nest; not a few,
however, defer operations till February. Hume states that, of
the 159 eggs of this species of which he has a record, 38 were
taken in December, 83 in January and 28 in February.

The nesting season of the white-backed vulture is drawing to a
close. On the other hand, that of the black or Pondicherry
vulture (Otogyps calvus) is beginning. This species may be
readily distinguished from the other vultures, by its large
size, its white thighs and the red wattles that hang down from
the sides of the head like drooping ears.

The nest of this bird is a massive platform of sticks, large
enough to accommodate two or three men. Hume once demolished one
of these vulturine nurseries and found that it weighed over
eight maunds, that is to say about six hundredweight. This
vulture usually builds its nest in a lofty pipal tree, but in
localities devoid of tall trees the platform is placed on the
top of a bush.

February marks the beginning of the nesting season of the
handsome pied kingfisher (Ceryle rudis). This is the familiar,
black-and-white bird that fishes by hovering kestrel-like on
rapidly-vibrating wings and then dropping from a height of some
twenty feet into the water below; it is a bird greatly addicted
to goldfish and makes sad havoc of these where they are exposed
in ornamental ponds. The nest of the pied kingfisher is a
circular tunnel or burrow, more than a yard in length, excavated
in a river bank. The burrow, which is dug out by the bird, is
about three inches in diameter and terminates in a larger
chamber in which the eggs are laid.

Another spotted black-and-white bird which now begins nesting
operations is the yellow-fronted pied woodpecker (Liopicus
mahrattensis)—a species only a little less common than the
beautiful golden-backed woodpecker. Like all the Picidae this
bird nests in the trunk or a branch of a tree. Selecting a part
of a tree which is decayed—sometimes a portion of the bole
quite close to the ground—the woodpecker hews out with its
chisel-like beak a neat circular tunnel leading to the cavity in
the decayed wood in which the eggs will be deposited. The tap,
tap, tap of the bill as it cuts into the wood serves to guide
the observer to the spot where the woodpecker, with legs apart
and tail adpressed to the tree, is at work. In the same way a
barbet’s nest, while under construction, may be located with
ease. A woodpecker when excavating its nest will often allow a
human being to approach sufficiently dose to witness it throw
over its shoulder the chips of wood it has cut away with its
bill.

In the United Provinces many of the ashy-crowned finch-larks
(Pyrrhulauda grisea) build their nests during February. In the
Punjab they breed later; April and May being the months in which
their eggs are most often found in that province. These curious
squat-figured little birds are rendered easy of recognition by
the unusual scheme of colouring displayed by the cock—his upper
parts are earthy grey and his lower plumage is black.

The habit of the finch-lark is to soar to a little height and
then drop to the ground, with wings closed, singing as it
descends. It invariably affects open plains. There are very few
tracts of treeless land in India which are not tenanted by
finch-larks. The nest is a mere pad of grass and feathers placed
on the ground in a tussock of grass, beside a clod of earth, or
in a depression, such as a hoof-print. The most expeditious way
of finding nests of these birds in places where they are
abundant is to walk with a line of beaters over a tract of
fallow land and mark carefully the spots from which the birds
rise.

With February the nesting season of the barn-owls (Strix
flammea) begins in the United Provinces, where their eggs have
been taken as early as the 17th.

Towards the end of the month the white-browed fantail
flycatchers (Rhipidura albifrontata) begin to nest. The loud
and cheerful song of this little feathered exquisite is a tune
of six or seven notes that ascend and descend the musical scale.
It is one of the most familiar of the sounds that gladden the
Indian countryside. The broad white eyebrow and the manner in
which, with drooping wings and tail spread into a fan, this
flycatcher waltzes and pirouettes among the branches of a tree
render it unmistakable. The nest is a dainty little cup, covered
with cobweb, attached to one of the lower boughs of a tree. So
small is the nursery that sometimes the incubating bird looks as
though it were sitting across a branch. This species appears to
rear two broods every year. The first comes into existence in
March or late February in the United Provinces and five or six
weeks later in the Punjab; the second brood emerges during the
monsoon.

The white-eyed buzzards—weakest of all the birds of prey—begin
to pair towards the end of the month. At this season they
frequently rise high above the earth and soar, emitting
plaintive cries.

The handsome, but destructive, green parrots are now seeking, or
making, cavities in trees or buildings in which to deposit their
white eggs.

The breeding season for the alexandrine (Palaeornis eupatrius)
and the rose-ringed paroquet (P. torquatus) begins at the end
of January or early in February. March is the month in which
most eggs are taken.

In April and May the bird-catchers go round and collect the
nestlings in order to sell them at four annas apiece. Green
parrots are the most popular cage birds in India. Destructive
though they be and a scourge to the husbandman, one cannot but
pity the luckless captives doomed to spend practically the whole
of their existence in small iron cages, which, when exposed to
the sun in the hot weather, as they often are, must be veritable
infernos.

The courtship of a pair of green parrots is as amusing to watch
as that of any ‘Arry and ‘Arriet. Not possessing hats the
amorous birds are unable to exchange them, but otherwise their
actions are quite coster-like. The female twists herself into
all manner of ridiculous postures and utters low twittering
notes. The cock sits at her side and admires. Every now and then
he shows his appreciation of her antics by tickling her head
with his beak or by joining his bill to hers.

Both the grey shrike and the wood-shrike begin nesting
operations in February. As, however, most of their nests are
likely to be found later in the year they are dealt with in the
calendar for March.

MARCH

In March the climate of the plains of the United Provinces
varies from place to place. In the western sub-Himalayan tracts,
as in the Punjab, the weather still leaves little to be desired.
The sun indeed is powerful; towards the end of the month the
maximum shade temperature exceeds 80°, but the nights and
early mornings are delightfully cool. In all the remaining parts
of the United Provinces, except the extreme south, temperate
weather prevails until nearly the end of the month. In the last
days the noonday heat becomes so great that many persons close
their bungalows for several hours daily to keep them cool, the
outer temperature rising to ninety in the shade. At night,
however, the temperature drops to 65°. In the extreme
south of the Province the hot weather sets in by the middle of
March. The sky assumes a brazen aspect and, at midday, the
country is swept by westerly winds which seem to come from a
titanic blast furnace.

The spring crops grow more golden day by day. The mustard is the
first to ripen. The earlier-sown fields are harvested in March
in the eastern and southern parts of the country. The spring
cereals are cut by hand sickles, the grain is then husked by the
tramping of cattle, and, lastly, the chaff is separated from the
grain on the threshing floor, the hot burning wind often acting
as a natural winnowing fan.

The air is heavily scented with the inconspicuous inflorescences
of the mangos (Mangifera indica). The pipals (Ficus
religiosa) are shedding their leaves; the sheshams
(Dalbergia sissoo) are assuming their emerald spring foliage.

The garden, the jungle and the forest are beautified by the
gorgeous reds of the flowers of the silk-cotton tree (Bombax
malabarica), the Indian coral tree (Erythrina indica) and the
flame-of-the-forest (Butea frondosa). The sub-Himalayan
forests become yellow-tinted owing to the fading of the leaves
of the sal (Shorea robusta), many of which are shed in
March. The sal, however, is never entirely leafless; the young
foliage appears as the old drops off; while this change is
taking place the minute pale yellow flowers open out.

The familiar yellow wasps, which have been hibernating during
the cold weather, emerge from their hiding-places and begin to
construct their umbrella-shaped nests or combs, which look as if
they were made of rice-paper.

March is a month of great activity for the birds. Those that
constituted the avian chorus of February continue to sing, and
to their voices are now added those of many other minstrels.
Chief of these is the pied singer of Ind—the magpie-robin or
dhayal—whose song is as beautiful as that of the English
robin at his best. From the housetops the brown rock-chat begins
to pour forth his exceedingly sweet lay. The Indian robin is in
full song. The little golden ioras, hidden away amid dense
foliage, utter their many joyful sounds. The brain-fever bird
grows more vociferous day by day. The crow-pheasants, which have
been comparatively silent during the colder months of the year,
now begin to utter their low sonorous whoot, whoot, whoot,
which is heard chiefly at dawn.

Everywhere the birds are joyful and noisy; nowhere more so than
at the silk-cotton and the coral trees. These, although
botanically very different, display many features in common.
They begin to lose their leaves soon after the monsoon is over,
and are leafless by the end of the winter. In the early spring,
while the tree is still devoid of foliage, huge scarlet, crimson
or yellow flowers emerge from every branch. Each flower is
plentifully supplied with honey; it is a flowing bowl of which
all are invited to partake, and hundreds of thousands of birds
accept the invitation with right good-will. The scene at each of
these trees, when in full flower, baffles description.

Scores of birds forgather there—rosy starlings, mynas,
babblers, bulbuls, king-crows, tree-pies, green parrots,
sunbirds and crows. These all drink riotously and revel so
loudly that the sound may be heard at a distance of half a mile
or more. Even before the sun has risen and begun to dispel the
pleasant coolness of the night the drinking begins. It continues
throughout the hours of daylight. Towards midday, when the west
wind blows very hot, it flags somewhat, but even when the
temperature is nearer 100° than 90° some avian
brawlers are present. As soon as the first touch of the
afternoon coolness is felt the clamour acquires fresh vigour and
does not cease until the sun has set in a dusty haze, and the
spotted owlets have emerged and begun to cackle and call as is
their wont.

These last are by no means the only birds that hold concert
parties during the hours of darkness. In open country the jungle
owlet and the dusky-horned owl call at intervals, and the Indian
nightjar (Caprimulgus asiaticus) imitates the sound of a stone
skimming over ice. In the forest tracts Franklin’s and
Horsfield’s nightjars make the welkin ring. Scarce has the sun
disappeared below the horizon when the former issues forth and
utters its harsh tweet. Horsfield’s nightjar emerges a few
minutes later, and, for some hours after dusk and for several
before dawn, it utters incessantly its loud monotonous chuck,
chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, which has been aptly
compared to the sound made by striking a plank sharply with a
hammer.

March is the month in which the majority of the shrikes or
butcher-birds go a-courting. There is no false modesty about
butcher-birds. They are not ashamed to introduce their
unmelodious calls into the avian chorus. But they are mild
offenders in comparison with the king-crows (Dicrurus ater)
and the rollers (Coracias indica).

The little black king-crows are at all seasons noisy and
vivacious: from the end of February until the rains have set in
they are positively uproarious. Two or three of them love to sit
on a telegraph wire, or a bare branch of a tree, and hold a
concert. The first performer draws itself up to its full height
and then gives vent to harsh cries. Before it has had time to
deliver itself of all it has to sing, an impatient neighbour
joins in and tries to shout it down. The concert may last for
half an hour or longer; the scene is shifted from time to time
as the participants become too excited to sit still. The
king-crows so engaged appear to be selecting their mates;
nevertheless nest-construction does not begin before the end of
April.

Some human beings may fail to notice the courtship of the
king-crow, but none can be so deaf and blind as to miss the
love-making of the gorgeous roller or blue jay. Has not everyone
marvelled at the hoarse cries and rasping screams which emanate
from these birds as they fling themselves into the air and
ascend and descend as though they were being tossed about by
unseen hands?

Their wonderful aerial performances go on continually in the
hours of daylight throughout the months of March and April; at
this season the birds, beautiful although they be, are a
veritable nuisance, and most people gratefully welcome the
comparative quiet that supervenes after the eggs have been laid.
The madness of the March hare is mild compared with that of the
March roller. It is difficult to realise that the harsh and
angry-sounding cries of these birds denote, not rage, but joy.

The great exodus of the winter visitors from the plains of India
begins in March. It continues until mid-May, by which time the
last of the migratory birds will have reached its distant
breeding ground.

This exodus is usually preceded by the gathering into flocks of
the rose-coloured starlings and the corn-buntings. Large noisy
congregations of these birds are a striking feature of February
in Bombay, of March in the United Provinces, and of April in the
Punjab.

Rose-coloured starlings spend most of their lives in the plains
of India, going to Asia Minor for a few months each summer for
nesting purposes. In the autumn they spread themselves over the
greater part of Hindustan, most abundantly in the Deccan.

In the third or fourth week of February the rosy starlings of
Bombay begin to form flocks. These make merry among the flowers
of the coral tree, which appear first in South India, and last
in the Punjab. The noisy flocks journey northwards in a
leisurely manner, timing their arrival at each place
simultaneously with the flowering of the coral trees. They feed
on the nectar provided by these flowers and those of the
silk-cotton tree. They also take toll of the ripening corn and
of the mulberries which are now in season. Thus the rosy
starlings reach Allahabad about the second week in March, and
Lahore some fifteen days later.

The head, neck, breast, wings and tail of the rosy starling are
glossy black, and the remainder of the plumage is pale salmon in
the hen and the young cock, and faint rose-colour in the adult
cock.

Rosy starlings feed chiefly in the morning and the late
afternoon. During the hottest part of the day they perch in
trees and hold a concert, if such a term may be applied to a
torrent of sibilant twitter.

Buntings, like rosy starlings, are social birds, and are very
destructive to grain crops.

As these last are harvested the feeding area of the buntings
becomes restricted, so that eventually every patch of standing
crop is alive with buntings. The spring cereals ripen in the
south earlier than in northern India, so that the cheerful
buntings are able to perform their migratory journey by easy
stages and find abundant food all along the route.

There are two species of corn-bunting—the red-headed (Emberiza
luteola) and the black-headed (E. melanocephala). In both the
lower plumage is bright yellow.

Among the earliest of the birds to forsake the plains of
Hindustan are the grey-lag goose and the pintail duck. These
leave Bengal in February, but tarry longer in the cooler parts
of the country. Of the other migratory species many individuals
depart in March, but the greater number remain on into April,
when they are caught up in the great migratory wave that surges
over the country. The destination of the majority of these
migrants is Tibet or Siberia, but a few are satisfied with the
cool slopes of the Himalayas as a summer resort in which to busy
themselves with the sweet cares of nesting. Examples of these
more local migrants are the grey-headed and the verditer
flycatchers, the Indian bush-chat and, to some extent, the
paradise flycatcher and the Indian oriole. The case of the
oriole is interesting. All the Indian orioles (Oriolus kundoo)
disappear from the Punjab and the United Provinces in winter. In
the former province no other oriole replaces O. kundoo, but in
the United Provinces the black-headed oriole (O.
melanocephalus) comes to take the place of the other from
October to March. When this last returns to the United Provinces
in March the greater number of melanocephalus individuals go
east, a few only remaining in the sub-Himalayan tracts of the
province.

The Indian oriole is not the only species which finds the
climate of the United Provinces too severe for it in winter; the
koel and the paradise flycatcher likewise desert us in the
coldest months. From the less temperate Punjab several species
migrate in October which manage to maintain themselves in the
United Provinces throughout the year: these are the purple
sunbird, the little green and the blue-tailed bee-eaters, and
the yellow-throated sparrow. The return of these and the other
migrant species to the Punjab in March is as marked a phenomenon
as is the arrival of the swallow and the cuckoo in England in
spring.

The behaviour of the king-crows shows the marked effect a
comparatively small difference of temperature may exert on the
habits of some birds. In the United Provinces the king-crows
appear to be as numerous in winter as in summer: in the Punjab
they are very plentiful in summer, but rare in the cold weather;
while not a single king-crow winters in the N.-W. Frontier
Province.

Of the birds of which the nests were described in January and
February the Pallas’s fishing eagles have sent their nestlings
into the world to fend for themselves.

In the case of the following birds the breeding season is fast
drawing to its close:—the dusky horned-owl, the white-backed
vulture, Bonelli’s eagle, the tawny eagle, the brown fish-owl,
the rock horned-owl, the raven, the amadavat and the
white-throated munia.

The nesting season is at its height for all the other birds of
which the nests have been described, namely, most species of
dove, the jungle crow, the red-headed merlin, the purple
sunbird, the nuthatch, the fantail flycatcher, the finch-lark,
the pied woodpecker, the coppersmith, the alexandrine and the
rose-ringed paroquet, the white-eyed buzzard, the collared scops
and the mottled wood-owl, the kite, the black vulture and the
pied kingfisher.

The sand-martins breed from October to May, consequently their
nests, containing eggs or young, are frequently taken in March.
Mention was made in January and February of the Indian
cliff-swallow (Hirundo fluvicola). This species is not found
in the eastern districts of the United Provinces, but it is the
common swallow of the western districts. The head is dull
chestnut. The back and shoulders are glistening steel-blue. The
remainder of the upper plumage is brown. The lower parts are
white with brown streaks, which are most apparent on the throat
and upper breast. These swallows normally nest at two seasons of
the year—from February till April and in July or August.

They breed in colonies. The mud nests are spherical or oval with
an entrance tube from two to six inches long. The nests are
invariably attached to a cliff or building, and, although
isolated ones are built sometimes, they usually occur in
clusters, as many as two hundred have been counted in one
cluster. In such a case a section cut parallel to the surface to
which the nests are attached looks like that of a huge honeycomb
composed of cells four inches in diameter—cells of a kind that
one could expect to be built by bees that had partaken of Mr. H.
G. Wells’ “food of the gods.”

The beautiful white-breasted kingfisher, (Halcyon smyrnensis)
is now busy at its nest.

This species spends most of its life in shady gardens; it feeds
on insects in preference to fish. It does not invariably select
a river bank in which to nest, it is quite content with a sand
quarry, a bank, or the shaft of a kachcha well. The nest
consists of a passage, some two feet in length and three inches
in diameter, leading to a larger chamber in which from four to
seven eggs are laid.

A pair of white-breasted kingfishers at work during the early
stages of nest construction affords an interesting spectacle.
Not being able to obtain a foothold on the almost perpendicular
surface of the bank, the birds literally charge this in turn
with fixed beak. By a succession of such attacks at one spot a
hole of an appreciable size is soon formed in the soft sand.
Then the birds are able to obtain a foothold and to excavate
with the bill, while clinging to the edge of the hole. Every now
and then they indulge in a short respite from their labours.
While thus resting one of the pair will sometimes spread its
wings for an instant and display the white patch; then it will
close them and make a neat bow, as if to say “Is not that nice?”
Its companion may remain motionless and unresponsive, or may
return the compliment.

In the first days of March the bulbuls begin to breed. In 1912
the writer saw a pair of bulbuls (Otocompsa emeria) building a
nest on the 3rd March. By the 10th the structure was complete
and held the full clutch of three eggs. On that date a second
nest was found containing three eggs.

In 1913 the writer first saw a bulbul’s nest on the 5th March.
This belonged to Molpastes bengalensis and contained two eggs.
On the following day the full clutch of three was in the nest.

The nesting season for these birds terminates in the rains.

The common bulbuls of the plains belong to two
genera—Molpastes and Otocompsa. The former is split up into
a number of local species which display only small differences
in appearance and interbreed freely at the places where they
meet. They are known as the Madras, the Bengal, the Punjab,
etc., red-vented bulbul. They are somewhat larger than sparrows.
The head, which bears a short crest, and the face are black; the
rest of the body, except a patch of bright red under the tail,
is brown, each feather having a pale margin.

In Otocompsa the crest is long and rises to a sharp point
which curves forward a little over the beak. The breast is
white, set off by a black gorget. There is the usual red patch
under the tail and a patch of the same hue on each side of the
face, whence the English name for the bird—the red-whiskered
bulbul.

Molpastes and Otocompsa have similar habits. They are
feckless little birds that build cup-shaped nests in all manner
of queer and exposed situations. Those that live near the
habitations of Europeans nestle in low bushes in the garden, or
in pot plants in the verandah. Small crotons are often selected,
preferably those that do not bear a score of leaves. The sitting
bulbul does not appear to mind the daily shower-bath it receives
when the mali waters the plant. Sometimes as many as three or
four pairs of bulbuls attempt to rear up families in one
verandah. The word “attempt” is used advisedly, because, owing
to the exposed situations in which nests are built, large
numbers of eggs and young bulbuls are destroyed by boys, cats,
snakes and other predaceous creatures. The average bulbul loses
six broods for every one it succeeds in rearing. The eggs are
pink with reddish markings.

March is the month in which to look for the nest of the Indian
wren-warbler (Prinia inornata). Inornata is a very
appropriate specific name for this tiny earth-brown bird, which
is devoid of all kind of ornamentation. Its voice is as homely
as its appearance—a harsh but plaintive twee, twee, twee.
It weaves a nest which looks like a ragged loofah with a hole in
the side. The nest is usually placed low down in a bush or in
long grass. Sometimes it is attached to two or more stalks of
corn. In such cases the corn is often cut before the young birds
have had time to leave the nest, and then the brood perishes.
This species brings up a second family in the rainy season.

The barn-owls (Strix flammea) are now breeding. They lay their
eggs in cavities in trees, buildings or walls. In northern India
the nesting season lasts from February to June. Eggs are most
likely to be found in the United Provinces during the present
month.

The various species of babblers or seven sisters begin to nest
in March. Unlike bulbuls these birds are careful to conceal the
nest. This is a slenderly-built, somewhat untidy cup, placed in
a bush or tree. The eggs are a beautiful rich blue, without any
markings.

The hawk-cuckoo, or brain-fever bird (Hierococcyx varius), to
which allusion has already been made, deposits its eggs in the
nests of various species of babblers. The eggs of this cuckoo
are blue, but are distinguishable from those of the babbler by
their larger size. It may be noted, in passing, that this cuckoo
does not extend far into the Punjab.

As stated above, most of the shrikes go a-courting in March.
Nest-building follows hard on courtship. In this month and in
April most of the shrikes lay their eggs, but nests containing
eggs or young are to be seen in May, June, July and August.
Shrikes are birds of prey in miniature. Although not much larger
than sparrows they are as fierce as falcons.

Their habit is to seize the quarry on the ground, after having
pounced upon it from a bush or tree. Grasshoppers constitute
their usual food, but they are not afraid to tackle mice or
small birds.

The largest shrike is the grey species (Lanius lahtora). This
is clothed mainly in grey; however, it has a broad black band
running through the eye—the escutcheon of the butcher-bird
clan. It begins nesting before the other species, and its eggs
are often taken in February.

The other common species are the bay-backed (L. vittatus) and
the rufous-backed shrike (L. erythronotus). These are smaller
birds and have the back red. The former is distinguishable from
the latter by having in the wings and tail much white, which is
very conspicuous during flight.

The nest of each species is a massive cup, composed of twigs,
thorns, grasses, feathers, and, usually, some pieces of rag;
these last often hang down in a most untidy manner. The nest is,
as a rule, placed in a babool or other thorny tree, close up
against the trunk.

Three allies of the shrikes are likewise busy with their nests
at this season. These are the wood-shrike, the minivet and the
cuckoo-shrike. The wood-shrike (Tephrodornis pondicerianus) is
an ashy-brown bird of the size of a sparrow with a broad white
eyebrow. It frequently emits a characteristic soft, melancholy,
whistling note, which Eha describes as “Be thee cheery.” How
impracticable are all efforts to “chain by syllables airy
sounds”! The cup-like nest of this species is always carefully
concealed in a tree.

Minivets are aerial exquisites. In descriptions of them
superlative follows upon superlative. The cocks of most species
are arrayed in scarlet and black; the hens are not a whit less
brilliantly attired in yellow and sable. One species lives
entirely in the plains, others visit them in the cold weather;
the majority are permanent residents of the hills. The solitary
denizen of the plains—the little minivet (Pericrocotus
peregrinus)—is the least resplendent of them all. Its
prevailing hue is slaty grey, but the cock has a red breast and
some red on the back. The nest is a cup so small as either to be
invisible from below or to present the appearance of a knot or
thickening in the branch on which it is placed. Sometimes two
broods are reared in the course of the year—one in March, April
or May and the other during the rainy season.

The cuckoo-shrike (Grauculus macii) is not nearly related to
the cuckoo, nor has it the parasitic habits of the latter. Its
grey plumage is barred like that of the common cuckoo, hence the
adjective. The cuckoo-shrike is nearly as big as a dove. It
utters constantly a curious harsh call. It keeps much to the
higher branches of trees in which it conceals, with great care,
its saucer-like nest.

As we have seen, some coppersmiths and pied woodpeckers began
nesting operations in February, but the great majority do not
lay eggs until March.

The green barbet (Thereoceryx zeylonicus) and the
golden-backed woodpecker (Brachypternus aurantius) are now
busy excavating their nests, which are so similar to those of
their respective cousins—the coppersmith and the pied
woodpecker—as to require no description. It is not necessary to
state that the harsh laugh, followed by the kutur, kutur,
kuturuk, of the green barbet and the eternal tonk, tonk,
tonk of the coppersmith are now more vehement than ever, and
will continue with unabated vigour until the rains have fairly
set in.

By the end of the month many of the noisy rollers have found
holes in decayed trees in which the hens can lay their eggs. The
vociferous nightjars likewise have laid upon the bare ground
their salmon-pink eggs with strawberry-coloured markings.

The noisy spotted owlets (Athene brama) and the rose-ringed
paroquets (Palaeornis torquatus) are already the happy
possessors of clutches of white eggs hidden away in cavities of
decayed trees or buildings.

The swifts (Cypselus indicus) also are busy with their nests.
These are saucer-shaped structures, composed of feathers, straw
and other materials made to adhere together, and to the beam or
stone to which the nest is attached, by the glutinous saliva of
the swifts. Deserted buildings, outhouses and verandahs of
bungalows are the usual nesting sites of these birds. At this
season swifts are very noisy. Throughout the day and at frequent
intervals during the night they emit loud shivering screams. At
sunset they hold high carnival, playing, at breakneck speed and
to the accompaniment of much screaming, a game of “follow the
man from Cook’s.”

The swifts are not the only birds engaged in rearing up young in
our verandahs. Sparrows and doves are so employed, as are the
wire-tailed swallows (Hirundo smithii). These last are
steel-blue birds with red heads and white under plumage. They
derive the name “wire-tailed” from the fact that the thin shafts
of the outer pair of tail feathers are prolonged five inches
beyond the others and look like wires. Wire-tailed swallows
occasionally build in verandahs, but they prefer to attach their
saucer-shaped mud nests to the arches of bridges and culverts.

With a nest in such a situation the parent birds are not obliged
to go far for the mud with which the nest is made, or for the
insects, caught over the surface of water, on which the
offspring are fed.

The nesting season of wire-tailed swallows is a long one.
According to Hume these beautiful birds breed chiefly in
February and March and again in July, August and September.
However, he states that he has seen eggs as early as January and
as late as November. In the Himalayas he has obtained the eggs
in April, May and June.

The present writer’s experience does not agree with that of
Hume. In Lahore, Saharanpur and Pilibhit, May and June are the
months in which most nests of this species are likely to be
seen. The writer has found nests with eggs or young on the
following dates in the above-mentioned places: May 13th, 15th,
16th, 17th; June 6th and 28th.

The nest of June 28th was attached to a rafter of the front
verandah of a bungalow at Lahore. The owner of the house stated
that the swallows in question had already reared one brood that
year, and that the birds in question had nested in his verandah
for some years. There is no doubt that some wire-tailed swallows
bring up two broods. Such would seem to breed, as Hume says, in
February and March and again in July and August. But, as many
nests containing eggs are found in May, some individuals appear
to have one brood only, which hatches out in May or June.

Those useful but ugly fowls, the white scavenger vultures
(Neophron ginginianus), depart from the ways of their brethren
in that they nidificate in March and April instead of in January
and February. The nest is an evil-smelling pile of sticks, rags
and rubbish. It is placed on some building or in a tree.

The handsome brahminy kites (Haliastur indicus), attired in
chestnut and white, are now busily occupied, either in seeking
for sites or in actually building their nests, which resemble
those of the common kite.

In the open plains the pipits (Anthus rufulus) and the crested
larks (Galerita cristata) are keeping the nesting finch-larks
company.

All three species build the same kind of nest—a cup of grass or
fibres (often a deep cup in the case of the crested lark) placed
on the ground in a hole or a depression, or protected by a
tussock of grass or a small bush.

On the churs and sand islets in the large Indian rivers the
terns are busy with their eggs, which are deposited on the bare
sand. They breed in colonies. On the same islet are to be seen
the eggs of the Indian river tern, the black-bellied tern, the
swallow-plover, the spur-winged plover and the Indian skimmer.

The eggs of all the above species are of similar appearance, the
ground colour being greenish, or buff, or the hue of stone or
cream, with reddish or brownish blotches. Three is the full
complement of eggs. The bare white glittering sands on which
these eggs are deposited are often at noon so hot as to be
painful to touch; accordingly during the daytime there is no
need for the birds to sit on the eggs in order to keep them
warm. Indeed, it has always been a mystery to the writer why
terns’ eggs laid in March in northern India do not get cooked.
Mr. A. J. Currie recently came across some eggs of the
black-bellied tern that had had water sprinkled over them. He is
of opinion that the incubating birds treat the eggs thus in
order to prevent their getting sun-baked. This theory should be
borne in mind by those who visit sandbanks in March. Whether it
be true or not, there is certainly no need for the adult birds
to keep the eggs warm in the daytime, and they spend much of
their time in wheeling gracefully overhead or in sleeping on the
sand. By nightfall all the eggs are covered by parent birds,
which are said to sit so closely that it is possible to catch
them by means of a butterfly net. The terns, although they do
not sit much on their eggs during the day, ever keep a close
watch on them, so that, when a human being lands on a nest-laden
sandbank, the parent birds fly round his head, uttering loud
screams.

The swallow-plovers go farther. They become so excited that they
flutter about on the sand, with dragging wings and limping legs,
as if badly wounded. Sometimes they perform somersaults in their
intense excitement. The nearer the intruder approaches their
eggs the more vigorous do their antics become.

Every lover of the winged folk should make a point of visiting,
late in March or early in April, an islet on which these birds
nest. He will find much to interest him there. In April many of
the young birds will be hatched out. A baby tern is an amusing
object. It is covered with soft sand-coloured down. When a human
being approaches it crouches on the sand, half burying its head
in its shoulders, and remains thus perfectly motionless. If
picked up it usually remains limply in the hand, so that, but
for its warmth, it might be deemed lifeless. After it has been
set down again on the sand, it will remain motionless until the
intruder’s back is turned, when it will run to the water as fast
as its little legs can carry it. It swims as easily as a duck.
Needless to state, the parent birds make a great noise while
their young are being handled.

Birds decline to be fettered by the calendar. Many of the
species which do not ordinarily nest until April or May
occasionally begin operations in March, hence nests of the
following species, which are dealt with next month, may occur in
the present one:—the tree-pie, tailor-bird, common myna,
bank-myna, brown rock-chat, brown-backed robin, pied wagtail,
red-winged bush-lark, shikra, red-wattled lapwing,
yellow-throated sparrow, bee-eater, blue rock-pigeon, green
pigeon and grey partridge.

March the 15th marks the beginning of the close season for game
birds in all the reserved forests of Northern India. This is
none too soon, as some individuals begin breeding at the end of
the month.

APRIL

The fifteenth of April marks the beginning of the “official” hot
weather in the United Provinces; but the elements decline to
conform to the rules of man. In the eastern and southern
districts hot-weather conditions are established long before
mid-April, while in the sub-Himalayan belt the temperature
remains sufficiently low throughout the month to permit human
beings to derive some physical enjoyment from existence. In that
favoured tract the nights are usually clear and cool, so that it
is very pleasant to sleep outside beneath the starry canopy of
the heavens.

It requires an optimist to say good things of April days, even
in the sub-Himalayan tract. Fierce scorching west winds sweep
over the earth, covering everything with dust. Sometimes the
flying sand is so thick as to obscure the landscape, and often,
after the wind has dropped, the particles remain suspended for
days as a dust haze. The dust is a scourge. It is all-pervading.
It enters eyes, ears, nose and mouth. To escape it is
impossible. Closed doors and windows fail to keep it from
entering the bungalow. The only creatures which appear to be
indifferent to it are the fowls of the air. As to the heat, the
non-migratory species positively revel in it. The crows and a
few other birds certainly do gasp and pant when the sun is at
its height, but even they, save for a short siesta at midday,
are as active in April and May as schoolboys set free from a
class-room. April is the month in which the spring crops are
harvested. As soon as the Holi festival is over the
cultivators issue forth in thousands, armed with sickles, and
begin to reap. They are almost as active as the birds, but their
activity is forced and not spontaneous; like most Anglo-Indian
officials they literally earn their bread by the sweat of the
brow. Thanks to their unceasing labours the countryside becomes
transformed during the month; that which was a sea of smiling
golden-brown wheat and barley becomes a waste of short stubble.

Nature gives some compensation for the heat and the dust in the
shape of mulberries, loquats, lichis and cool luscious papitas
and melons which ripen in March or April. The mango blossom
becomes transfigured into fruit, which, by the end of the month,
is as large as an egg, and will be ready for gathering in the
latter half of May.

Many trees are in flower. The coral, the silk-cotton and the
dhak are resplendent with red foliage. The jhaman, the
siris and the mohwa are likewise in bloom and, ere the close
of the month, the amaltas or Indian laburnum will put forth
its bright yellow flowers in great profusion. Throughout April
the air is heavy with the scent of blossoms. The shesham, the
sal, the pipal and the nim are vivid with fresh foliage.
But notwithstanding all this galaxy of colour, notwithstanding
the brightness of the sun and the blueness of the sky, the
countryside lacks the sweetness that Englishmen associate with
springtime, because the majority of the trees, being evergreen,
do not renew their clothing completely at this season, and the
foliage is everywhere more or less obscured by the all-pervading
dust.

The great avian emigration, which began in March, now reaches
its height. During the warm April nights millions of birds leave
the plains of India. The few geese remaining at the close of
March, depart in the first days of April.

The brahminy ducks, which during the winter months were
scattered in twos and threes over the lakes and rivers of
Northern India, collect into flocks that migrate, one by one, to
cooler climes, so that, by the end of the first week in May, the
a-onk of these birds is no longer heard. The mallard, gadwall,
widgeon, pintail, the various species of pochard and the common
teal are rapidly disappearing. With April duck-shooting ends. Of
the migratory species only a few shovellers and garganey teal
tarry till May.

The snipe and the quail are likewise flighting towards their
breeding grounds. Thus on the 1st of May the avian population of
India is less by many millions than it was at the beginning of
April. But the birds that remain behind more than compensate us,
by their great activity, for the loss of those that have
departed. There is more to interest the ornithologist in April
than there was in January.

The bird chorus is now at its best. The magpie-robin is in full
song. At earliest dawn he takes up a position on the topmost
bough of a tree and pours forth his melody in a continuous
stream. His varied notes are bright and joyous. Its voice is of
wide compass and very powerful; were it a little softer in tone
it would rival that of the nightingale. The magpie-robin is
comparatively silent at noonday, but from sunset until dusk he
sings continuously.

Throughout April the little cock sunbirds deliver themselves of
their vigorous canary-like song. The bulbuls tinkle as blithely
as ever. Ioras, pied wagtails, pied chats, and wood-shrikes
continue to contribute their not unworthy items to the
minstrelsy of the Indian countryside. The robins, having by now
found their true notes, are singing sweetly and softly. The
white-eyes are no longer content to utter their usual cheeping
call, the cocks give vent to an exquisite warble and thereby
proclaim the advent of the nesting season. The towee, towee,
towee, of the tailor-bird, more penetrating than melodious,
grows daily more vigorous, reminding us that we may now
hopefully search for his nest. Among the less pleasing sounds
that fill the welkin are the tonk, tonk, tonk of the
coppersmith, the kutur, kutur, kuturuk of the green
barbet, and the calls of the various cuckoos that summer in the
plains of Northern India. The calls of these cuckoos, although
frequently heard in April, are uttered more continuously in May,
accordingly they are described in the calendar for that month.

The owls, of course, lift up their voices, particularly on
moonlight nights. The nightjars are as vociferous as they were
in March; their breeding season is now at its height.

In the hills the woods resound with the cheerful double note of
the European cuckoo (Cuculus canorus). This bird is
occasionally heard in the plains of the Punjab in April, and
again from July to September, when it no longer calls in the
Himalayas. This fact, coupled with the records of the presence
of the European cuckoo in Central India in June and July, lends
support to the theory that the birds which enliven the Himalayas
in spring go south in July and winter in the Central Provinces.
Cuckoos, at seasons when they are silent, are apt to be
overlooked, or mistaken for shikras.

Ornithologists stationed in Central India will render a service
to science if they keep a sharp look-out for European cuckoos
and record the results of their observations. In this way alone
can the above theory be proved or disproved.

By the middle of the month most of the rollers have settled down
to domestic duties, and in consequence are less noisy than they
were when courting. Their irritating grating cries are now
largely replaced by harsh tshocks of delight, each tshock
being accompanied by a decisive movement of the tail. The cause
of these interjections expressing delight is a clutch of white
eggs or a brood of young birds, hidden in a hole in a tree or a
building.

April is a month in which the pulse of bird life beats very
vigorously in India. He who, braving the heat, watches closely
the doings of the feathered folk will be rewarded by the
discovery of at least thirty different kinds of nests. Hence, it
is evident that the calendar for this month, unless it is to
attain very large dimensions, must be a mere catalogue of
nesting species. The compiler of the calendar has to face an
embarrass de richesses.

Of the common species that build in March and the previous
months the following are likely to be found with eggs or
young—the jungle crows, sunbirds, doves, pied and golden-backed
woodpeckers, coppersmiths, hoopoes, common and brahminy kites,
bulbuls, shrikes, little minivets, fantail flycatchers,
wire-tailed swallows, paroquets, spotted owlets, swifts,
scavenger vultures, red-headed merlins, skylarks, crested larks,
pipits, babblers, sand-martins, cliff-swallows, nuthatches,
white-eyed buzzards, kites, black vultures, pied and
white-breasted kingfishers, finch-larks, Indian wren-warblers,
wood-shrikes, cuckoo-shrikes, green barbets, tawny eagles, and
the terns and the other birds that nest on islets in rivers.
Here and there may be seen a white-backed vulture’s nest
containing a young bird nearly ready to fly.

Towards the middle of the month the long-tailed tree-pies
(Dendrocitta rufa), which are nothing else than coloured
crows, begin nest-building. They are to be numbered among the
commonest birds in India, nevertheless their large open nests
are rarely seen. The explanation of this phenomenon appears to
be the fact that the nest is well concealed high up in a tree.
Moreover, the pie, possessing a powerful beak which commands
respect, is not obliged constantly to defend its home after the
manner of small or excitable birds, and thus attract attention
to it.

Fortunately for the tree-pie the kites and crows do not worry
it. The shikra (Astur badius) and the white-eyed buzzard
(Butastur teesa), which are now engaged in nest-building, are
not so fortunate. The crows regard them as fair game, hence
their nest-building season is a time of sturm und drang. They,
in common with all diurnal birds of prey, build untidy nests in
trees—mere conglomerations of sticks, devoid of any kind of
architectural merit. The blue rock-pigeons (Columba
intermedia) are busily prospecting for nesting sites. In some
parts of India, especially in the Muttra and Fatehgarh
districts, these birds nest chiefly in holes in wells. More
often than not a stone thrown into a well in such a locality
causes at least one pigeon to fly out of the well. In other
places in India these birds build by preference on a ledge or a
cornice inside some large building. They often breed in
colonies. At Dig in Rajputana, where they are sacred in the eyes
of Hindus, thousands of them nest in the fort, and, as Hume
remarks, a gun fired in the moat towards evening raises a dense
cloud of pigeons, “obscuring utterly the waning day and
deafening one with the mighty rushing sound of countless strong
and rapidly-plied pinions.” According to Hume the breeding
season for these birds in Upper India lasts from Christmas to
May day. The experience of the writer is that April, May and
June are the months in which to look for their nests. However,
in justice to Hume, it must be said that recently Mr. A. J.
Currie found a nest, containing eggs, in February.

In April the green pigeons pair and build slender cradles, high
up in mango trees, in which two white eggs are laid.

The songster of the house-top—the brown rock-chat (Cercomela
fusca)—makes sweet music throughout the month for the benefit
of his spouse, who is incubating four pretty pale-blue eggs in a
nest built on a ledge in an outhouse or on the sill of a
clerestory window. This bird, which is thought by some to be a
near relative of the sparrow of the Scriptures, is clothed in
plain brown and seems to suffer from St. Vitus’ dance in the
tail. Doubtless it is often mistaken for a hen robin. For this
mistake there is no excuse, because the rock-chat lacks the
brick-red patch under the tail.

April is the month in which to look for two exquisite little
nests—those of the white-eye (Zosterops palpebrosa) and the
iora (Aegithina tiphia). White-eyes are minute greenish-yellow
birds with a conspicuous ring of white feathers round the eye.
They go about in flocks. Each individual utters unceasingly a
plaintive cheeping note by means of which it keeps its fellows
apprised of its whereabouts. At the breeding season, that is to
say in April and May, the cock sings an exceedingly sweet, but
very soft, lay of six or seven notes. The nest is a cup, about
2½ inches in diameter and ¾ of an inch in depth. It is
usually suspended, like a hammock, from the fork of a branch;
sometimes it is attached to the end of a single bough; it then
looks like a ladle, the bough being the handle. It is composed
of cobweb, roots, hair and other soft materials. Three or four
tiny pale-blue eggs are laid.

The iora is a feathered exquisite, about the size of a tomtit.
The cock is arrayed in green, black and gold; his mate is gowned
in green and yellow.

The iora has a great variety of calls, of these a soft and
rather plaintive long-drawn-out whistle is uttered most
frequently in April and May.

In shape and size the nest resembles an after-dinner coffee cup.
It is beautifully woven, and, like those of the white-eye and
fantail flycatcher, covered with cobweb; this gives it a very
neat appearance. In it are laid two or three eggs of salmon hue
with reddish-brown and purple-grey blotches.

Throughout April the sprightly tailor-birds are busy with their
nests. The tailor-bird (Orthotomus sutorius) is a wren with a
long tail. In the breeding season the two median caudal feathers
of the cock project as bristles beyond the others. The nest is a
wonderful structure. Having selected a suitable place, which may
be a bush in a garden or a pot plant in a verandah, the hen
tailor-bird proceeds to make, with her sharp bill, a series of
punctures along the margins of one or more leaves. The punctured
edges are then drawn together, by means of strands of cobweb, to
form a purse or pocket. When this has been done the frail bands
of cobweb, which hold the edges of the leaves in situ, are
strengthened by threads of cotton. Lastly, the purse is cosily
lined with silk-cotton down or other soft material. Into the
cradle, thus formed, three or four white eggs, speckled with
red, find their way.

In April cavities in trees and buildings suitable for nesting
purposes are at a premium owing to the requirements of
magpie-robins, brahminy mynas, common mynas, yellow-throated
sparrows and rollers. Not uncommonly three or four pairs of
birds nest in one weather-beaten old tree.

Bank-mynas, white-breasted kingfishers, bee-eaters and a few
belated sand-martins are nesting in sandbanks in cavities which
they themselves have excavated. The nests of the kingfisher and
the sand-martin have already been described, that of the
bank-myna belongs to May rather than to April.

Bee-eaters working at the nest present a pleasing spectacle. The
sexes excavate turn about. The site chosen may be a bunker on
the golf links, the butts on the rifle range, a low mud boundary
between two fields, or any kind of bank. The sharp claws of the
bee-eaters enable the birds to obtain a foothold on an almost
vertical surface; this foothold is strengthened by the tail
which, being stiff, acts as a third leg. In a surprisingly short
time a cavity large enough to conceal the bird completely is
formed. The bee-eater utilises the bill as pickaxe and the feet
as ejectors. The little clouds of sand that issue at short
intervals from each cavity afford evidence of the efficacy of
these implements and the industry of those that use them.

Two of the most charming birds in India are now occupied with
family cares. These are both black-and-white birds—the
magpie-robin (Copsychus saularis) and the pied wagtail
(Motacilla maderaspatensis). The former has already been
noticed as the best songster in the plains of India. The pattern
of its plumage resembles that of the common magpie; this
explains its English name. The hen is grey where the cock is
black, otherwise there is no external difference between the
sexes. For some weeks the cock has been singing lustily,
especially in the early morning and late afternoon. In April he
begins his courtship. His display is a simple affair—mere
tail-play; the tail is expanded into a fan, so as to show the
white outer feathers, then it is either raised and lowered
alternately, or merely held depressed. Normally the tail is
carried almost vertically. The nest is invariably placed in a
cavity of a tree or a building.

The pied wagtail always nests near water. If not on the ground,
the nursery rests on some structure built by man.

A visit to a bridge of boats in April is sure to reveal a nest
of this charming bird. Hume records a case of a pair of pied
wagtails nesting in a ferry-boat. This, it is true, was seldom
used, but did occasionally cross the Jumna. On such occasions
the hen would continue to sit, while the cock stood on the
gunwale, pouring forth his sweet song, and made, from time to
time, little sallies over the water after a flying gnat. Mr. A.
J. Currie found at Lahore a nest of these wagtails in a
ferry-boat in daily use; so that the birds must have selected
the site and built the nest while the boat was passing to and
fro across the river!

Yet another black-and-white bird nests in April. This is the
pied bush-chat (Pratincola caprata). The cock is black all
over, save for a white patch on the rump and a bar of white in
the wing. He delights to sit on a telegraph wire or a stem of
elephant grass and there make cheerful melody. The hen is a dull
reddish-grey bird. The nest is usually placed in a hole in the
ground or a bank or a wall, sometimes it is wedged into a
tussock of grass.

Allied to the magpie-robin and the pied bush-chat is the
familiar Indian robin (Thamnobia cambayensis), which, like its
relatives, is now engaged in nesting operations. This species
constructs its cup-shaped nest in all manner of strange places.
Spaces in stacks of bricks, holes in the ground or in buildings,
and window-sills are held in high esteem as nesting sites. The
eggs are not easy to describe because they display great
variation. The commonest type has a pale green shell, speckled
with reddish-brown spots, which are most densely distributed at
the thick end of the egg.

Many of the grey partridges (Francolinus pondicerianus) are
now nesting. This species is somewhat erratic in respect of its
breeding season. Eggs have been taken in February, March, April,
May, June, September, October, and November. The April eggs,
however, outnumber those of all the other months put together.
The nest is a shallow depression in the ground, lined with
grass, usually under a bush. From six to nine cream-coloured
eggs are laid.

Another bird which is now incubating eggs on the ground is the
did-he-do-it or red-wattled lapwing (Sarcogrammus indicus).
The curious call, from which this plover derives its popular
name, is familiar to every resident in India. This species nests
between March and August. The 122 eggs in the possession of Hume
were taken, 12 in March, 46 in April, 24 in May, 26 in June, 4
in July, and 8 in August. Generally in a slight depression on
the ground, occasionally on the ballast of a rail-road, four
pegtop-shaped eggs are laid; these are, invariably, placed in
the form of a cross, so that they touch each other at their thin
ends. They are coloured like those of the common plover. The
yellow-wattled lapwing (Sarciophorus malabaricus), which
resembles its cousin in manners and appearance, nests in April,
May and June.

The nesting season of the various species of sand-grouse that
breed in India is now beginning. These birds, like lapwings, lay
their eggs on the ground.

In April one may come across an occasional nest of the pied
starling, the king-crow, the paradise flycatcher, the grey
hornbill, and the oriole, but these are exceptions. The birds in
question do not as a rule begin to nest until May, and their
doings accordingly are chronicled in the calendar for that
month.

MAY

May in the plains of India! What unpleasant memories it recalls!
Stifling nights in which sleep comes with halting steps and
departs leaving us unrefreshed. Long, dreary days beneath the
punkah in a closed bungalow which has ceased to be enlivened by
the voices of the children and the patter of their little feet.
Hot drives to office, under a brazen sky from which the sun
shines with pitiless power, in the teeth of winds that scorch
the face and fill the eyes with dust.

It is in this month of May that the European condemned to
existence in the plains echoes the cry of the psalmist: “Oh that
I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at
rest”—in the Himalayas. There would I lie beneath the deodars
and, soothed by the rustle of their wind-caressed branches,
drink in the pure cool air and listen to the cheerful double
note of the cuckoo. The country-side in the plains presents a
sorry spectacle. The gardens that had some beauty in the cold
weather now display the abomination of desolation—a waste of
shrivelled flowers, killed by the relentless sun. The spring
crops have all been cut and the whole earth is dusty brown save
for a few patches of young sugar-cane and the dust-covered
verdure of the mango topes. It is true that the gold-mohur trees
and the Indian laburnums are in full flower and the air is
heavily laden with the strong scent of the nim blossoms, but
the heat is so intense that the European is able to enjoy these
gifts of nature only at dawn. Nor has the ripening jack-fruit
any attractions for him. He is repelled by its overpowering
scent and sickly flavour. Fortunately the tastes of all men are
not alike. In the eyes of the Indian this fruit is a dish fit to
be set before the gods. The pipal trees, which are covered
with tender young leaves, now offer to the birds a feast in the
form of numbers of figs, no larger than cranberries. This
generous offer is greedily accepted by green pigeons, mynas and
many other birds which partake with right goodwill and make much
noise between the courses. No matter how intense the heat be,
the patient cultivator issues forth with his cattle before
sunrise and works at his threshing floor until ten o’clock, then
he seeks the comparative coolness of the mango tope and sleeps
until the sun is well on its way to the western horizon, when he
resumes the threshing of the corn, not ceasing until the shades
of night begin to steal over the land.

The birds do not object to the heat. They revel in it. It is
true that in the middle of the day even they seek some shady
tree in which to enjoy a siesta and await the abatement of the
heat of the blast furnace in which they live, move and have
their being. The long day, which begins for them before 4 a.m.,
rather than the intense heat, appears to be the cause of this
midday sleep. Except during this period of rest at noon the
birds are more lively than they were in April.

The breeding season is now at its height. In May over five
hundred species of birds nest in India. No individual is likely
to come across all these different kinds of nests, because, in
order to do so, that person would have to traverse India from
Peshawar to Tinnevelly and from Quetta to Tenasserim.
Nevertheless, the man who remains in one station, if he choose
to put forth a little energy and defy the sun, may reasonably
expect to find the nests of more than fifty kinds of birds.
Whether he be energetic or the reverse he cannot fail to hear a
great many avian sounds both by day and by night. In May the
birds are more vociferous than at any other time of year. The
fluty cries of the koel and the vigorous screams of the
brain-fever bird penetrate the closed doors of the bungalow, as
do, to a less extent, the chatter of the seven sisters, the
calls of the mynas, the towee, towee, towee of the
tailor-bird, the whoot, whoot, whoot of the crow-pheasant,
the monotonous notes of the coppersmith and the green barbet,
the uk, uk, uk of the hoopoe, the cheerful music of the
fantail flycatcher, the three sweet syllables of the iora—so
be ye, the tee, tee, tee, tee of the nuthatch, the
liquid whistle of the oriole and, last but not least, the melody
of the magpie-robin. The calls of the hoopoe and nuthatch become
less frequent as the month draws to a close; on the other hand,
the melody of the oriole gains in strength.

As likely as not a pair of blue jays has elected to rear a brood
of young hopefuls in the chimney or in a hole in the roof. When
this happens the human occupant of the bungalow is apt to be
driven nearly to distraction by the cries of the young birds,
which resemble those of some creature in distress, and are
uttered with “damnable reiteration.”

All these sounds, however, reach in muffled form the ear of a
human being shut up in a bungalow; hence it is the voices of the
night rather than those of the day with which May in India is
associated. Most people sleep out of doors at this season, and,
as the excessive heat makes them restless, they have ample
opportunity of listening to the nightly concert of the feathered
folk. The most notable performers are the cuckoos. These birds
are fully as nocturnal as the owls. The brain-fever bird
(Hierococcyx varius) is now in full voice, and may be heard,
both by day and by night, in all parts of Northern India, east
of Umballa. This creature has two calls. One is the eternal
“brain-fever, brain-fever, BRAIN-FEVER,” each “brain-fever”
being louder and pitched in a higher key than the previous one,
until the bird reaches its top note. The other call consists of
a volley of descending notes, uttered as if the bird were
unwinding its voice after the screams of “brain-fever.” The next
cuckoo is not one whit less vociferous than the last. It is
known as the Indian koel (Eudynamis honorata). This noble fowl
has three calls, and it would puzzle anyone to say which is the
most powerful. The usual cry is a crescendo ku-il, ku-il,
ku-il, which to Indian ears is very sweet-sounding. Most
Europeans are agreed that it is a sound of which one can have
too much. The second note is a mighty avalanche of yells and
screams, which Cunningham has syllabised as Kúk, kuu, kuu,
kuu, kuu, kuu. The third cry, which is uttered only
occasionally, is a number of shrill shrieks: Hekaree, karee,
karee, karee.

The voice of the koel is heard throughout the hours of light and
darkness in May, so that one wonders whether this bird ever
sleeps. The second call is usually reserved for dawn, when the
bird is most vociferous. This cry is particularly exasperating
to Europeans, since it often awakens them rudely from the only
refreshing sleep they have enjoyed, namely, that obtained at the
time when the temperature is comparatively low. The koel extends
into the Punjab and is heard throughout Northern India.

The third of the cuckoos which enlivens the hot weather in the
plains is the Indian cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus). This
species dwells chiefly in the Himalayas, but late in April or
early in May certain individuals seek the hot plains and remain
there for some months. They do not extend very far into the
peninsula, being numerous only in the sub-Himalayan tracts as
far south as Fyzabad. The call of this cuckoo is melodious and
easily recognised. Indians represent it as Bouto-taku, while
some Englishmen maintain that the bird says “I’ve lost my love.”
To the writer’s mind the cry is best represented by the words
wherefore, wherefore, repeated with musical cadence. This
bird does not usually call much during the day. It uplifts its
voice about two hours before sunset and continues calling
intermittently until some time after sunrise. The note is often
uttered while the bird is on the wing.

Scarcely less vociferous than the cuckoos are the owls. Needless
to state that the tiny spotted owlets make a great noise in May.
They are loquacious throughout the year, especially on moonlight
nights. Nor do they wait for the setting of the sun until they
commence to pour forth what Eha terms a “torrent of squeak and
chatter and gibberish.”

Almost as abundant as the spotted owlet is the jungle owlet
(Glaucidium radiatum). This species, like the last-mentioned,
does not confine its vocal efforts to the hot weather. It is
vociferous throughout the year; however, special mention must be
made of it in connection with the month of May, because it is
not until a human being sleeps out of doors that he takes much
notice of the bird.

The note of this owl is very striking. It may be likened to the
noise made by a motor cycle when it is being started. It
consists of a series of dissyllables, low at first with a pause
after each, but gradually growing in intensity and succeeding
one another at shorter intervals, until the bird seems to have
got fairly into its stride, when it pulls up with dramatic
suddenness. Tickell thus syllabises its call: Turtuck,
turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, tukatu,
chatatuck, atuckatuck.

Another sound familiar to those who sleep out of doors at this
season is a low, soft “what,” repeated at intervals of about a
minute.

The writer ascribes this call to the collared scops owl (Scops
bakkamoena). Mr. A. J. Currie, however, asserts that the note
in question is that emitted by spotted owlets (Athene brama)
when they have young. He states that he has been quite close to
the bird when it was calling.

A little patient observation will suffice to decide the point at
issue.

It is easy to distinguish between the two owls, as the scops has
aigrettes or “horns,” which the spotted owlet lacks.

The nightjars help to swell the nocturnal chorus. There are
seven or eight different species in India, but of these only
three are commonly heard and two of them occur mainly in forest
tracts. The call of the most widely-distributed of the Indian
goatsuckers—Caprimulgus asiaticus, the common Indian
nightjar—is like unto the sound made by a stone skimming over ice.
Horsfield’s goatsucker is a very vociferous bird. From March
till June it is heard wherever there are forests. As soon as the
shadows of the evening begin to steal across the sky its loud
chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk cleaves the air for
minutes together. This call to some extent replaces by night the
tonk, tonk, tonk of the coppersmith, which is uttered so
persistently in the day-time. In addition to this note
Horsfield’s nightjar emits a low soft chur, chur, chur.

The third nightjar, which also is confined chiefly to forest
tracts, is known as Franklin’s nightjar (C. monticolus). This
utters a harsh tweet which at a distance might pass for the
chirp of a canary with a sore throat.

Other sounds heard at night-time are the plaintive did-he-do-it
pity-to-do-it of the red-wattled lapwing (Sarcogrammus
indicus), and the shrill calls of other plovers.

As has already been said, the nesting season is at its height in
May. With the exception of the paroquets, spotted owlets,
nuthatches, black vultures and pied kingfishers, which have
completed nesting operations for the year, and the golden-backed
woodpeckers and the cliff-swallows, which have reared up their
first broods, the great majority of the birds mentioned as
having nests or young in March or April are still busily
occupied with domestic cares.

May marks the close of the usual breeding season for the jungle
crows, skylarks, crested larks, finch-larks, wood-shrikes,
yellow-throated sparrows, sand-martins, pied wagtails, green
barbets, coppersmiths, rollers, green bee-eaters, white-breasted
kingfishers, scavenger vultures, tawny eagles, kites, shikras,
spur-winged plovers, little ringed plovers, pied woodpeckers,
night herons and pied chats. In the case of the tree-pies,
cuckoo-shrikes, seven sisters, bank-mynas and blue-tailed
bee-eaters the nesting season is now at its height. All the
following birds are likely to have either eggs or nestlings in
May: the white-eyes, ioras, bulbuls, tailor-birds, shrikes,
brown rock-chats, Indian robins, magpie-robins, sunbirds,
swifts, nightjars, white-eyed buzzards, hoopoes, green pigeons,
blue rock-pigeons, doves, sparrows, the red and yellow wattled
lapwings, minivets, wire-tailed swallows, red-headed merlins,
fantail flycatchers, pipits, sand-grouse and grey partridges.
The nests of most of these have been described already.

In the present month several species begin nesting operations.
First and foremost among these is the king-crow or black drongo
(Dicrurus ater). No bird, not even the roller, makes so much
ado about courtship and nesting as does the king-crow, of which
the love-making was described last month. A pair of king-crows
regards as its castle the tree in which it has elected to
construct a nest. Round this tree it establishes a sphere of
influence into which none but a favoured few birds may come. All
intruders are forthwith set upon by the pair of little furies,
and no sight is commoner at this season than that of a crow, a
kite, or a hawk being chased by two irate drongos. The nest of
the king-crow is a small cup, wedged into the fork of a branch
high up in a tree.

The Indian oriole (Oriolus kundoo) is one of the privileged
creatures allowed to enter the dicrurian sphere of influence,
and it takes full advantage of this privilege by placing its
nest almost invariably in the same tree as that of the
king-crow. The oriole is a timid bird and is glad to rear up its
family under the ægis of so doughty a warrior as the Black
Prince of the Birds. The nest of the oriole is a wonderful
structure. Having selected a fork in a suitable branch, the
nesting bird tears off a long strip of soft pliable bark,
usually that of the mulberry tree. It proceeds to wind one end
of this strip round a limb of the forked branch, then the other
end is similarly bound to the other limb. A second and a third
strip of bark are thus dealt with, and in this manner a cradle
or hammock is formed. On it a slender cup-shaped nest is
superimposed. This is composed of grasses and fibres, some of
which are wound round the limbs of the forked branch, while
others are made fast to the strands of bark. The completed nest
is nearly five inches in diameter. From below it looks like a
ball of dried grass wedged into the forked branch.

The oriole lays from two to four white eggs spotted with dull
red. The spots can be washed off by water; sometimes their
colour “runs” while they are in the nest, thereby imparting a
pink hue to the whole shell. Both sexes take part in nest
construction, but the hen alone appears to incubate. She is a
very shy creature, and is rarely discovered actually sitting,
because she leaves the nest with a little cry of alarm at the
first sound of a human footfall.

May and June are the months in which to look for the nests of
that superb bird—the paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone
paradisi). This is known as the rocket-bird or ribbon-bird
because of the two long fluttering tail feathers possessed by
the cock. The hen has the appearance of a kind of bulbul, being
chestnut-hued with a white breast and a metallic blue-black
crest. For the first year of their existence the young cocks
resemble the hens in appearance. Then the long tail feathers
appear. In his third year the cock turns white save for the
black-crested head. This species spends the winter in South
India. In April it migrates northwards to summer in the shady
parts of the plains of Bengal, the United Provinces and the
Punjab, and on the lower slopes of the Himalayas. The nest is a
deep, untidy-looking cup, having the shape of an inverted cone.
It is always completely covered with cocoons and cobweb. It is
usually attached to one or more of the lower branches of a tree.
Both sexes work at the nest and take part in incubation. The
long tail feathers of the sitting cock hang down from the nest
like red or white satin streamers according to the phase of his
plumage. In the breeding season the cock sings a sweet little
lay—an abridged version of that of the fantail flycatcher. When
alarmed both the cock and the hen utter a sharp tschit.

May is perhaps the proper month in which to describe the nesting
of the various species of myna.

According to Hume the normal breeding season of the common myna
(Acridotheres tristis) lasts from June to August, during which
period two broods are reared. This is not correct. The nesting
season of this species begins long before June. The writer has
repeatedly seen mynas carrying twigs and feathers in March, and
has come across nests containing eggs or young birds in both
April and May. June perhaps is the month in which the largest
numbers of nests are seen. The cradle of the common myna is
devoid of architectural merit. It is a mere conglomeration of
twigs, grass, rags, bits of paper and other oddments. The
nesting material is dropped haphazard into a hole in a tree or
building, or even on to a ledge in a verandah. Four beautiful
blue eggs are laid.

At Peshawar Mr. A. J. Currie once found four myna’s eggs in a
deserted crows’ nest in a tree.

As has already been stated, the nest of the bank-myna (A.
ginginianus) is built in a hole in a well, a sandbank, or a
cliff. The birds breed in colonies; each pair excavates its own
nest by means of beak and claw. Into the holes dug out in this
manner the miscellaneous nesting materials are dropped pell-mell
after the manner of all mynas. The breeding season of this
species lasts from April to July, May being the month in which
most eggs are laid.

The black-headed or brahminy myna (Temenuchus pagodarum)
usually begins nesting operations about a month later than the
bank-myna; its eggs are most often taken in June. The nest,
which is an untidy, odoriferous collection of rubbish, is always
in a cavity. In Northern India a hole in a tree is usually
selected; in the South buildings are largely patronised. Some
years ago the writer observed a pair of these birds building a
nest in a hole made in the masonry for the passage of the
lightning conductor of the Church in Fort St. George, Madras.

May marks the commencement of the breeding season of the pied
starlings (Sturnopastor contra). In this month they begin to
give vent with vigour to their cheerful call, which is so
pleasing as almost to merit the name of song.

Throughout the rains they continue to make a joyful noise. Not
that they are silent at other seasons; they call throughout the
year, but, except at the breeding period, their voices are
comparatively subdued.

The nest is a bulky, untidy mass of straw, roots, twigs, rags,
feathers and such-like things. It is placed fairly low down in a
tree.

Many of these nests are to be seen in May, but the breeding
season is at its height in June and July.

The grey hornbills (Lophoceros birostris) are now seeking out
holes in which to deposit their eggs. The hen, after having laid
the first egg, does not emerge from the nest till the young are
ready to fly. During the whole of this period she is kept a
close prisoner, the aperture to the nest cavity having been
closed by her mate and herself with their own droppings, a small
chink alone being left through which she is able to insert her
beak in order to receive the food brought to her by the cock.

Mr. A. J. Currie gives an interesting account of a grey
hornbill’s nest he discovered at Lahore in 1910. About the
middle of April he noticed a pair of paroquets nesting in a hole
in a tree. On April 28th he saw a hornbill inspecting the hole,
regardless of the noisy protests of the paroquets. On the 30th
he observed that the hole had become smaller, and suspected that
the hornbills had taken possession. On May 1st all that was left
of the hole was a slit. On May 6th Mr. Currie watched the cock
hornbill feeding the hen. First the male bird came carrying a
fig in his bill. Seeing human beings near the nest, he did not
give the fig to the hen but swallowed it and flew off. Presently
the cock reappeared with a fig which he put into the slit in the
plastering; after he had parted with the fig he began to feed
the hen by bringing up food from his crop. During the process
the beak of the hen did not appear at the slit.

On May 7th Mr. Currie opened out the nest. The hole was sixteen
feet from the ground and the orifice had a diameter of three
inches; all of this except a slit, broadest at the lower part,
was filled up by plaster. This plaster was odourless and
contained embedded in it a number of fig seeds.

The nest hole was capacious, its dimensions being roughly 1 foot
by 1 foot by 2 feet. From the bottom five handfuls of pieces of
dry bark were extracted. Three white eggs were found lying on
these pieces of bark. The sitting hen resented the
“nest-breaking,” and, having pecked viciously at the intruder,
tried to escape by climbing up to the top of the nest hole. She
was dragged out of her retreat by the beak, after an attempt to
pull her out by the tail had resulted in all her tail feathers
coming away in her captor’s hand!

The young green parrots have all left their nests and are flying
about in noisy flocks. They may be distinguished from the adults
by the short tail and comparatively soft call.

Most pairs of hoopoes are now accompanied by at least one young
bird which is almost indistinguishable from the adults. The
young birds receive, with squeaks of delight, the grubs or
caterpillars proffered by the parents. Occasionally a pair of
hoopoes may be seen going through the antics of courtship
preparatory to raising a second brood.

In scrub-jungle parties of partridges, consisting of father,
mother and five or six little chicks, wander about.

As the shades of night begin to fall family parties of spotted
owlets issue from holes in trees or buildings. The baby birds
squat on the ground in silence, while the parents make sallies
into the air after flying insects which they bring to the young
birds.

The peafowl and sarus cranes are indulging in the pleasures of
courtship. The young cranes, that were hatched out in the
monsoon of last year, are now nearly as big as their parents,
and are well able to look after themselves; ere long they will
be driven away and made to do so. The display of the sarus is
not an elaborate process. The cock turns his back on the hen and
then partially opens his wings, so that the blackish primaries
droop and the grey secondary feathers are arched. In this
attitude he trumpets softly.

The water-hens have already begun their uproarious courtship.
Their weird calls must be heard to be appreciated. They consist
of series of kok, koks followed by roars, hiccups, cackles
and gurgles.

Black partridges, likewise, are very noisy throughout the month
of May. Their nesting season is fast approaching.

Even as April showers in England bring forth May flowers, so
does the April sunshine in India draw forth the marriage
adornments of the birds that breed in the rains. The
pheasant-tailed jacanas are acquiring the long tail feathers
that form the wedding ornaments of both sexes.

The various species of egret and the paddy bird all assume their
nuptial plumes in May.

In the case of the egret these plumes are in great demand and
are known to the plumage trade as “ospreys.”

The plumes in question consist of long filamentous feathers that
grow from the neck of the egret and also from its breast. In
most countries those who obtain these plumes wait until the
birds are actually nesting before attempting to secure them,
taking advantage of the fact that egrets nest in colonies and of
the parental affection of the breeding birds. A few men armed
with guns are able to shoot every adult member of the colony,
because the egrets continue to feed their young until they are
shot. As the plumes of these birds are worth nearly their weight
in gold, egrets have become extinct in some parts of the world.

The export of plumage from India is unlawful, but this fact does
not prevent a very large feather trade being carried on, since
it is not difficult to smuggle “ospreys” out of the country.

Doubtless the existing Notification of the Government of India,
prohibiting the export of plumage, has the effect of checking,
to some extent, the destruction of egrets, but there is no
denying the fact that many of the larger species are still shot
for their plumes while breeding.

In the case of cattle-egrets (Bubulcus coromandus) the custom
of shooting them when on the nest has given place to a more
humane and more sensible method of obtaining their nuchal
plumes. These, as we have seen, arise early in May, but the
birds do not begin to nest until the end of June. The
cattle-egret is gregarious; it is the large white bird that
accompanies cattle in order to secure the insects put up by the
grazing quadrupeds. Taking advantage of the social habits of
these egrets the plume-hunters issue forth early in May and
betake themselves, in parties of five or six, to the villages
where the birds roost. Their apparatus consists of two nets,
each some eight feet long and three broad. These are laid flat
on the ground in shallow water, parallel to one another, about a
yard apart. The inner side of each net is securely pegged to the
ground. By an ingenious arrangement of sticks and ropes a man,
taking cover at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, by giving
a sharp pull at a pliable cane, can cause the outer parts of
each net to spring up and meet to form an enclosure which is, in
shape, not unlike a sleeping-pal tent. When the nets have been
set in a pond near the trees where the cattle-egrets roost at
night and rest in the day-time, two or three decoy
birds—captured egrets with their eyes sewn up to prevent them
struggling or trying to fly away—are tethered in the space
between the two nets; these last, being laid flat under muddy
water, are invisible. Sooner or later an egret in one of the
trees near by, seeing some of its kind standing peacefully in
the water, alights near them. Almost before it has touched the
ground the cane is pulled and the egret finds itself a prisoner.
One of the bird-catchers immediately runs to the net, secures
the victim, opens out its wings, and, holding each of these
between the big and the second toe, pulls out the nuchal plumes.
This operation lasts about five seconds. The bird is then set at
liberty, far more astonished than hurt. It betakes itself to its
wild companions, and the net is again set. Presently another
egret is caught and divested of its plumes, and the process
continues all day.

The bird-catchers spend six weeks every year in obtaining
cattle-egret plumes in this manner. They sell the plumes to
middle-men, who dispose of them to those who smuggle them out of
India.

If stuffed birds were used as decoys and the plumes of the
captured birds were snipped off with scissors instead of being
pulled out, the operation could be carried on without any
cruelty, and, if legalised and supervised by the Government, it
could be made a source of considerable revenue.

JUNE

There are two Indian Junes—the June of fiction and the June of
fact. The June of fiction is divided into two equal parts—the
dry half and the wet half. The former is made up of hot days,
dull with dust haze, when the shade temperature may reach 118°,
and of oppressive nights when the air is still and
stagnant and the mercury in the thermometer rarely falls below
84°. Each succeeding period of four-and-twenty hours
seems more disagreeable and unbearable than its predecessor,
until the climax is reached about the 15th June, when large
black clouds appear on the horizon and roll slowly onwards,
accompanied by vivid lightning, loud peals of thunder and
torrential rain. In the June of fact practically the whole month
is composed of hot, dry, dusty, oppressive days; for the monsoon
rarely reaches Northern India before the last week of the month
and often tarries till the middle of July, or even later.

The first rain causes the temperature to fall immediately. It is
no uncommon thing for the mercury in the thermometer to sink 20
degrees in a few minutes. While the rain is actually descending
the weather feels refreshingly cool in contrast to the previous
furnace-like heat. Small wonder then that the advent of the
creative monsoon is more heartily welcomed in India than is
spring in England. No sound is more pleasing to the human ear
than the drumming of the first monsoon rain.

But alas! the physical relief brought by the monsoon is only
temporary. The temperature rises the moment the rain ceases to
fall, and the prolonged breaks in the rains that occur every
year render the last state of the climate worse than the first.
The air is so charged with moisture that it cannot absorb the
perspiration that emanates from the bodies of the human beings
condemned to existence in this humid Inferno. For weeks together
we live in a vapour-bath, and to the physical discomfort of
perpetual clamminess is added the irritation of prickly heat.

Moreover, the rain brings with it myriads of torments in the
form of termites, beetles, stinking bugs, flies, mosquitoes and
other creeping and flying things, which bite and tease and find
their way into every article of food and drink. The rain also
awakens from their slumbers the frogs that have hibernated and
æstivated in the sun-baked beds of dried-up ditches and tanks.
These awakened amphibia fill the welkin with their croakings,
which take the place of the avian chorus at night. The latter
ceases with dramatic abruptness with the first fall of monsoon
rain. During the monsoon the silence of the night is broken only
by the sound of falling raindrops, or the croaking of the frogs,
the stridulation of crickets innumerable, and the owlet’s feeble
call. Before the coming of the monsoon the diurnal chorus of the
day birds begins to flag because the nesting season for many
species is drawing to a close. The magpie-robin still pours
forth his splendid song, but the quality of the music in the
case of many individuals is already beginning to fall off. The
rollers, which are feeding their young, are far less noisy than
they were at the time of courtship. The barbets and
coppersmiths, although not so vociferous as formerly, cannot,
even in the monsoon, be charged with hiding their lights under a
bushel. Towards the end of June the chuk, chuk, chuk,
chuk, chuk of Horsfield’s nightjar is not often heard, but
the bird continues to utter its soft churring note. The iora’s
cheerful calls still resound through the shady mango tope. The
sunbirds, the fantail flycatchers, the orioles, the
golden-backed woodpeckers, the white-breasted kingfishers and
the black partridges call as lustily as ever, and the bulbuls
continue to twitter to one another “stick to it!” With the first
fall of rain the tunes of the paradise flycatchers and the
king-crows change. The former now cry “Witty-ready wit,” softly
and gently, while the calls of the latter suddenly become sweet
and mellow.

Speaking generally, the monsoon seems to exercise a sobering, a
softening influence on the voices of the birds. The pied myna
forms the one exception; he does not come into his full voice
until the rains have set in.

The monsoon transfigures the earth. The brown, dry, hard
countryside, with its dust-covered trees, becomes for the time
being a shallow lake in which are studded emerald islets
innumerable. Stimulated by the rain many trees put forth fresh
crops of leaves. At the first break in the downpour the
cultivators rush forth with their ploughs and oxen to prepare
the soil for the autumn crops with all the speed they may.

There is much to interest the ornithologist in June.

Of the birds whose nests have been previously described the
following are likely to have eggs or young: white-eyes, ioras,
tailor-birds, king-crows, robins, sparrows, tree-pies, seven
sisters, cuckoo-shrikes, Indian wren-warblers (second brood),
sunbirds (second brood), swifts, fantail flycatchers (second
brood), orioles, paradise flycatchers, grey horn-bills, and the
various mynas, bulbuls, butcher-birds, doves, pigeons and
lapwings. The following species have young which either are in
the nest or have only recently left it: roller, hoopoe, brown
rock-chat, magpie-robin, coppersmith, green barbet, nightjar,
white-eyed buzzard, pipit, wire-tailed swallow, white-breasted
kingfisher, grey partridge, kite, golden-backed woodpecker
(second brood), and the several species of bee-eater and lark.

With June the breeding season for the blue rock and green
pigeons ends. In the sal forests the young jungle-fowl have
now mostly hatched out and are following the old hens, or
feeding independently.

Some of the minivets are beginning to busy themselves with a
second brood.

The breeding operations of a few species begin in June.

Chief of these is that arch-villain Corvus splendens—the
Indian house-crow. Crows have no fine feathers, hence the cocks
do not “display” before the hens. To sing they know not how.
Their courtship, therefore, provides a feast for neither the eye
nor the ear of man. The lack of ornaments and voice perhaps
explains the fact that among crows there is no noisy
love-making. Crows make a virtue of necessity. Any attempt at
courtship after the style of the costermonger is resented by the
whole corvine community. The only amorous display permitted in
public is head-tickling. The cock and the hen perch side by
side, one ruffles the feathers of the neck, the other inserts
its bill between the ruffled feathers of its companion and
gently tickles its neck, to the accompaniment of soft gurgles.

Crows are the most intelligent of birds. Like the other fowls of
the air in which the brain is well developed, they build rough
untidy nests—mere platforms placed in the fork of a branch of
almost any kind of tree. The usual materials used in
nest-construction are twigs, but crows do not limit themselves
to these. They seem to take a positive pride in pressing into
service materials of an uncommon nature. Cases are on record of
nests composed entirely of spectacle-frames, wires used for the
fixing of the corks of soda-water bottles, or pieces of tin
discarded by tinsmiths.

Four, five or six eggs are laid; these are of a pale
greenish-blue hue, speckled or flaked with sepia markings. The
hen alone collects the materials for the nest, but the cock
supervises her closely, following her about and criticising her
proceedings as she picks up twigs and works them into the nest.

From the time of the laying of the first egg until the moment of
the departure of the last young bird, one or other of the
parents always mounts guard over the nest, except when they are
chasing a koel. Crows are confirmed egg-lifters and
chicken-stealers; they apply their standard of morality to other
birds, and, in consequence, never leave their own offspring
unguarded. A crow’s nest at which there is no adult crow
certainly contains neither eggs nor young birds.

As has already been stated, crows spend, much time in teasing
and annoying other birds. Retribution overtakes them in the
nesting season. The Indian koel (Eudynamis honorata) cuckolds
them. The crows either are aware of this or have an instinctive
dislike to this cuckoo. The sight of the koel affects a crow in
much the same way as a red cloth irritates a bull. One of these
cuckoos has but to perch in a tree that contains a crow’s nest
and begin calling in order to make both the owners of the nest
attack him. The koel takes full advantage of this fact. The cock
approaches the nest and begins uttering his fluty kuil,
kuil. The crows forthwith dash savagely at him. He flies off
pursued by them. He can easily outdistance his pursuers, but is
content to keep a lead of a few feet, crying pip-pip or
kuil-kuil, and thus he lures the parent crows to some
distance. No sooner are their backs turned than the hen koel
slips quietly into the nest and deposits an egg in it. If she
have time she carries off or throws out one or more of the
legitimate eggs. When the crows return to the nest, having
failed to catch the cock koel, they do not appear to notice the
trick played upon them, although the koel’s egg is smaller than
theirs and of an olive-green colour. Through the greater part of
June and July the koels keep the crows busy chasing them.
Something approaching pandemonium reigns in the neighbourhood of
a colony of nesting crows: from dawn till nightfall the shrieks
and yells of the koels mingle with the harsh notes of the crows.

Sometimes the crows return from the chase of the cock koel
before the hen is ready, and surprise her in the nest; then they
attack her. She flees in terror, and is followed by the corvi.
Her screams when being thus pursued are loud enough to awaken
the Seven Sleepers. She has cause for alarm, for, if the raging
crows catch her, they will assuredly kill her. Such a tragedy
does sometimes occur.

Not infrequently it happens that more than one koel’s egg is
laid in a crow’s nest.

The incubation period of the egg of the koel is shorter than
that of the crow, the consequence is that when, as usually
happens, there is one of the former and several of the latter in
a nest, the young koel is invariably the first to emerge. It
does not attempt to eject from the nest either the legitimate
eggs or the young crows when they appear on the scene. Indeed,
it lives on excellent terms with its foster brethren. But to say
this is to anticipate, for as a rule, neither young koels nor
baby crows hatch out until July.

The crow-pheasants (Centropus sinensis), which are cuckoos
that do not lead a parasitic existence, are now busy with
nursery duties. The nest of the crow-pheasant or coucal is a
massive structure, globular in shape, with the entrance at one
side. Large as the nest is, it is not often discovered by the
naturalist because it is almost invariably situated in the midst
of an impenetrable thicket. Three or four pure-white eggs are
laid.

The white-necked storks or beef-steak birds (Dissura
episcopus) are busy at their nests in June. These birds build
in large trees, usually at a distance from water. The nest is
rudely constructed of twigs. It is about one and a half feet in
diameter. The eggs are placed in a depression lined with straw,
grass or feathers. White-necked storks often begin nest-building
about the middle of May, but eggs are rarely laid earlier than
the second week of June. House-crows nest at the same time of
year, and they often worry the storks considerably by their
impudent attempts to commit larceny of building material.

The breeding season of the paddy-birds has now fairly begun.
These birds, usually so solitary in habit, often nest in small
colonies, sometimes in company with night-herons. The nest is a
slender platform of sticks placed high up in a tree, often in
the vicinity of human habitations. Nesting paddy-birds, or
pond-herons as they are frequently called, utter all manner of
weird calls, the one most frequently heard being a curious
gurgle.

Some of the amadavats build nests in June, but the great
majority breed during the winter months.

As soon as the first rains have fallen a few of the
pheasant-tailed jacanas begin nesting operations, but the
greater number breed in August; for this reason their nests are
described in the calendar for that month.

In June a very striking bird makes its appearance in Northern
India. This is the pied crested cuckoo (Coccystes jacobinus).
Its under parts are white, as is a bar in the wing. The
remainder of the plumage is glossy black. The head is adorned by
an elegant crest. The pied cuckoo has a peculiar metallic call,
which is as easy to recognise as it is difficult to describe.
The bird victimises, not crows, but babblers; nevertheless the
corvi seem to dislike it as intensely as they dislike koels.

By the beginning of the month the great majority of the cock
bayas or weaver-birds have assumed their black-and-golden
wedding garment; nevertheless they do not as a rule begin to
nest before July.

The curious excrescence on the bill of the drake nukta or
comb-duck is now much enlarged. This betokens the approach of
the nesting season for that species.

If the monsoon happen to burst early many of the birds which
breed in the rains begin building their nests towards the end of
June, but, in nine years out of ten, July marks the beginning of
the breeding period of aquatic birds, therefore the account of
their nests properly finds place in the calendar of that month,
or of August, when the season is at its height.

JULY

In July India becomes a theatre in which Nature stages a mighty
transformation scene. The prospect changes with kaleidoscopic
rapidity. The green water-logged earth is for a time overhung by
dull leaden clouds; this sombre picture melts away into one,
even more dismal, in which the rain pours down in torrents,
enveloping everything in mist and moisture. Suddenly the sun
blazes forth with indescribable brilliance and shines through an
atmosphere, clear as crystal, from which every particle of dust
has been washed away. Fleecy clouds sail majestically across the
vaulted firmament. Then follows a gorgeous sunset in which
changing colours run riot through sky and clouds—pearly grey,
jet black, dark dun, pale lavender, deep mauve, rich carmine,
and brightest gold. These colours fade away into the darkness of
the night; the stars then peep forth and twinkle brightly. At
the approach of “rosy-fingered” dawn their lights go out, one by
one. Then blue tints appear in the firmament which deepen into
azure. The glory of the ultramarine sky does not remain long
without alloy: clouds soon appear. So the scene ever changes,
hour by hour and day by day. Had the human being who passes July
in the plains but one window to the soul and that the eye, the
month would be one of pure joy, a month spent in the
contemplation of splendid dawns, brilliant days, the rich green
mantle of the earth, the majesty of approaching thunderclouds,
and superb sunsets. But, alas, July is not a month of unalloyed
pleasure. The temperature is tolerably low while the rain is
actually falling; but the moment this ceases the European is
subjected to the acute physical discomforts engendered by the
hot, steamy, oppressive atmosphere, the ferocity of the sun’s
rays, and the teasing of thousands of biting and buzzing insects
which the monsoon calls into being. Termites, crickets,
red-bugs, stink-bugs, horseflies, mosquitoes, beetles and
diptera of all shapes and sizes arise in millions as if
spontaneously generated. Many of these are creatures of the
night. Although born in darkness all seem to strive after light.
Myriads of them collect round every burning lamp in the open
air, to the great annoyance of the human being who attempts to
read out of doors after dark. The spotted owlets, the toads and
the lizards, however, take a different view of the invasion and
partake eagerly of the rich feast provided for them.
Notwithstanding the existence of chiks, or gauze doors, the
hexapods crowd into the lighted bungalow, where every
illumination soon becomes the centre of a collection of the
bodies of the insects that have been burned by the flame, or
scorched by the lamp chimney. Well is it for the rest of
creation that most of these insects are short-lived. The span of
life of many is but a day: were it much longer human beings
could hardly manage to exist during the rains. Equally
unbearable would life be were all the species of monsoon insects
to come into being simultaneously. Fortunately they appear in
relays. Every day some new forms enter on the stage of life and
several make their exit. The pageant of insect life, then, is an
ever-changing one. To-day one species predominates, to-morrow
another, and the day after a third. Unpleasant and irritating
though these insect hosts be to human beings, some pleasure is
to be derived from watching them. Especially is this the case
when the termites or white-ants swarm. In the damp parts of
Lower Bengal these creatures may emerge at any time of the year.
In Calcutta they swarm either towards the close of the rainy
season or in spring after an exceptionally heavy thunderstorm.
In Madras they emerge from their hiding-places in October with
the northeast monsoon. In the United Provinces the winged
termites appear after the first fall of the monsoon rain in June
or July as the case may be. These succulent creatures provide a
feast for the birds which is only equalled by that furnished by
a flight of locusts. In the case of the termites it is not only
the birds that partake. The ever-vigilant crows are of course
the first to notice a swarm of termites, and they lose no time
in setting to work. The kites are not far behind them. These
great birds sail on the outskirts of the flight, seizing
individuals with their claws and transferring them to the beak
while on the wing. A few king-crows and bee-eaters join them. On
the ground below magpie-robins, babblers, toads, lizards,
musk-rats and other terrestrial creatures make merry. If the
swarm comes out at dusk, as often happens, bats and spotted
owlets join those of the gourmands that are feasting while on
the wing.

The earth is now green and sweet. The sugar-cane grows apace.
The rice, the various millets and the other autumn crops are
being sown. The cultivators take full advantage of every break
in the rains to conduct agricultural operations.

As we have seen, the nocturnal chorus of the birds is now
replaced by the croaking of frogs and the stridulation of
crickets. In the day-time the birds still have plenty to say for
themselves. The brain-fever birds scream as lustily as they did
in May and June. The koel is, if possible, more vociferous than
ever, especially at the beginning of the month. The Indian
cuckoo does not call so frequently as formerly, but, by way of
compensation, the pied crested cuckoo uplifts his voice at short
intervals.

The whoot, whoot, whoot of the crow-pheasant booms from
almost every thicket. The iora, the coppersmith, the barbet, the
golden-backed woodpecker, and the white-breasted kingfisher
continue to call merrily. The pied starlings are in full voice;
their notes form a very pleasing addition to the avian chorus.
Those magpie-robins that have not brought nesting operations to
a close are singing vigorously. The king-crows are feeding their
young ones in the greenwood tree, and crooning softly to them
pitchu-wee. At the jhils the various waterfowl are nesting
and each one proclaims the fact by its allotted call. Much
strange music emanates from the well-filled tank; the
indescribable cries of the purple coots, the curious “fixed
bayonets” of the cotton teal and the weird cat-like mews of the
jacanas form the dominant notes of the aquatic symphony.

In July the black-breasted or rain-quail (Coturnix
coromandelica) is plentiful in India. Much remains to be
discovered regarding the movements of this species. It appears
to migrate to Bengal, the United Provinces, the Punjab and Sind
shortly before the monsoon bursts, but it is said to arrive in
Nepal as early as April. It would seem to winter in South India.
It is a smaller bird than the ordinary grey quail and has no
pale cross-bars on the primary wing feathers. The males of this
species are held in high esteem by Indians as fighting birds.
Large numbers of them are netted in the same way as the grey
quail. Some captive birds are set down in a covered cage by a
sugar-cane field in the evening. Their calls attract a number of
wild birds, which settle down in the sugar-cane in order to
spend the day there. At dawn a net is quietly stretched across
one end of the field. A rope is then slowly dragged along over
the growing crop in the direction of the net. This sends all the
quail into the net.

Very fair sport may be obtained in July by shooting rain-quail
that have been attracted by call birds.

July marks the end of one breeding season and the beginning of
another. As regards the nesting season, birds fall into four
classes. There is the very large class that nests in spring and
summer. Next in importance is the not inconsiderable body that
rears up its broods in the rains when the food supply is most
abundant. Then comes the small company that builds nests in the
pleasant winter time. Lastly there are the perennials—such
birds as the sparrow and the dove, which nest at all seasons. In
the present month the last of the summer nesting birds close
operations for the year, and the monsoon birds begin to lay
their eggs. July is therefore a favourable month for
bird-nesting. Moreover, the sun is sometimes obscured by cloud
and, under such conditions, a human being is able to remain out
of doors throughout the day without suffering much physical
discomfort.

With July ends the normal breeding season of the tree-pies,
white-eyes, ioras; king-crows, bank-mynas, paradise flycatchers,
brown rock-chats, Indian robins, dhayals, red-winged bush-larks,
sunbirds, rollers, swifts, green pigeons, lapwings and
butcher-birds.

The paradise flycatchers leave Northern India and migrate
southwards a few weeks after the young birds have left the nest.

Numbers of bulbuls’ nests are likely to be found in July, but
the breeding time of these birds is rapidly drawing to its
close. Sparrows and doves are of course engaged in parental
duties; their eggs have been taken in every month of the year.

The nesting season is now at its height for the white-necked
storks, the koels and their dupes—the house-crows, also for the
various babblers and their deceivers—the brain-fever birds and
the pied crested cuckoos. The tailor-birds, the ashy and the
Indian wren-warblers, the brahminy mynas, the wire-tailed
swallows, the amadavats, the sirkeer cuckoos, the pea-fowl, the
water-hens, the common and the pied mynas, the cuckoo-shrikes
and the orioles are all fully occupied with nursery duties. The
earliest of the brain-fever birds to be hatched have left the
nest. Like all its family the young hawk-cuckoo has a healthy
appetite. In order to satisfy it the unfortunate foster-parents
have to work like slaves, and often must they wonder why nature
has given them so voracious a child. When it sees a babbler
approaching with food, the cuckoo cries out and flaps its wings
vigorously. Sometimes these completely envelop the parent bird
while it is thrusting food into the yellow mouth of the cuckoo.
The breast of the newly-fledged brain-fever bird is covered with
dark brown drops, so that, when seen from below, it looks like a
thrush with yellow legs. Its cries, however, are not at all
thrushlike.

Many of the wire-tailed swallows, minivets and white-browed
fantail flycatchers bring up a second brood during the rains.
The loud cheerful call of the last is heard very frequently in
July.

Numbers of young bee-eaters are to be seen hawking at insects;
they are distinguishable from adults by the dullness of the
plumage and the fact that the median tail feathers are not
prolonged as bristles.

Very few crows emerge from the egg before the 1st of July, but,
during the last week in June, numbers of baby koels are hatched
out. The period of incubation for the koel’s egg is shorter than
that of the crow, hence at the outset the baby koel steals a
march on his foster-brothers. Koel nestlings, when they first
emerge from the egg, differ greatly in appearance from baby
crows. The skin of the koel is black, that of crow is pink for
the first two days of its existence, but it grows darker
rapidly. The baby crow is the bigger bird and has a larger mouth
with fleshy sides. The sides of the mouth of the young koel are
not fleshy. The neck of the crow nestling is long and the head
hangs down, whereas the koel’s neck is short and the bird
carries its head huddled in its shoulders. Crows nest high up in
trees, these facts are therefore best observed by sending up an
expert climber with a tin half-full of sawdust to which a long
string is attached. The climber lets down the eggs or nestlings
in the tin and the observer can examine them in comfort on
terra firma. The parent crows do not appear to notice how
unlike the young koels are to their own nestlings, for they feed
them most assiduously and make a great uproar when the koels are
taken from the nest. Baby crows are noisy creatures; koels are
quiet and timid at first, but become noisier as they grow older.

The feathers of crow nestlings are black in each sex. Young
koels fall into three classes: those of which the feathers are
all black, those of which a few feathers have white or reddish
tips, those which are speckled black and white all over because
each feather has a white tip. The two former appear to be young
cocks and the last to be hens. Baby koels, in addition to
hatching out before their foster-brethren, develop more quickly,
so that they leave the nest fully a week in advance of the young
corvi. After vacating the nest they squat for some days on a
branch close by; numbers of them are to be seen thus in suitable
localities towards the end of July. At first the call of the
koel is a squeak, but later it takes the form of a creditable,
if ludicrous, attempt at a caw. The young cuckoo does not seem
to be able to distinguish its foster-parents from other crows;
it clamours for food whenever any crow comes near it.

Of the scenes characteristic of the rains in India none is more
pleasing than that presented by a colony of nest-building bayas
or weaver-birds (Ploceus baya). These birds build in company.
Sometimes more than twenty of their wonderful retort-like nests
are to be seen in one tree. This means that more than forty
birds are at work, and, as each of these indulges in much
cheerful twittering, the tree in question presents an animated
scene. Both sexes take part in nest-construction.

Having selected the branch of a tree from which the nest will
hang, the birds proceed to collect material. Each completed nest
contains many yards of fibre not much thicker than stout thread.
Such material is not found in quantity in nature. The bayas
have, therefore, to manufacture it. This is easily done. The
building weaver-bird betakes itself to a clump of
elephant-grass, and, perching on one of the blades, makes a
notch in another near the base. Then, grasping with its beak the
edge of this blade above the notch, the baya flies away and thus
strips off a narrow strand. Sometimes the strand adheres to the
main part of the blade at the tip so firmly that the force of
the flying baya is not sufficient to sever it. The bird then
swings for a few seconds in mid-air, suspended by the strip
of leaf. Not in the least daunted the baya makes a fresh effort
and flies off, still gripping the strand firmly. At the third,
if not at the second attempt, the thin strip is completely
severed. Having secured its prize the weaver-bird proceeds to
tear off one or two more strands and then flies with these in
its bill to the nesting site, uttering cries of delight. The
fibres obtained in this manner are bound round the branch from
which the nest will hang. More strands are added to form a
stalk; when this has attained a length of several inches it is
gradually expanded in the form of an umbrella or bell. The next
step is to weave a band of grass across the mouth of the bell.
In this condition the nest is often left unfinished. Indians
call such incomplete nests jhulas or swings; they assert that
these are made in order that the cocks may sit in them and sing
to their mates while these are incubating the eggs. It may be,
as “Eha” suggests, that at this stage the birds are dissatisfied
with the balance of the nest and for this reason leave it. If
the nest, at this point of its construction, please the
weaver-birds they proceed to finish it by closing up the bell at
one side of the cross-band to form a receptacle for the eggs,
and prolonging the other half of the bell into a long tunnel or
neck. This neck forms the entrance to the nest; towards its
extremity it becomes very flimsy so that it affords no foothold
to an enemy. Nearly every baya’s nest contains some lumps of
clay attached to it. Jerdon was of opinion that the function of
these is to balance the nest properly. Indians state that the
bird sticks fireflies into the lumps of clay to light up the
nest at night. This story has found its way into some
ornithological text-books. There is no truth in it. The present
writer is inclined to think that the object of these lumps of
clay is to prevent the light loofah-like nest swinging too
violently in a gale of wind.

Both sexes take part in nest-construction. After the formation
of the cross-bar at the mouth of the bell one of the birds sits
inside and the other outside, and they pass the strands to each
other and thus the weaving proceeds rapidly. While working at
the nest the bayas, more especially the cocks, are in a most
excited state. They sing, scream, flap their wings and snap the
bill. Sometimes one cock in his excitement attacks a neighbour
by jumping on his back! This results in a fight in which the
birds flutter in the air, pecking at one another. Often the
combatants “close” for a few seconds, but neither bird seems to
get hurt in these little contests.

Every bird-lover should make a point of watching a company of
weaver-birds while these are constructing their nests. The tree
or trees in which they build can easily be located by sending a
servant in July to search for them. The favourite sites for
nests in the United Provinces seem to be babul trees that grow
near borrow pits alongside the railroad.

In the rainy season two other birds weave nests, which are
nearly as elegant as those woven by the baya. These birds,
however, do not nest in company. They usually build inside
bushes, or in long grass.

For this reason they do not lend themselves to observation while
at work so readily as bayas do. The birds in question are the
Indian and the ashy wren-warbler.

The former species brings up two broods in the year. One, as has
been mentioned, in March and the other in the “rains.”

The nest of the Indian wren-warbler (Prinia inornata) is,
except for its shape and its smaller size, very like that of a
weaver-bird. It is an elongated purse or pocket, closely and
compactly woven with fine strips of grass from 1/40 to 1/20 inch
in breadth. The nest is entered by a hole near the top. Both
birds work at the nest, clinging first to the neighbouring stems
of grass or twigs, and later to the nest itself when this has
attained sufficient dimensions to afford them foothold. They
push the ends of the grass in and out just as weaver-birds do.
Like the baya, the Indian wren-warbler does not line its nest.
The eggs are pale greenish-blue, richly marked by various shades
of deep chocolate and reddish-brown. As Hume remarks: “nothing
can exceed the beauty or variety of markings, which are a
combination of bold blotches, clouds and spots, with delicate,
intricately woven lines, recalling somewhat … those of our
early favourite—the yellow-hammer.”

The ashy wren-warbler (Prinia socialis) builds two distinct
kinds of nest. One is just like that of the tailor-bird, being
formed by sewing or cobbling together two, three, four or five
leaves, and lining the cup thus formed with down, wool, cotton
or other soft material. The second kind of nest is a woven one.
This is a hollow ball with a hole in the side. The weaving is
not so neat as that of the baya and the Indian wren-warbler.
Moreover, several kinds of material are usually worked into the
nest, which is invariably lined.

The building of two totally different types of nest is an
interesting phenomenon, and seems to indicate that under the
name Prinia socialis are classed two different species, which
anatomically are so like one another that systematists are
unable to separate them. Both kinds of nests are found in the
same locality and at the same time of the year. Against the
theory that there are two species of ashy wren-warbler is the
fact that there is no difference in appearance between the eggs
found in the two kinds of nest. All eggs are brick-red or
mahogany colour, without any spots or markings.

Many of the Indian cliff-swallows, of which the nests are
described in the calendar for March, bring up a second brood in
the “rains.”

Needless to state that in the monsoon the tank and the jhil
are the happy hunting grounds of the ornithologist.

In July and August not less than thirty species of waterfowl
nidificate. Floating nests are constructed by sarus cranes,
purple coots and the jacanas. The various species of egrets
breed in colonies in trees in some village not far from a tank;
in company with them spoonbills, cormorants, snake-birds,
night-herons and other birds often nest. The white-breasted
waterhen constructs its nursery in a thicket at the margin of
some village pond. The resident ducks are also busy with their
nests. These are in branches of trees, in holes in trees or old
buildings, or on the ground.

When describing the nesting operations of waterfowl in Northern
India it is difficult to apportion these between July and
August, for the eggs of almost all such species are as likely to
be found in the one month as in the other. A few individuals
begin to lay in June, the majority commence in July, but a great
many defer operations until August. There is scarcely an aquatic
species of which it can be said: “It never lays before August.”
Nor are there many of which it can be asserted: “Their eggs are
never found after July.”

Individuals differ in their habit. A retarded monsoon means that
the water-birds begin to nest later than usual. The first fall
of the monsoon rain seems to be the signal for the commencement
of nesting operations, but by no means every pair of birds obeys
the signal immediately.

The nearest approach to a generalisation which it is possible to
make is that the egrets and paddy-birds are usually the first of
the monsoon breeders to begin nest-building, while the
spot-billed duck, the whistling teal and the bronze-winged
jacana are the last. In other words, the eggs of the former are
most likely to be found in July and those of the latter in
August.

As the calendar for this month has already attained considerable
dimensions, a description of the nests of all these water-birds
is given in the August calendar. It is, however, necessary to
state that the eggs of the following birds are likely to be
found in July: purple coot, common coot, bronze-winged and
pheasant-tailed jacana, black ibis, white-necked stork,
cormorant, snake-bird, cotton teal, comb duck, spot-billed duck,
spoonbill, and the various herons and egrets.

AUGUST

The transformation scene described in July continues throughout
August. Torrential rain alternates with fierce sunshine. The
earth is verdant with all shades of green. Most conspicuous of
these are the yellowish verdure of the newly-transplanted rice,
the vivid emerald of the young plants that have taken root, the
deeper hue of the growing sugar-cane, and the dark green of the
mango topes.

Unless the monsoon has been unusually late in reaching Northern
India the autumn crops are all sown before the first week in
August. The sugar-cane is now over five feet in height. The
cultivators are busily transplanting the better kinds of rice,
or running the plough through fields in which the coarser
varieties are growing.

The aloes are in flower. Their white spikes of drooping
tulip-like flowers are almost the only inflorescences to be seen
outside gardens at this season of the year. The mango crop is
over, but that of the pineapples takes its place.

At night-time many of the trees are illumined by hundreds of
fireflies. These do not burn their lamps continuously. Each
insect lets its light shine for a few seconds and then suddenly
puts it out. It sometimes happens that all the fireflies in a
tree show their lights and extinguish them simultaneously and
thereby produce a luminous display which is strikingly
beautiful. Fireflies are to be seen during the greater part of
the year, but they are far more abundant in the “rains” than at
any other season.

As in July so in August the voices of the birds are rarely heard
after dark. The nocturnal music is now the product of the
batrachian band, ably seconded by the crickets.

During a prolonged break in the rains the frogs and toads are
hushed, except in jhils
and low-lying paddy fields. Cessation
of the rain, however, does not silence the crickets.

The first streak of dawn is the signal for the striking up of
the jungle and the spotted owlets. Hard upon them follow the
koels and the brain-fever birds. These call only for a short
time, remaining silent during the greater part of the day. Other
birds that lift up their voices at early dawn are the
crow-pheasant, the black partridge and the peacock. These also
call towards dusk. As soon as the sun has risen the green
barbets, coppersmiths, white-breasted kingfishers and king-crows
utter their familiar notes; even these birds are heard but
rarely in the middle of the day, nor have their voices the
vigour that characterised them in the hot weather. Occasionally
the brown rock-chat emits a few notes, but he does so in a
half-hearted manner. In the early days of August the
magpie-robins sing at times; their song, however, is no longer
the brilliant performance it was. By the end of the month it has
completely died away.

The Indian cuckoo no more raises its voice in the plains, but
the pied crested-cuckoo continues to call lustily and the pied
starlings make a joyful noise. The oriole’s liquid pee-ho is
gradually replaced by the loud tew, which is its usual cry at
times when it is not nesting.

The water-birds, being busy at their nests, are of course noisy,
but, with the exception of the loud trumpeting of the sarus
cranes, their vocal efforts are heard only at the jhil.

The did-he-do-its, the rollers, the bee-eaters, two or three
species of warblers and the perennial singers complete the avian
chorus.

Numbers of rosy starlings are returning from Asia Minor, where
they have reared up their broods. The inrush of these birds
begins in July and continues till October. They are the
forerunners of the autumn immigrants. Towards the end of the
month the garganey or blue-winged teal (Querquedula circia),
which are the earliest of the migratory ducks to visit India,
appear on the tanks. Along with them comes the advance-guard of
the snipe. The pintail snipe (Gallinago stenura) are
invariably the first to appear, but they visit only the eastern
parts of Northern India. Large numbers of them sojourn in Bengal
and Assam. Stragglers appear in the eastern portion of the
United Provinces; in the western districts and in the Punjab
this snipe is a rara avis. By the third week in August good
bags of pintail snipe are sometimes obtained in Bengal. The
fantail or full-snipe (G. coelestis) is at least one week
later in arriving. This species has been shot as early as the
24th August, but there is no general immigration of even the
advance-guard until quite the end of the month.

The jack-snipe (G. gallinula) seems never to appear before
September.

Most of the monsoon broods of the Indian cliff-swallow emerge
from the eggs in August. The “rains” breeding season of the
amadavats or red munias is now over, and the bird-catcher issues
forth to snare them.

His stock-in-trade consists of some seed and two or three
amadavats in one of the pyramid-shaped wicker cages that can be
purchased for a few annas in any bazaar. To the base of one of
the sides of the cage a flap is attached by a hinge. The flap,
which is of the same shape and size as the side of the cage, is
composed of a frame over which a small-meshed string net is
stretched. A long string is fastened to the apex of the flap and
passed through a loop at the top of the cage. Selecting an open
space near some tall grass in which amadavats are feeding, the
bird-catcher sets down the cage and loosens the string so that
the flap rests on the earth. Some seed is sprinkled on the flap.
Then the trapper squats behind a bush, holding the end of the
string in his hand. The cheerful little lals inside the cage
soon begin to twitter and sing, and their calls attract the wild
amadavats in the vicinity. These come to the cage, alight on the
flap, and begin to eat the seed. The bird-catcher gives the
string a sharp pull and thus traps his victims between the flap
and the side of the cage. He then disentangles them, places them
in the cage, and again sets the trap.

Almost all the birds that rear up their young in the spring have
finished nesting duties for the year by August. Here and there a
pair of belated rollers may be seen feeding their young. Before
the beginning of the month nearly all the young crows and koels
have emerged from the egg, and the great majority of them have
left the nest. Young house-crows are distinguished from adults
by the indistinctness of the grey on the neck. They continually
open their great red mouths to clamour for food.

The wire-tailed swallows, swifts, pied crested-cuckoos,
crow-pheasants, butcher-birds, cuckoo-shrikes, fantail
flycatchers, babblers, white-necked storks, wren-warblers,
weaver-birds, common and pied mynas, peafowl, and almost all the
resident water-birds, waders and swimmers, except the terns and
the plovers, are likely to have eggs or young. The nesting
season of the swifts and butcher-birds is nearly over. In the
case of the others it is at its height. The wire-tailed swallows
and minivets are busy with their second broods. The nests of
most of these birds have already been described.

The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) usually lay their large
white eggs on the ground in long grass or thick undergrowth.
Sometimes they nestle on the grass-grown roofs of deserted
buildings or in other elevated situations. Egrets, night-herons,
cormorants, darters, paddy-birds, openbills, and spoonbills
build stick nests in trees. These birds often breed in large
colonies. In most cases the site chosen is a clump of trees in a
village which is situated on the border of a tank. Sometimes all
these species nest in company. Hume described a village in
Mainpuri where scores of the above-mentioned birds, together
with some whistling teal and comb-ducks, nested simultaneously.
After a site has been selected by a colony the birds return year
after year to the place for nesting purposes. The majority of
the eggs are laid in July, the young appearing towards the end
of that month or early in the present one.

The nest of the sarus crane (Grus antigone) is nearly always
an islet some four feet in diameter, which either floats in
shallow water or rises from the ground and projects about a foot
above the level of the water. The nest is composed of dried
rushes. It may be placed in a jhil, a paddy field, or a borrow
pit by the railway line. A favourite place is the midst of paddy
cultivation in some low-lying field where the water is too deep
to admit of the growing of rice. Two very large white eggs,
rarely three, are laid. This species makes no attempt to conceal
its nest. In the course of a railway journey in August numbers
of incubating saruses may be seen by any person who takes the
trouble to look for them.

“Raoul” makes the extraordinary statement that incubating sarus
cranes do not sit when incubating, but hatch the eggs by
standing over them, one leg on each side of the nest! Needless
to say there is no truth whatever in this statement. The legs of
the sitting sarus crane are folded under it, as are those of
incubating flamingos and other long-legged birds.

Throughout the month of August two of the most interesting birds
in India are busy with their nests. They are the pheasant-tailed
and the bronze-winged jacana. These birds live, move and have
their being on the surface of lotus-covered tanks. Owing to the
great length of their toes jacanas are able to run about with
ease over the surface of the floating leaves of water-lilies and
other aquatic plants, or over tangled masses of rushes and
water-weeds.

In the monsoon many tanks are so completely covered with
vegetation that almost the only water visible to a person
standing on the bank consists of the numerous drops that have
been thrown on to the flat surfaces of the leaves, where they
glisten in the sun like pearls.

Two species of jacana occur in India: the bronze-winged
(Motopus indicus) and the pheasant-tailed jacana or the
water-pheasant (Hydrophasianus chirurgus). They are to be
found on most tanks in the well-watered parts of the United
Provinces. They occur in small flocks and are often put up by
sportsmen when shooting duck. They emit weird mewing cries. The
bronze-winged jacana is a black bird with bronze wings. It is
about the size of a pigeon, but has much longer legs. The
pheasant-tailed species is a black-and-white bird. In winter the
tail is short, but in May both sexes grow long pheasant-like
caudal feathers which give the bird its popular name. The
bronze-winged jacana does not grow these long tail feathers.

The nests of jacanas are truly wonderful structures. They are
just floating pads of rushes and leaves of aquatic plants.
Sometimes practically the whole of the pad is under water, so
that the eggs appear to be resting on the surface of the tank.
The nest of the bronze-winged species is usually larger and more
massive than that of the water-pheasant. The latter’s nest is
sometimes so small as hardly to be able to contain the eggs—a
little, shallow, circular cup of rushes and water-weeds or
floating lotus leaves or tufts of water-grass. The eggs of the
two species show but little similarity. Both, however, are very
beautiful and remarkable. The eggs of the bronze-winged jacana
have a rich brownish-bronze background, on which black lines are
scribbled in inextricable confusion, so that the egg looks as
though Arabic texts had been scrawled over it. This species
might well be called “the Arabic writing-master.” The eggs of
the water-pheasant are in shape like pegtops without the peg.
They are of a dark rich green-bronze colour, and devoid of any
markings.

The nest of the handsome, but noisy, purple coot (Porphyrio
poliocephalus) is a platform of rushes and reeds which is
sometimes placed on the ground in a rice field, but is more
often floating, and is then tethered to a tree or some other
object. From six to ten eggs are laid. These are very beautiful
objects. The ground colour is delicate pink. This is spotted and
blotched with crimson; beneath these spots there are clouds of
pale purple which have the appearance of lying beneath the
surface of the shell.

The white-breasted water-hen (Gallinula phoenicura) is a bird
that must be familiar to all. One pair, at least, is to be found
in every village which boasts of a tank and a bamboo clump, no
matter how small these be. The water-hen is a black bird about
the size of the average bazaar fowl, with a white face, throat
and breast. It carries its short tail almost erect, and under
this is a patch of brick-red feathers. During most seasons of
the year it is a silent bird, but from mid-May until the end of
the monsoon it is exceedingly noisy, and, were it in the habit
of haunting our gardens and compounds, its cries would attract
as much attention as do those of the koel and the brain-fever
bird. As, however, water-hens are confined to tiny hamlets
situated far away from cities, many people are not acquainted
with their calls, which “Eha” describes as “roars, hiccups and
cackles.” The nest is built in a bamboo clump or other dense
thicket. The eggs are stone-coloured, with spots of brown, red
and purple. The young birds, when first hatched, are covered
with black down, and look like little black ducklings. They can
run, swim and dive as soon as they leave the egg. Little parties
of them are to be seen at the edge of most village tanks in
August.

The resident ducks are all busy with their nests. The majority
of them lay their eggs in July, so that in August they are
occupied with their young.

The cotton-teal (Nettopus coromandelianus) usually lays its
eggs in a hole in a mango or other tree. The hollow is sometimes
lined with feathers and twigs. It is not very high up as a rule,
from six to twelve feet above the ground being the usual level.
The tree selected for the nesting site is not necessarily close
to water. Thirteen or fourteen eggs seem to be the usual clutch,
but as many as twenty-two have been taken from one nest. Young
teal, when they emerge from the egg, can swim and walk, but they
are unable to fly. No European seems to have actually observed
the process whereby they get from the nest to the ground or the
water. It is generally believed that the parent birds carry
them. Mr. Stuart Baker writes that a very intelligent native
once told him that, early one morning, before it was light, he
was fishing in a tank, when he saw a bird flutter heavily into
the water from a tree in front of him and some twenty paces
distant. The bird returned to the tree, and again, with much
beating of the wings, fluttered down to the surface of the tank;
this performance was repeated again and again at intervals of
some minutes. At first the native could only make out that the
cause of the commotion was a bird of some kind, but after a few
minutes, he, remaining crouched among the reeds and bushes, saw
distinctly that it was a cotton-teal, and that each time it
flopped into the water and rose again it left a gosling behind
it. The young ones were carried somehow in the feet, but the
parent bird seemed to find the carriage of its offspring no easy
matter; it flew with difficulty, and fell into the water with
considerable force.

August is the month in which some fortunate observer will one
year be able to confirm or refute this story.

The comb-duck or nukta (Sarcidiornis melanotus), which looks
more like a freak of some domesticated breed than one of
nature’s own creatures, makes, in July or August, a nest of
grass and sticks in a hole in a tree or in the fork of a stout
branch. Sometimes disused nests of other species are utilised.
About a dozen eggs is the usual number of the clutch, but
Anderson once found a nest containing no fewer than forty eggs.

The lesser whistling-teal (Dendrocygna javanica) usually
builds its nest in a hollow in a tree. Sometimes it makes use of
the deserted nursery of another species, and there are many
cases on record of the nest being on the ground, a bund, or a
piece of high ground in a jhil. Eight or ten eggs are laid.

The little grebe or dabchick (Podiceps albipennis) is another
species that lays in July or August. This bird, which looks like
a miniature greyish-brown duck without a tail, must be familiar
to Anglo-Indians, since at least one pair are to be seen on
almost every pond or tank in Northern India. Although permanent
residents in this country, little grebes leave, in the “rains,”
those tanks that do not afford plenty of cover, and betake
themselves to a jhil where vegetation is luxuriant. The nest,
like that of other species that build floating cradles, is a
tangle of weeds and rushes. When the incubating bird leaves the
nest she invariably covers the white eggs with wet weeds, and,
as Hume remarks, it is almost impossible to catch the old bird
on the nest or to take her so much by surprise as not to allow
her time to cover up the eggs. As a matter of fact, these birds
spend very little time upon the nest in the day-time. The sun’s
rays are powerful enough not only to supply the heat necessary
for incubation but to bake the eggs. This contretemps,
however, is avoided by placing wet weeds on the eggs and by the
general moisture of the nest. No better idea of the heat of
India during the monsoon can be furnished than that afforded by
the case of some cattle-egrets’ eggs taken by a friend of the
writer’s in August, 1913. He found a clutch of four eggs; not
having leisure at the time to blow them, he placed them in a
bowl on the drawing-room mantelshelf. On the evening of the
following day he heard some squeaks, but, thinking that these
sounds emanated from a musk-rat or one of the other numerous
rent-free tenants of every Indian bungalow, paid little heed to
them. When, however, the same sounds were heard some hours later
and appeared to emanate from the mantelpiece, he went to the
bowl, and, lo and behold, two young egrets had emerged! These
were at once fed. They lived for three days and appeared to be
in good health, when they suddenly gave up the ghost.

SEPTEMBER

September is a much-abused month. Many people assert that it is
the most unpleasant and unhealthy season of the year.

Malarial and muggy though it is, September scarcely merits all
the evil epithets that are applied to it. The truth is that,
after the torrid days of the hot weather and the humid heat of
the rainy season, the European is thoroughly weary of his
tropical surroundings, his vitality is at a low ebb, he is
languid and irritable, thus he complains bitterly of the climate
of September, notwithstanding the fact that it is a distinct
improvement on that of the two preceding months.

In the early part of the month the weather differs little from
that of July and August. The days are somewhat shorter and the
sun’s rays somewhat less powerful, in consequence the average
temperature is slightly lower. Normally the rains cease in the
second half of the month. Then the sky resumes the fleckless
blueness which characterises it during the greater part of the
year. The blue of the sky is more pure and more intense in
September than at other times, except during breaks in the
monsoon, because the rain has washed from the atmosphere the
myriads of specks of dust that are usually suspended in it.

The cessation of the rains is followed by a period of steamy
heat. As the moisture of the air gradually diminishes the
temperature rises. But each September day is shorter than the
one before it, and, hour by hour, the rays of the sun part with
some of their power. Towards the end of the month the nights are
cooler than they have been for some time. At sunset the village
smoke begins to hang low in a diaphanous cloud—a sure sign of
the approaching cold weather. The night dews are heavy. In the
morning the blades of grass and the webs of the spiders are
bespangled with pearly dewdrops. Cool zephyrs greet the rising
sun. At dawn there is, in the last days of the month, a touch of
cold in the air.

The Indian countryside displays a greenness which is almost
spring-like; not quite spring-like, because the fierce greens
induced by the monsoon rains are not of the same hues as those
of the young leaves of spring. The foliage is almost entirely
free from dust. This fact adds to the vernal appearance of the
landscape. The jhils and tanks are filled with water, and,
being overgrown with luxuriant vegetation, enhance the beauty of
the scene. But, almost immediately after the cessation of the
rains, the country begins to assume its usual look. Day by day
the grass loses a little of its greenness. The earth dries up
gradually, and its surface once more becomes dusty. The dust is
carried to the foliage, on which it settles, subduing the
natural greenery of the leaves. No sooner do the rains cease
than the rivers begin to fall. By November most of them will be
sandy wastes in which the insignificant stream is almost lost to
view.

The mimosas flower in September. Their yellow spherical blossoms
are rendered pale by contrast with the deep gold hue of the
blooms of the san (hemp) which now form a conspicuous feature
of the landscape in many districts. The cork trees
(Millingtonia hortensis) become bespangled with hanging
clusters of white, long-tubed, star-like flowers that give out
fragrant perfume at night.

The first-fruits of the autumn harvest are being gathered in.
Acre upon acre of the early-sown rice falls before the sickle.
The threshing-floors once again become the scene of animation.
The fallow fields are being prepared for the spring crops and
the sowing of the grain is beginning.

Throughout the month insect life is as rich and varied as it was
in July and August.

The brain-fever bird and the koel call so seldom in September
that their cries, when heard, cause surprise. The voice of the
pied crested-cuckoo no longer falls upon the ear, nor does the
song of the magpie-robin. The green barbets lift up their voices
fairly frequently, but it is only on rare occasions that their
cousins—the coppersmiths—hammer on their anvils. The pied
mynas are far less vociferous than they were in July and August.

By the end of September the bird chorus has assumed its winter
form, except that the grey-headed flycatchers have not joined it
in numbers.

Apart from the sharp notes of the warblers, the cooing of the
doves, the hooting of the crow-pheasants, the wailing of the
kites, the cawing of the crows, the screaming of the green
parrots, the chattering of the mynas and the seven sisters, the
trumpeting of the sarus cranes and the clamouring of the
lapwings, almost the only bird voices commonly heard are those
of the fantail flycatcher, the amadavat, the wagtail, the
oriole, the roller and the sunbird.

The cock sunbirds are singing brilliantly although they are
still wearing their workaday garments, which are quaker brown
save for one purple streak along the median line of the breast
and abdomen.

Many birds are beginning to moult. They are casting off worn
feathers and assuming the new ones that will keep them warm
during the cool winter months. With most birds the new feathers
grow as fast as the old ones fall out. In a few, however, the
process of renewal does not keep pace with that of shedding; the
result is that the moulting bird presents a mangy appearance.
The mynas afford conspicuous examples of this; when moulting
their necks often become almost nude, so that the birds bear
some resemblance to miniature vultures.

Great changes in the avifauna take place in September.

The yellow-throated sparrows, the koels, the sunbirds, the
bee-eaters, the red turtle-doves and the majority of the
king-crows leave the Punjab. From the United Provinces there is
a large exodus of brain-fever birds, koels, pied
crested-cuckoos, paradise flycatchers and Indian orioles. These
last are replaced by black-headed orioles in the United
Provinces, but not in the Punjab.

On the other hand, the great autumnal immigration takes place
throughout the month. Before September is half over the
migratory wagtails begin to appear. Like most birds they travel
by night when migrating. They arrive in silence, but on the
morning of their coming the observer cannot fail to notice their
cheerful little notes, which, like the hanging of the village
smoke, are to be numbered among the signs of the approach of
winter. The three species that visit India in the largest
numbers are the white (Motacilla alba), the masked (M.
personata) and the grey wagtail (M. melanope). In Bengal the
first two are largely replaced by the white-faced wagtail (M.
leucopsis). The names “white” and “grey” are not very happy
ones. The white species is a grey bird with a white face and
some black on the head and breast; the masked wagtail is very
difficult to distinguish from the white species, differing in
having less white and more black on the head and face, the white
constituting the “mask”; the grey wagtail has the upper plumage
greenish-grey and the lower parts sulphur-yellow. The three
species arrive almost simultaneously, but the experience of the
writer is that the grey bird usually comes a day or two before
his cousins.

On one of the last ten days of September the first batch of
Indian redstarts (Ruticilla frontalis) reaches India. Within
twenty days of the coming of these welcome little birds it is
possible to dispense with punkas.

Like the redstarts the rose-finches and minivets begin to pour
into India towards the end of September. The snipe arrive daily
throughout the month.

With the first full moon of September come the grey quail
(Coturnix communis). These, like the rain-quail, afford good
sport with the gun if attracted by call birds set down
overnight. When the stream of immigrating quail has ceased to
flow, these birds spread themselves over the well-cropped
country. It then becomes difficult to obtain a good bag of quail
until the time of the spring harvest, when they collect in the
crops that are still standing.

Thousands of blue-winged teal invade India in September, but
most of the other species of non-resident duck do not arrive
until October or even November.

Not the least important of the September arrivals are the
migratory birds of prey. None of the owls seem to migrate. Nor
do the vultures, but a large proportion of the diurnal raptores
leaves the plains of India in the spring.

To every migratory species of raptorial bird, that captures
living quarry, there is a non-migratory counterpart or near
relative. It would almost seem as if each species were broken up
into two clans—a migratory and a stationary one. Thus, of each
of the following pairs of birds the first-named is migratory and
the other non-migratory: the steppe-eagle and the tawny eagle,
the large Indian and the common kite, the long-legged and the
white-eyed buzzard, the sparrow-hawk and the shikra, the
peregrine and the lugger falcon, the common and the red-headed
merlin, the kestrel and the black-winged kite.

It is tempting to formulate the theory that the raptores are
migratory or the reverse according or not as they prey on birds
of passage, and that the former migrate merely in order to
follow their quarry. Certain facts seem to bear out this theory.
The peregrine falcon, which feeds largely on ducks, is
migratory, while the lugger falcon—a bird not particularly
addicted to waterfowl—remains in India throughout the year.

The necessity of following their favourite quarry may account
for the migratory habits of some birds of prey, but it does not
apply to all. Thus, the osprey, which feeds almost exclusively
on fish, is merely a winter visitor to India. Again, there is
the kestrel. This preys on non-migratory rats and mice,
nevertheless it leaves the plains in the hot weather and goes to
the Himalayas to breed. All the species of birds of prey cited
above as migratory begin to arrive in the plains of India in
September. The merlins come only into the Punjab, but most of
the other raptores spread over the whole of India.

The various species of harrier make their appearance in
September. These are birds that cannot fail to attract
attention. They usually fly slowly a few feet above the surface
of the earth so that they can drop suddenly on their quarry.
They squat on the ground when resting, but their wings are long
and their bodies light, so that they do not need much rest.
Those who shoot duck have occasion often to say hard things of
the marsh-harrier and the peregrine falcon, because these birds
are apt to come as unbidden guests to the shoot and carry off
wounded duck and teal before the shikari has time to retrieve
them.

Of the migratory birds of prey the kestrel is perhaps the first
to arrive; the osprey and the peregrine falcon are among the
last.

Very few observations of the comings and the goings of the
various raptorial birds have been recorded; in the present state
of our knowledge it is not possible to compile an accurate table
showing the usual order in which the various species appear.
This is a subject to which those persons who dwell permanently
in one place might with advantage direct their attention.

As regards nesting operations September is not a month of
activity.

On the 15th the close season for game birds ends in the
Government forests; and by that date the great majority of them
have reared up their broods. Grey partridge’s eggs, it is true,
have been taken in September; but as we have seen, grey
partridges, like doves and kites, can scarcely be said to have a
breeding season; they lay eggs whenever it seemeth good to them.

A few belated peafowl may still be found with eggs, but these
are exceptions. Most of the hens are strutting about proudly,
accompanied by their chicks, while the cocks are shedding their
trains. Other species of which the eggs may be found in the
present month are the white-throated munia, the common and the
large grey babblers, and, of course, the various species of
dove.

Before the last day of August all the young mynas have emerged
from the egg, and throughout the first half of September numbers
of them are to be seen following their parents and clamouring
for food. Most of the koels have departed, but some individuals
belonging to the rising generation remind us that they are still
with us by emitting sounds which are very fair imitations of the
“sqwaking” of young crows.

Baby koels are as importunate as professional beggars and
solicit food of every crow that passes by, to the great disgust
of all but their foster-parents.

The majority of the seven sisters have done with nursery duties
for a season. Some flocks, however, are still accompanied by
impedimenta in the shape of young babblers or pied
crested-cuckoos. The impedimenta make far more noise than the
adult birds. They are always hungry, or at any rate always
demanding food in squeaky tones. With each squeak the wings are
flapped violently, as if to emphasise the demand. Every member
of a flock appears to help to feed the young birds irrespective
of whose nests these have been reared in.

Throughout September bayas are to be seen at their nests, but,
before the month draws to its close, nearly all the broods have
come out into the great world. The nests will remain until next
monsoon, or even longer, as monuments of sound workmanship.

In September numbers of curious brown birds, heavily barred with
black, make their appearance. These are crow-pheasants that have
emerged from nests hidden away in dense thickets. In a few weeks
these birds will lose their barred feathers and assume the black
plumage and red wings of the adult. By the end of August most of
the night-herons and those of the various species of egrets that
have not been killed by the plume-hunters are able to
congratulate themselves on having successfully reared up their
broods. In September they lose their nuptial plumes.

OCTOBER

October in India differs from the English month in almost every
respect. The one point of resemblance is that both are periods
of falling temperature.

In England autumn is the season for the departure of the
migratory birds; in India it is the time of their arrival.

The chief feature of the English October—the falling of the
leaves—is altogether wanting in the Indian autumn.

Spring is the season in which the pulse of life beats most
vigorously both in Europe and in Asia; it is therefore at that
time of year that the trees renew their garments.

In England leaves are short-lived. After an existence of about
six months they “curl up, become brown, and flutter from their
sprays.” In India they enjoy longer lives, and retain their
greenness for the greater part of a year. A few Indian trees,
as, for example, the shesham, lose their foliage in autumn; the
silk-cotton and the coral trees part with their leaves gradually
during the early months of the winter, but these are the
exceptions; nearly all the trees retain their old leaves until
the new ones appear in spring, so that, in this country, March,
April and May are the months in which the dead leaves lie thick
upon the ground.

In many ways the autumn season in Northern India resembles the
English spring. The Indian October may be likened to April in
England. Both are months of hope, heralds of the most pleasant
period of the year. In both the countryside is fresh and green.
In both millions of avian visitors arrive.

Like the English April, October in Northern India is welcome
chiefly for that to which it leads. But it has merits of its
own. Is not each of its days cooler than the preceding one? Does
it not produce the joyous morn on which human beings awake to
find that the hot weather is a thing of the past?

Throughout October the sun’s rays are hot, but, for an hour or
two after dawn, especially in the latter half of the month, the
climate leaves little to be desired. An outing in the early
morning is a thing of joy, if it be taken while yet the air
retains the freshness imparted to it by the night, and before
the grass has yielded up the sparkling jewels acquired during
the hours of darkness. It is good to ride forth on an October
morn with the object of renewing acquaintance with nimble
wagtails, sprightly redstarts, stately demoiselle cranes and
other newly-returned migrants. In addition to meeting many
winter visitors, the rider may, if he be fortunate, come upon a
colony of sand-martins that has begun nesting operations.

The husbandman enjoys very little leisure at this season of the
year. From dawn till sunset he ploughs, or sows, or reaps, or
threshes, or winnows.

The early-sown rice yields the first-fruits of the kharif
harvest. By the end of the month it has disappeared before the
sickle and many of the fields occupied by it have been sown with
gram. The hemp (san) is the next crop to mature. In some parts
of Northern India its vivid yellow flowers are the most
conspicuous feature of the autumn landscape. They are as
brilliantly coloured as broom. The san plant is not allowed to
display its gilded blooms for long, it is cut down in the prime
of life and cast into a village pond, there to soak. The
harvesting of the various millets, the picking of the cotton,
and the sowing of the wheat, barley, gram and poppy begin before
the close of the month. The sugar-cane, the arhar and the
late-sown rice are not yet ready for the sickle. Those crops
will be cut in November and December.

As in September so in October the birds are less vociferous than
they were in the spring and the hot weather. During the earlier
part of the month the notes of the koel and the brain-fever bird
are heard on rare occasions; before October has given place to
November, these noisy birds cease to trouble. The pied starlings
have become comparatively subdued, their joyful melody is no
longer a notable feature of the avian chorus. In the first half
of the month the green barbets utter their familiar cries at
frequent intervals; as the weather grows colder they call less
often, but at no season of the year do they cease altogether to
raise their voices. The tonk, tonk, tonk of the
coppersmith is rarely heard in October; during the greater part
of the cold weather this barbet is a silent creature, reminding
us of its presence now and then by calling out wow softly, as
if half ashamed at the sound of its voice. The oriole now utters
its winter note tew, and that sound is heard only
occasionally.

It is unnecessary to state that the perennials—the crows,
kites, doves, bee-eaters, tree-pies, tailor-birds,
cuckoo-shrikes, green parrots, jungle and spotted owlets—are
noisy throughout the month.

The king-crows no longer utter the soft notes which they seem to
keep for the rainy season; but, before settling down to the
sober delights of the winter, some individuals become almost as
lively and vociferous as they were in the nesting season.
Likewise some pairs of “blue jays” behave, in September and
October, as though they were about to recommence courtship; they
perform strange evolutions in the air and emit harsh cries, but
these lead to nothing; after a few days of noisy behaviour the
birds resume their more normal habits.

The hoopoes have been silent for some time, but in October a few
of them take up their refrain—uk-uk-uk-uk, and utter it with
almost as much vigour as they did in March.

It would thus seem that the change of season, the approach of
winter, has a stimulating influence on king-crows, rollers and
hoopoes, causing the energy latent within them suddenly to
become active and to manifest itself in the form of song or
dance.

In October the pied chat and the wood-shrike frequently make
sweet melody. Throughout the month the cock sunbirds sing as
lustily and almost as brilliantly as canaries; many of them are
beginning to reassume the iridescent purple plumage which they
doffed some time ago. From every mango tope emanates the
cheerful lay of the fantail flycatcher and the lively “Think of
me … Never to be” of the grey-headed flycatcher. Amadavats
sing sweet little songs without words as they flit about among
the tall grasses.

In the early morning and at eventide, the crow-pheasants give
vent to their owl-like hoot, preceded by a curious guttural
kok-kok-kok. The young ones, that left the nest some weeks
ago, are rapidly losing their barred plumage and are assuming
the appearance of the adult. By the middle of November very few
immature crow-pheasants are seen.

Migration and moulting are the chief events in the feathered
world at the present season. The flood of autumn immigration,
which arose as a tiny stream in August, and increased in volume
nightly throughout September, becomes, in October, a mighty
river on the bosom of which millions of birds are borne.

Day by day the avian population of the jhils increases. At the
beginning of the month the garganey teal are almost the only
migratory ducks to be seen on them. By the first of November
brahminy duck, gadwall, common teal, widgeon, shovellers and the
various species of pochard abound. With the duck come demoiselle
cranes, curlews, storks, and sandpipers of various species. The
geese and the pintail ducks, however, do not return to India
until November. These are the last of the regular winter
visitors to come and the first to go.

The various kinds of birds of prey which began to appear in
September continue to arrive throughout the present month.

Grey-headed and red-breasted flycatchers, minivets, bush-chats,
rose-finches and swallows pour into the plains from the
Himalayas, while from beyond those mountains come redstarts,
wagtails, starlings, buntings, blue-throats, quail and snipe.
Along with the other migrants come numbers of rooks and
jackdaws. These do not venture far into India; they confine
themselves to the North-West Frontier Province and the Punjab,
where they remain during the greater part of the winter. The
exodus, from the above-mentioned Provinces, of the bee-eaters,
sunbirds, yellow-throated sparrows, orioles, red turtle-doves
and paradise flycatchers is complete by the end of October. The
above are by no means the only birds that undergo local
migration. The great majority of species probably move about in
a methodical manner in the course of the year; a great deal of
local migration is overlooked, because the birds that move away
from a locality are replaced by others of their kind that come
from other places.

During a spell of exceptionally cold weather a great many
Himalayan birds are driven by the snow into the plains of India,
where they remain for a few days or weeks. Some of these
migrants are noticed in the calendar for December.

In October the annual moult of the birds is completed, so that,
clothed in their warm new feathers, they are ready for winter
some time before it comes. In the case of the redstart, the
bush-chat, most of the wagtails, and some other species, the
moult completely changes the colouring of the bird. The reason
of this is that the edges of the new feathers are not of the
same colour as the inner parts. Only the margins show, because
the feathers of a bird overlap like slates on a roof, or the
scales of a fish. After a time the edges of the new feathers
become worn away, and then the differently-hued deeper parts
begin to show, so that the bird gradually resumes the appearance
it had before the moult. When the redstarts reach India in
September most of the cocks are grey birds, because of the grey
margins to their feathers; by the middle of April, when they
begin to depart, many of them are black, the grey margins of the
feathers having completely disappeared; other individuals are
still grey because the margins of the feathers are broader or
have not worn so much.

October is the month in which the falconer sallies forth to
secure the hawks which will be employed in “the sport of kings”
during the cold weather. There are several methods of catching
birds of prey, as indeed there are of capturing almost every
bird and beast. The amount of poaching that goes on in this
country is appalling, and, unless determined efforts are made to
check it, there is every prospect of the splendid fauna of India
being ruined. The sportsman is bound by all manner of
restrictions, but the poacher is allowed to work his wicked will
on the birds and beasts of the country, almost without let or
hindrance.

The apparatus usually employed for the capture of the peregrine,
the shahin and other falcons is a well-limed piece of cane,
about the length of the expanse of a falcon’s wings. To the
middle of this a dove, of which the eyelids have been sewn up,
is tied. When a wild falcon appears on the scene the
bird-catcher throws into the air the cane with the luckless dove
attached to it. The dove flies about aimlessly, being unable to
see, and is promptly pounced upon by the falcon, whose wings
strike the limed cane and become stuck to it; then falcon and
dove fall together to the ground, where they are secured by the
bird-catcher.

Another method largely resorted to is to tether a myna, or other
small bird, to a peg driven into the ground, and to stretch
before this a net, about three feet broad and six long, kept
upright by means of two sticks inserted in the ground. Sooner or
later a bird of prey will catch sight of the tethered bird,
stoop to it, and become entangled in the net.

A third device is to catch a buzzard and tie together some of
the flight feathers of the wing, so that it can fly only with
difficulty and cannot go far before it falls exhausted to the
ground. To the feet of the bird of which the powers of flight
have been thus curtailed a bundle of feathers is tied. Among the
feathers several horsehair nooses are set. When a bird of prey,
of the kind on which the falconer has designs, is seen the
buzzard is thrown into the air. It flaps along heavily, and is
immediately observed by the falcon, which thinks that the
buzzard is carrying some heavy quarry in its talons. Now, the
buzzard is a weakling among the raptores and all the other birds
of prey despise it. Accordingly, the falcon, unmindful of the
proverb which says that honesty is the best policy, swoops down
on the buzzard with intent to commit larceny, and becomes
entangled in the nooses. Then both buzzard and falcon fall to
the ground, struggling violently. All that the bird-catcher has
to do now is to walk up and secure his prize.

October marks the beginning of a lull in the nesting activities
of birds, a lull that lasts until February. As we have seen, the
nesting season of the birds that breed in the rains ends in
September, nevertheless a few belated crow-pheasants, sarus
cranes and weaver-birds are often to be found in October still
busy with nestlings, or even with eggs; the latter usually prove
to be addled, and this explains the late sitting of the parent.
October, however, is the month in which the nesting season of
the black-necked storks (Xenorhynchus asiaticus) begins, if
the monsoon has been a normal one and the rains have continued
until after the middle of September. This bird begins to nest
shortly after the monsoon rains have ceased. Hard-set eggs have
been taken in the beginning of September and as late as 27th
December. Most eggs are laid during the month of October. The
nest is a large saucer-shaped platform of twigs and sticks. Hume
once found one “fully six feet long and three broad.” The nest
is usually lined with grass or some soft material and is built
high up in a tree. The normal number of eggs is four, these are
of a dirty white hue.

NOVEMBER

The climate of Northern India is one of extremes. Six months ago
European residents were seeking in vain suitable epithets of
disapprobation to apply to the weather; to-day they are trying
to discover appropriate words to describe the charm of November.
It is indeed strange that no poet has yet sung the praises of
the perfect climate of the present month.

The cold weather of Northern India is not like any of the
English seasons. Expressed in terms of the British climate it is
a dry summer, warmest at the beginning and the end, in which the
birds have forgotten to nest.

The delights of the Indian winter are enhanced for the
Englishman by the knowledge that, while he lives beneath a
cloudless sky and enjoys genial sunshine, his fellow-men in
England dwell under leaden clouds and endure days of fog, and
mist, and rain, and sleet, and snow. In England the fields are
bare and the trees devoid of leaves; in India the countryside
wears a summer aspect.

The sowings of the spring cereals are complete by the fifteenth
of November; those of the tobacco, poppy and potato continue
throughout the month. By the beginning of December most of the
fields are covered by an emerald carpet.

The picking of the cotton begins in the latter part of October,
with the result that November is a month of hard toil for the
ponies that have to carry the heavy loads of cotton from the
fields into the larger towns. By the middle of the month all the
san has been cut and the water-nuts have been gathered in.
Then the pressing of the sugar-cane begins in earnest. The
little presses that for eight months have been idle are once
again brought into use, and, from mid-November until the end of
January, the patient village oxen work them, tramping in circles
almost without interruption throughout the short hours of
daylight.

The custard-apples are ripening; the cork trees are white with
pendent jasmine-like flowers, and the loquat trees—the happy
hunting ground of flocks of blithe little white-eyes—put forth
their inconspicuous but strongly scented blossoms. Gay
chrysanthemums are the most conspicuous feature of the garden.
The shesham and the silk-cotton trees are fast losing their
leaves, but all the other trees are covered with foliage.

The birds revel, like man, in the perfect conditions afforded by
the Indian winter; indeed, the fowls of the air are affected by
climate to a greater extent than man is.

Those that winter in England suffer considerable hardship and
privation, while those that spend the cold weather in India
enjoy life to the uttermost.

Consider the birds, how they fare on a winter’s day in England
when there is a foot of snow lying on the ground and the keen
east wind whistles through the branches of the trees. In the lee
of brick walls, hayricks and thick hedges groups of disconsolate
birds stand, seeking some shelter from the piercing wind. The
hawthorn berries have all been eaten. Insect food there is none;
it is only in the summer time that the comfortable hum of
insects is heard in England. Thus the ordinary food supply of
the fowls of the air is greatly restricted, and scores of
field-fares and other birds die of starvation. The snow-covered
lawn in front of every house, of which the inmates are in the
habit of feeding the birds, is the resort of many feathered
things. Along with the robins and sparrows—habitual recipients
of the alms of man—are blackbirds, thrushes, tits, starlings,
chaffinches, rooks, jackdaws and others, which in fair weather
avoid, or scorn to notice, man. These have become tamed by the
cold, and, they stand on the snow, cold, forlorn and
half-starved—a miserable company of supplicants for food.
Throughout the short cold winter days scarcely a bird note is
heard; the fowls of the air are in no mood for song.

Contrast the behaviour of the birds on a winter’s day in India.
In every garden scores of them lead a joyful existence. Little
flocks of minivets display their painted wings as they flit
hither and thither, hunting insects on the leaves of trees. Amid
the foliage warblers, wood-shrikes, bulbuls, tree-pies, orioles
and white-eyes busily seek for food. Pied and golden-backed
woodpeckers, companies of nuthatches, and, here and there, a
wryneck move about on the trunks and branches, looking into
every cranny for insects. King-crows, bee-eaters, fantail and
grey-headed flycatchers seek their quarry on the wing, making
frequent sallies into the open from their leafy bowers.
Butcher-birds, rollers and white-breasted kingfishers secure
their victims on the ground, dropping on to them silently from
their watchtowers. Magpie-robins, Indian robins, redstarts and
tailor-birds likewise capture their prey on the ground, but,
instead of waiting patiently for it to come to them, they hop
about fussily in quest of it. Bright sunbirds flit from bloom to
bloom, now hovering in the air on rapidly-vibrating wings, now
dipping their slender curved bills into the calyces.

On the lawn wagtails run nimbly in search of tiny insects,
hoopoes probe the earth for grubs, mynas strut about, in company
with king-crows and starlings, seeking for grasshoppers.

Overhead, swifts and swallows dash joyously to and fro, feasting
on the minute flying things that are found in the air even on
the coolest days. Above them, kites wheel and utter plaintive
cries. Higher still, vultures soar in grim silence. Flocks of
emerald paroquets fly past—as swift as arrows shot from
bows—seeking grain or fruit.

In the shady parts of the garden crow-pheasants look for snakes
and other crawling things, seven sisters rummage among the
fallen leaves for insects, and rose-finches pick from off the
ground the tiny seeds on which they feed.

The fields and open plains swarm with larks, pipits,
finch-larks, lapwings, plovers, quail, buntings, mynas, crows,
harriers, buzzards, kestrels, and a score of other birds.

But it is at the jhils that bird life seems most abundant. On
some tanks as many as sixty different kinds of winged things may
be counted. There are the birds that swim in the deep water—the
ducks, teal, dabchicks, cormorants and snake-birds; the birds
that run about on the floating leaves of water-lilies and other
aquatic plants—the jacanas, water-pheasants and wagtails; the
birds that wade in the shallow water and feed on frogs or
creatures that lurk hidden in the mud—the herons, paddy-birds,
storks, cranes, pelicans, whimbrels, curlews, ibises and
spoonbills; the birds that live among sedges and reeds—the
snipe, reed-warblers, purple coots and water-rails. Then there
are the birds that fly overhead—the great kite-like ospreys
that frequently check their flight to drop into the water with a
big splash, in order to secure a fish; the kingfishers that dive
so neatly as barely to disturb the smooth surface of the lake
when they enter and leave it; the graceful terns that pick their
food off the face of the jhil; the swifts and swallows that
feed on the insects which always hover over still water.

Go where we will, be it to the sun-steeped garden, the shady
mango grove, the dusty road, the grassy plain, the fallow field,
or among the growing crops, there do we find bird life in
abundance and food in plenty to support it.

This is not the breeding season, therefore the bird choir is not
at its best, nevertheless the feathered folk everywhere proclaim
the pleasure of existence by making a joyful noise. From the
crowded jhil emanate the sweet twittering of the wagtails, the
clanging call of the geese, the sibilant note of the whistling
teal, the curious a-onk of the brahminy ducks, the mewing of
the jacanas and the quacking of many kinds of ducks. Everywhere
in the fields and the groves are heard the cawing of the crows,
the wailing of the kites, the cooing of the doves, the
twittering of the sparrows, the crooning of the white-eyes, the
fluting of the wood-shrikes, the tinkling of the bulbuls, the
chattering of the mynas, the screaming of the green parrots, the
golden-backed woodpeckers and the white-breasted kingfishers,
the mingled harmony and discord of the tree-pies, the sharp
monosyllabic notes of the various warblers, the melody of the
sunbirds and the flycatchers. The green barbets also call
spasmodically throughout the month, chiefly in the early morning
and the late afternoon, but the only note uttered by the
coppersmith is a soft wow. The hoopoe emits occasionally a
spasmodic uk-uk-uk.

The migrating birds continue to pour into India during the
earlier part of November. The geese are the last to arrive, they
begin to come before the close of October, and, from the second
week of November onwards, V-shaped flocks of these fine birds
may be seen or heard overhead at any hour of the day or night.

The nesting activities of the fowls of the air are at their
lowest ebb in November. Some thirty species are known to rear up
young in the present month as opposed to five hundred in May. In
the United Provinces the only nest which the ornithologist can
be sure of finding is that of the white-backed vulture.

Some of the amadavats are still nesting. Most of the eggs laid
by these birds in the rains yielded young ones in September, but
it often happens that the brood does not emerge from the eggs
until the end of October, with the result that in the earlier
part of the present month parties of baby amadavats are to be
seen enjoying the first days of their aerial existence. A few
black-necked storks do not lay until November; thus there is
always the chance of coming upon an incubating stork in the
present month. Here and there a grey partridge’s nest containing
eggs may be found. As has been said, the nesting season of this
species is not well-defined.

The quaint little thick-billed mites known as white-throated
munias (Munia malabarica) are also very irregular as to their
nesting habits. Their eggs have been taken in every month of the
year except June.

In some places Indian sand-martins are busy at their nests, but
the breeding season of the majority of these birds does not
begin until January.

Pallas’s fishing-eagle is another species of which the eggs are
likely to be found in the present month. If a pair of these
birds have a nest they betray the fact to the world by the
unmusical clamour they make from sunrise to sunset.

The nesting season of the tawny eagle or wokab (Aquila
vindhiana) begins in November. The nest is a typical raptorial
one, being a large platform of sticks. It may attain a length of
three feet and it is usually as broad as it is long; it is about
six inches in depth. It is generally lined with leaves,
sometimes with straw or grass and a few feathers. It is placed
at the summit of a tree. Two eggs are usually laid. These are
dirty white, more or less speckled with brown. The young ones
are at first covered with white down; in this respect they
resemble baby birds of prey of other species. The man who
attempts to take the eggs or young of this eagle must be
prepared to ward off the attack of the female, who, as is usual
among birds of prey, is larger, bolder and more powerful than
the male. At Lahore the writer saw a tawny eagle stoop at a man
who had climbed a tree and secured the eagle’s eggs. She seized
his turban and flew off with it, having inflicted a scratch on
his head. For the recovery of his turban the egg-lifter had to
thank a pair of kites that attacked the eagle and caused her to
drop that article while defending herself from their onslaught.

DECEMBER

In the eyes of the Englishman December in Northern India is a
month of halcyon days, of days dedicated to sport under perfect
climatic conditions, of bright sparkling days spent at the duck
tank, at the snipe jhil, in the sal forest, or among the
Siwaliks, days on which office files rest in peace, and the gun,
the rifle and the rod are made to justify their existence. Most
Indians, unfortunately, hold a different opinion of December.
These love not the cool wind that sweeps across the plains. To
them the rapid fall of temperature at sunset is apt to spell
pneumonia.

The average villager is a hot-weather organism. He is content
with thin cotton clothing which he wears year in year out,
whether the mercury in the thermometer stand at 115° or
32°. However, many of the better-educated Indians have
learned from Englishmen how to protect themselves against cold;
we may therefore look forward to the time when even the poorest
Indian will be able to enjoy the health-bringing, bracing
climate of the present month.

By the 1st December the last of the spring crops has been sown,
most of the cotton has been picked, and the husbandmen are busy
cutting and pressing the sugar-cane and irrigating the poppy and
the rabi cereals.

The crop-sown area is covered with a garment that, seen from a
little distance, appears to be made of emerald velvet. Its
greenness is intensified by contrast with the dried-up grass on
the grazing lands. In many places the mustard crop has begun to
flower; the bright yellow blooms serve to enliven the somewhat
monotonous landscape. In the garden the chrysanthemums and the
loquat trees are still in flower; the poinsettias put forth
their showy scarlet bracts and the roses and violets begin to
produce their fragrant flowers.

The bird choir is composed of comparatively few voices. Of the
seasonal choristers the grey-headed flycatchers are most often
heard. The fantail flycatchers occasionally sing their cheerful
lay, but at this season they more often emit a plaintive call,
as if they were complaining of the cold.

Some of the sunbirds are still in undress plumage; a few have
not yet come into song, these give vent only to harsh scolding
notes. From the thicket emanate sharp sounds—tick-tick,
chee-chee, chuck-chuck, chiff-chaff; these are the calls
of the various warblers that winter with us. Above the open
grass-land the Indian skylarks are singing at Heaven’s gate;
these birds avoid towns and groves and gardens, in consequence
their song is apt to be overlooked by human beings. Very
occasionally the oriole utters a disconsolate-sounding tew; he
is a truly tropical bird; it is only when the sun flames
overhead out of a brazen sky that he emits his liquid notes.
Here and there a hoopoe, more vigorous than his fellows, croons
softly—uk, uk, uk. The coppersmith now and then gives
forth his winter note—a subdued wow; this is heard chiefly at
the sunset hour.

The green barbet calls spasmodically throughout December, but,
as a rule, only in the afternoon. Towards the end of the month
some of the nuthatches and the robins begin to tune up. On
cloudy days the king-crows utter the soft calls that are usually
associated with the rainy season.

December, like November, although climatically very pleasant, is
a month in which the activities of the feathered folk are at a
comparatively low ebb. The cold, however, sends to India
thousands of immigrants. Most of these spend the whole winter in
the plains of India. Of such are the redstart, the grey-headed
flycatcher, the snipe and the majority of the game birds.
Besides these regular migrants there are many species which
spend a few days or weeks in the plains, leaving the Himalayas
when the weather there becomes very inclement. Thus the
ornithologist in the plains of Northern India lives in a state
of expectancy from November to January. Every time he walks in
the fields he hopes to see some uncommon winter visitor. It may
be a small-billed mountain thrush, a blue rock-thrush, a
wall-creeper, a black bulbul, a flycatcher-warbler, a
green-backed tit, a verditer flycatcher, a black-throated or a
grey-winged ouzel, a dark-grey bush-chat, a pine-bunting, a
Himalayan whistling thrush, or even a white-capped redstart.
Indeed, there is scarcely a species which inhabits the lower
ranges of the Himalayas that may not be driven to the plains by
a heavy fall of snow on the mountains. Naturally it is in the
districts nearest the hills that most of these rare birds are
seen—but there is no part of Northern India in which they may
not occur.

The nesting activity of birds in Upper India attains its zenith
in May, and then declines until it reaches its nadir in
November. With December it begins again to increase.

Of those birds whose nests were described last month the
white-backed vulture, Pallas’s fishing-eagle, the tawny eagle,
the sand-martin and the black-necked stork are likely to be
found with eggs or young in the present month.

December marks the beginning of the nesting season for three
large owls—the brown fish-owl, the rock horned-owl and the
dusky horned-owl. The brown fish-owl (Ketupa ceylonensis) is a
bird almost as large as a kite. It has bright orange orbs and
long, pointed aigrettes. Its legs are devoid of feathers.
According to Blanford it has a dismal cry like haw, haw,
haw, ho. “Eha” describes the call as a ghostly hoot—a hoo
hoo hoo, far-reaching, but coming from nowhere in particular.
These two descriptions do not seem to agree. There is nothing
unusual in this.

The descriptions of the calls of the nocturnal birds of prey
given by India ornithologists are notoriously unsatisfactory.
This is perhaps not surprising when we consider the wealth of
bird life in this country. It is no easy matter to ascertain the
perpetrators of the various sounds of the night, and, when the
naturalist has succeeded in fixing the author of any call, he
finds himself confronted with the difficult task of describing
the sound in question. Bearing in mind the way in which human
interjections baffle the average writer, we cannot be surprised
at the poor success that crowns the endeavours of the naturalist
to syllabise bird notes.

As regards the call of the brown fish-owl the writer has been
trying for the past three or four years to determine by
observation which of the many nocturnal noises are to be
ascribed to this species. With this object he kept one of these
owls captive for several weeks; the bird steadfastly refused to
utter a sound. One hoot would have purchased its liberty; but
the bird would not pay the price: it sulked and hissed. The bird
in question, although called a fish-owl, does not live chiefly
on fish. Like others of its kind it feeds on birds, rats and
mice. Hume found in the nest of this species two quails, a
pigeon, a dove and a myna, each with the head, neck and breast
eaten away, but with the wings, back, feet and tail remaining
almost intact. “Eha” has seen the bird stoop on a hare. The
individual kept by the writer throve on raw meat. This owl is
probably called the fish-owl because it lives near rivers and
tanks and invariably nests in the vicinity of water. The nest
may be in a tree or on a ledge in a cliff. Sometimes the bird
utilises the deserted cradle of a fishing-eagle or vulture. The
structure which the bird itself builds is composed of sticks and
feathers and, occasionally, a few dead leaves. Two white eggs
are laid. The breeding season lasts from December to March.

The rock horned-owl (Bubo bengalensis) is of the same size as
the fish-owl, and, like the latter, has aigrettes and
orange-yellow orbs, but its legs are feathered to the toes. This
owl feeds on snakes, rats, mice, birds, lizards, crabs, and even
large insects. “A loud dissyllabic hoot” is perhaps as good a
description of its call as can be given in words. This species
breeds from December to April. March is the month in which the
eggs are most likely to be found. The nesting site is usually a
ledge on some cliff overhanging water. A hollow is scooped out
in the ledge, and, on the bare earth, four white eggs are laid.

The dusky horned-owl (Bubo coromandus) may be distinguished
from the rock-horned species by the paler, greyer plumage, and
by the fact that its eyes are deep yellow, rather than orange.
Its cry has been described as wo, wo, wo, wo-o-o. The
writer would rather represent it as ur-r-r, ur-r-r,
ur-r-r-r-r—a low grunting sound not unlike the call of the
red turtle-dove. This owl is very partial to crows. Mr. Cripps
once found fifteen heads of young crows in a nest belonging to
one of these birds. December and January are the months in which
to look for the nest, which is a platform of sticks placed in a
fork of a large tree. Two eggs are laid.

The breeding season for Bonelli’s eagle (Hieraetus fasciatus)
begins in December. The eyrie of this fine bird is described in
the calendar for January.

In the Punjab many ravens build their nests during the present
month.

Throughout January, February and the early part of March ravens’
nests containing eggs or young are likely to be seen.

Ordinarily the nesting season of the common kite (Milvus
govinda) does not begin until February, but as the eggs of this
bird have been taken as early as the 29th December, mention of
it must be made in the calendar for the present month. A similar
remark applies to the hoopoe (Upupa indica).

Doves nest in December, as they do in every other month.

Occasionally a colony of cliff-swallows (Hirundo flavicolla)
takes time by the forelock and begins to build one of its
honeycomb-like congeries of nests in December. This species was
dealt with in the calendar for February.

Blue rock-pigeons mostly nest at the beginning of the hot
weather. Hume, however, states that some of these birds breed as
early as Christmas Day. Mr. P. G. S. O’Connor records the
finding of a nest even earlier than that. The nest in question
was in a weir of a canal. The weir was pierced by five round
holes, each about nine inches in diameter. Through four of these
the water was rushing, but the fifth was blocked by debris, and
on this a pair of pigeons had placed their nest.

GLOSSARY

INDEX