Part 5

All the graceful habits of these cranes can be studied in Europe, where the birds flourish in confinement, if given sufficient room. In captivity they soon learn to associate with the human beings and animals with whom they are brought into contact, and are specially keen in discriminating between those who treat them well and those who dislike their companionship. These cranes are also to be met with in every Kafir village, while they are likewise frequently tamed by the European settlers in both South and East Africa.

In Europe the group is represented by the ordinary grey crane (_Grus cinerea_) and the elegant demoiselle crane (_G. virgo_), both of which lack the crests of their crowned relatives.

It will be observed that in this notice the name “Kafir” is spelt with one _f_; this being the proper orthography, as the word is the Arabic “Kafir,” an unbeliever, this being exemplified in the name “Kafiristan,” the land of infidels.

THE SILVER GULL

(_Larus argentatus_)

In its adult plumage, with the snow-white head, neck, and under-parts, the delicate French grey back and wings, and the white-spotted black tips to the larger flight-feathers, the silver gull, or herring-gull, as it is more commonly called, is one of the most beautiful members of a lovely tribe of birds. Indeed, whether swimming calmly on the surface of the sea, or skimming over the crests of the waves borne on their long and powerful pinions, and every now and then plunging into the water to seize a fish or some floating morsel of food, gulls in general are some of the most elegant and graceful of all birds, their delicate colouring, in which grey and white, relieved to a greater or less extent by black or chocolate, generally predominate, thus giving a refinement to their whole appearance which is wanting in many birds of brilliant plumage. Were it not that their cries, their tempers, and their habits are by no means angelic, gulls might well have been selected as emblems of the angels.

The white and pale grey plumage, replaced in a few species by a wholly white or cream-coloured livery, is, however, developed only in the adults; birds of the year having the back and wings thickly mottled with brown and dark grey, and the tail black, while the head and neck are wholly brown; the beak, moreover, in the species forming the subject of the Plate, being black instead of orange. From this we learn that gulls are descended from birds with relatively dark plumage, which may perhaps have been dwellers on the land; and if this be so, these beautiful birds evidently acquired their present type of colouring only when they took to a life on the ocean wave. In any case, the pale livery of the adult gull must be regarded as a special adaptation to its mode of life; such a garb being the one which harmonises best with the foam-flecked waves of the waste of waters.

The herring-gull closely resembles in colouring the common gull (_Larus canus_), and like that species is abundant on the British coasts, or, for that matter, on the Thames at London Bridge or the ornamental water in St. James’s Park in winter. It is, however, a much larger bird, attaining a length of about 22 inches in the case of adult males.

This species, moreover, is much less intolerant of heat than the common gull; and while the former is compelled to wing its way to the more northern coasts for the breeding-season, the herring-gull, like the kittiwake, nests by scores on the southern coast of England, wherever conditions suitable to its habits exist. The kittiwake, it may be mentioned, differs from other gulls by the absence of the hind-toe, and is therefore referred to a genus by itself, under the appropriate name of _Rissa tridactyla_. The only other species likely to be confounded in the summer plumage, when the black-headed species have donned their chocolate or black caps, is the greater white-winged gull (_L. hyperboreus_), which differs by the paler tone of the plumage generally and more especially by the feature to which it owes its name.

The herring-gull is a wide-ranging species, met with on both sides of the North Atlantic, extending eastwards to the White Sea, and in winter as far south as the Black and Caspian Seas and the Mediterranean. In America herring-gulls visit in summer the inhospitable coasts of Labrador and Greenland, but in winter wander south to the genial climate of the West Indies and Central America, where, in all probability, they cross the continent to join a closely allied gull inhabiting the Pacific. In Europe the southern breeding range of this handsome species seems to be formed by the northern coasts of France.

Herring-gulls, where conditions are favourable, may be found nesting on the coasts of the British Isles from the south of England to the Orkneys and the Shetlands, as well as in Ireland, where they are the most common and most widely spread members of their tribe in the breeding-season. Sometimes only a few gulls nest in company, but in other situations large colonies collect for breeding purposes; and it is noteworthy that the breeding sites are always in the neighbourhood of the shore and generally on tall cliffs.

Another noteworthy feature of the herring-gull is that the adult livery is not assumed till the fourth year, in consequence of which an unusually large number of birds in the speckled dress are always in evidence.

THE GREAT HORNED OWL

(_Bubo ignavus_)

The great horned, or eagle, owl, the largest European representative of the nocturnal birds-of-prey, is the typical member of a group characterised by the relatively small size of the apertures of the ears, which are not closed by covers, and likewise by the more or less imperfect development of the disc-like ring of feathers round the eye, which forms such a conspicuous feature in ordinary owls. The so-called horns are, it need scarcely be mentioned, tufts of long, somewhat hair-like feathers growing from the neighbourhood of the ears. These ear-tufts are common to the so-called long-eared owls, which are, however, all birds of smaller size, with larger ear-openings, protected by special covers, and complete discs of feathers round the eyes.

The general appearance of this magnificent bird when in an attitude of repose, the colour and markings of the plumage of the head, breast, and under-parts, and the great, staring, red-ringed eyes are admirably shown in the illustration. When, however, the bird is enraged, the body is depressed and the plumage ruffled out, while the wings are half-spread, thus increasing its size and producing a formidable appearance probably sufficient to overawe a number of would-be assailants other than man. In length this unmistakable bird measures as much as 27 inches, so that it is equal in point of size to a small eagle.

The eagle-owl ranges over the greater portion of Europe, as well as northern Africa, and much, if not the whole, of northern and central Asia; and the species breeds as far north as Lapland and as far south as Gibraltar and Greece. It is true that the eagle-owls inhabiting the country to the east of the Ural Mountains have been regarded as a distinct species, under the name of _B. sibiricus_, while the name of _B. turcomanus_ has been proposed for those from the deserts of south-western Siberia, Turkestan, and Tibet; but these and others from Asia north of the Himalaya are so closely allied to the European bird that they are best regarded in the light of local races of that species.

On the other hand, the American eagle-owl (_B. virginianus_) is a perfectly distinct species, with a range extending over the whole of North America, although this bird has likewise been split up into a number of nominal species. Eagle-owls of various species are also known from tropical South America, the whole of Africa, Arabia, India, China, and Japan, so that with the exception of the Malay countries and Australasia, the group has a practically world-wide range.

To the British Isles the great horned owl--the _grand duc_ of the French and the _uhu_ of the Germans--is, nowadays at any rate, merely an occasional straggler, and then only to the northern parts of the kingdom, most, if not all of the specimens that have from time to time been taken in England being birds that have escaped from captivity. There is, however, a report that these splendid owls once inhabited the Orkneys.

Eagle-owls thrive well and breed freely in captivity; years ago a number were kept, for instance, at Arundel Castle, but these, although long regarded as European birds, were eventually proved to belong to the North American species. Captive specimens have served to demonstrate in some degree the great age to which these owls will live; a female brought from Norway in 1827 having survived for seventy-five years in an English aviary, and having produced during the last thirty years of her captivity no less than ninety offspring.

From its large size, powerful beak and claws, and fierce disposition, the eagle-owl, which is mainly nocturnal in its habits, is a terrible foe to the smaller animals, preying largely upon rats, mice, moles, birds, and frogs, while it also attacks and devours larger game, such as roe-deer fawns, hares, rabbits, hazel-hens, ducks, and geese. Its haunts are thick forests, especially those in which tints of rufous grey and black prevail; and in such situations the mottled, warm-coloured tints of its plumage harmonise both with the bark of the tree-trunks and the weathered surface of the rocks and cliffs. At even, with noiseless wings, the eagle-owl issues from its perch to sweep over the plains in search of prey; or, rising high in the air, utters its loud screech, and awakes the slumbering birds, which flutter from their roosts to meet their fate by the relentless talons and beak of the nocturnal marauder.

The huge nest is generally built in trees, on cliffs, or in old buildings, but the two or three eggs may be laid in holes on the bare ground. The eggs are brooded by the female, who is fed during incubation by her partner.

THE FLAMINGO

(_Phœnicopterus roseus_)

Flamingoes, of which there are several species, present us with one of the most striking instances of adaptation to a particular mode of life to be met with in the animal kingdom, more especially as the main feature in this adaptation is developed in its full perfection only when the bird is mature and takes to a special diet. In common with other waders, the adult flamingo has an enormously long neck and legs, and is thereby enabled to procure its food from depths inaccessible to most other birds, although it is frequently content to search for food in the shallows. Its distinctive structural peculiarity is, however, the sharp downward flexure of the extremity of the beak, and more especially that of the lower half. Such a beak appears at the first glance quite unsuited for groping up food from the mud of marshes and lagoons which form the favourite haunts of these stately birds; but while thus engaged, flamingoes turn their heads the wrong way up, when the beak at once becomes a most efficient ladle, admirably adapted for collecting and holding the small spiral univalve molluscs of the genus _Cerithium_ which in many districts form their chief food.

In the young flamingo, whose diet is of a different nature, the beak is more or less normal in form.

Flamingoes, with certain relationships to the storks, appear to have most affinity with ducks, geese, and swans; and it is curious to note how like are the head and neck of a flamingo, if the beak were but straightened out, to those of a swan, the resemblance extending in some cases even to the colour of the beak,--red or orange at the base and black at the tip.

White and scarlet, or crimson--the Easter colours--are the colours of the flamingo, but the relative proportions of these vary according to the species. The European flamingo--the subject of the Plate--whose range extends from central Europe to the Canaries and the Cape Verd Islands, and thence all over Africa, and eastwards to Lake Baikal, India, and Ceylon, has, for instance, the greater part of the plumage white or pinkish white with scarlet wing-coverts and black quills, red legs, and the beak pink at the base and black at the tip. Much more gorgeous is the tropical American _P. ruber_, ranging as far south as Para and the Galapagos Islands, in which the general colour of the plumage is light vermilion, with brighter wing-coverts, the base of beak being yellow and the legs red. To the south of central Peru, in Uruguay, and perhaps in Brazil this species is replaced by _P. chilensis_, distinguished by the legs being grey with red joints, while the black of the beak extends upwards above the bend. In all the foregoing species a hind-toe is present, but this is lacking in two other South American species, namely, _P. (Phœnicoparrus) andinus_, the largest member of the family, of the Chilian and Bolivian Andes and Argentina, and _P. (P.) jamesi_, of southern Peru and Chile, in both of which the beak is yellow at the base and red in the middle, while the legs are yellow in the former and red in the latter. Lastly, there is _P. (Phœniconaias) minor_, of Africa, Madagascar, and India, which in general appearance much resembles the European species.

Although flamingoes spend much of their time in wading, they are also good swimmers. Like geese and ducks, they associate in vast flocks, and further evidence of their kinship to that group is afforded by their loss of the power of flight during the height of the moulting season, and likewise by their “gaggling” cries, which are curiously like those of geese.

In the breeding-season flamingoes resort to lakes, salt-lagoons, or the swamps in river-valleys, those of the Guadalquivir being one of their favourite haunts in Europe. Bare shores are an essential element in such breeding-colonies, for it is on these that the birds construct their curious sugar-loaf mud-nests, which have a cup-like depression at the summit for the reception of the one or two eggs, and vary in height from two to fifteen inches according to the depth of the water. The eggs, which are brooded by each sex in turn for a period of fully four weeks, have bluish coloured shells, covered with a rough chalky crust. When incubating, the bird sits with its legs bent beneath the body, although it was long supposed that these hung down on the sides of the nest.

Hundreds or even thousands of flamingoes may congregate in these breeding-colonies; and there are few more beautiful sights in nature than to see a flock of these splendid birds, especially the scarlet American species, rise on the wing and display their full colouring and plumage in the sunlight.

THE NILE CROCODILE

(_Crocodilus niloticus_)

To the ancient Egyptians the timsa, or Nile crocodile, the champsa of Herodotus, was a familiar reptile; but from the lower and middle portion of the Nile, as far up as Thebes, the species has long since been exterminated, although it is still abundant in East and South Africa. Elsewhere it occurs in Madagascar, and still survives, although sparingly, in Syria, more especially in the Zerka (= Crocodile) River near Cæsarea. In Biblical times crocodiles were, however, abundant in the Holy Land; and there is little doubt that the “leviathan” of the Book of Job refers to these noisome reptiles. Till nearly the fifteenth century it also seems that crocodiles lived in Greece and the Isles of the Grecian Archipelago; and at that date a huge crocodile’s skull was jealously preserved and exhibited at Rhodes. It is these ancient south European crocodiles which probably gave rise to the legend of St. George and the Dragon and other myths of a kindred nature.

In popular estimation there is much confusion between crocodiles and alligators; and in India the former are almost invariably called alligators, although there is not a single representative of that group in the whole country. Indeed, alligators are confined to China and America; those of South America, properly known as caimans, differing from the typical Mississippi species by having a bony armour on the under as well as on the upper surface. There are many characters distinguishing crocodiles from alligators; one of the most easily recognised being that the fourth lower tooth of a crocodile bites into a notch on the outer side of the upper jaw, so that its summit is visible when the mouth is closed, whereas in an alligator the corresponding tooth is received into a pit, so that the tip is completely concealed when the reptile shuts its enormous mouth.

True crocodiles, which, with alligators, caimans, and gavials, are the largest of living reptiles, are now represented by about eleven species, whose combined range includes Africa, southern Asia, northern Australia, and tropical America. India possesses two species, the broad-nosed muggar (_Crocodilus palustris_), and the narrow-nosed estuarine crocodile (_C. porosus_); the former of which ranges to Ceylon, Burma, and the Malay Peninsula and Islands, while the latter, which enters salt-water freely, and is sometimes found far out to sea, extends from India, Ceylon, and the south of China to northern Australia and the Solomon and Fiji Islands.

Crocodiles may grow to a length of 18 and probably 20 feet or more, and are powerful creatures, which are the pests of the waters they frequent, seizing and dragging down women and men who come to draw water, and gripping by the nose cattle and other animals which come to drink. A beast thus seized has little chance of escape, no matter what may be its size, as it is taken at a disadvantage and rendered comparatively helpless; but there is a well-authenticated story of a Nile crocodile seizing a rhinoceros by one of the hind-legs just as it was about to leave the river, and eventually dragging the enormous beast, despite its frantic efforts, backwards into deep water, where it was drowned.

The prey is, indeed, always killed by drowning, after which the carcase is dragged ashore and concealed among reeds or other covert, where it is left until decomposition has set in before being devoured. A large proportion of the food of the Nile crocodile is stated, however, to consist of fish; and snails, water-fowl, and carrion are also devoured by these ravenous reptiles. When in repose, crocodiles lie like logs in the water, or on the neighbouring sand and mud banks, but the slightest sound awakens them to activity.

Hearing seems indeed to be the sense most strongly developed in crocodiles; and it is upon this that they depend in ascertaining the presence of prey. Smell, touch, and taste appear to be but poorly developed; and the tongue is affixed to the lower surface of the mouth throughout its entire length. Crocodiles are furnished with glands secreting a musky substance, much esteemed by the Sudanis for anointing their hair and bodies, and thus producing what is to them, no doubt, an agreeable odour.

All crocodiles lay hard-shelled, oval eggs, about the size of those of a goose. These are deposited by the female, to the number of from about twenty to ninety, a yard or so deep in the sand of the river-bank, where they are carefully covered up by means of her tail, and then left to mature by the action of the sun’s rays. The mother appears, however, to keep watch in the neighbourhood of the nest, and when the eggs are ready to hatch, their occupants utter a peculiar sound which attracts the parent to their assistance.

THE WHITE-HANDED GIBBON

(_Hylobates lar_)

The name gibbon, which is of unknown origin, and appears to have been first used by the French naturalist Buffon, is applied to the members of the smallest representatives of the man-like apes, all of which differ from their larger cousins, the chimpanzi, gorilla, and orang-utan, by retaining small bare patches on the buttocks. In this respect they show evidence of kinship to ordinary monkeys and baboons, in which, however, these naked callosities, as they are called by naturalists, attain much greater development.

Gibbons agree with the larger man-like apes in the complete absence of the tail, but are distinguished by the great length of the limbs, more especially the front pair, so that when these curious pigmies are standing upright on their feet, their hands touch the ground. It is very interesting to note in this connection that gibbons are the only man-like apes which habitually assume the erect posture in walking, when the arms are usually elevated and in some cases extended horizontally, thus giving a most remarkable appearance to their owners.

All the members of the group are confined to tropical south-eastern Asia, where they range from the eastern portion of the Himalaya through Burma and the Malay countries to the island of Hainan, off the southern coast of China. The largest species, the siaman (_Hylobates syndactylus_) of Borneo, does not much exceed one yard in height. In colour they are very generally black, often, as in the species represented in the Plate, with a narrow white band or fillet surrounding the greater part of the face, or making merely a line above the eyebrows. In the white-handed species, forming the subject of the illustration, the white fillet attains its fullest development, and the hands and feet are likewise white. This species inhabits the mountain-forests of Tenasserim at elevations between three thousand and five thousand feet, whence it extends through the Malay Peninsula. Its near relative the hulok (_H. hulok_), whose range extends from Assam to Arakan and the neighbouring districts, lacks the white hands and feet, while the fillet on the face merely forms a band over the eyebrow. In the Hainan gibbon (_H. hainanus_) even the eyebrow-band is wanting.

A specimen of this last-named species, which is very near akin to the hulok, afforded a surprise to naturalists in that it changed the colour of its coat during its sojourn in the London Zoological Gardens. When obtained in 1897, at an age of about six months, its colour was dark smoky grey, but this soon changed to black, which persisted till after the animal’s arrival in London in January 1904. In February of that year the fur began to assume a greyish tinge; and by autumn the entire coat had become silvery, or stone, grey, except for a black stripe down the middle line of the head. It does not, however, appear that this colour-change is universal in the species; for another captive specimen believed to be about a dozen years old was wholly black.

This is confirmed by the observations of a French traveller in the case of the white-cheeked gibbon (_H. leucogenys_) of Annam and Siam, in which two distinct colour-phases are noticeable.

These gibbons commonly go about in parties of six or seven; and while some individuals are black with white whiskers and a band on the sides and lower part of the face, in others the general colour is golden yellow with no white on the face. That the two phases are specifically identical is certain, and it does not appear that the light-coloured individuals eventually become dark, or _vice versa_. The natives, it is true, have an idea that the light-coloured individuals are the females, but this seems to be disproved by the fact that they are much less numerous than the black ones; and it thus appears probable that the species exhibits two distinct colour-phases.