Glimpses of Indian Birds

A HUNTER OF BIG GAME AND A NATURALIST WHO, HAVING BROUGHT COMMON-SENSE TO BEAR ON THE PROBLEMS OF NATURAL HISTORY DECLINES TO BE DICTATED TO BY THOSE WHO HAVE CONSTITUTED THEMSE...

_Plotus melanogaster_ is called the snake-bird because of its long, slender, snake-like neck, which looks very like the anterior portion of a water-snake when the bird swims, as...

While other birds are hunting for insects that fly in the air, or creep on the ground, or lurk under the leaves of trees, the woodpecker has designs on those that burrow into tr...

But it is not necessary to set eyes on him in order to recognise him. To hear him sufficeth. In this respect he differs in no way from his brother cuckoos. A silent cuckoo is un...

The above form a varied assortment of sites; but there is nothing very remarkable in any of them. Colonel Marshall records a nest built in the hole in a wall intended for the pa...

Hoopoes (_Upupa indica_) are constant visitors to my lawn. They revel in soft ground. The comparatively hard probe-like bill of the hoopoe enables the bird to extract insects fr...

The cock koel is a jet black bird with a red eye and a green bill. When flying he looks like a slenderly built, long-tailed crow. The hen is speckled black and white. This cucko...

There is, however, another species of merlin which is a permanent resident in and distributed throughout India, viz. the red-headed merlin (_Æsalon chicquera_) or turumti as the...

Both parent birds were present when the plant was being moved. They looked rather alarmed, but raised no outcry. They did not seem eager to approach the nest after the position...

“In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called _ladu swala_, the barn swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English-bui...

Terns are especially addicted to pieces of water that are rapidly drying up, for under such conditions they find the creatures upon which they prey literally jostling one anothe...

_Uk-uk-uk_—soft and clear; _uk-uk-uk_—gentle and monotonous pipes the nodding hoopoe with splendid pertinacity throughout the month of February. This is the prelude to nesting o...

Various observers give very different accounts of the behaviour of the parent saruses when their nest is attacked. The general experience is that they show no fight, but that th...

In conclusion, mention must be made of the migrant species. Many of the birds that come to the farm on the downs of which Jefferies wrote—the swallows, the cuckoos, and the wagt...

A correspondent to _Country Life_ states that he has noticed that in the various battles between ravens and golden eagles, which frequently take place in the island of Skye, the...

For the benefit of those unacquainted with the ways of the koel it is necessary to state that that bird spends much of its time fleeing before the wrath of crows. It lays its eg...

_World_—“Full of information, it is written in a way that sounds wonderfully clever and yet it is not over the head of the general reader. An unconventional, fresh and charming...

⁂ “The Empress Josephine” continues and completes the graphically drawn life story begun in “The Wife of General Bonaparte” by the same author, takes us through the brilliant pe...

⁂ Mr. Stephen Coleridge has seen much of the world in two hemispheres and has been able to count among his intimate personal friends many of those whose names have made the Vict...