Part 4

The rufous-backed shrike (_Lanius erythronotus_) is the only butcher-bird that is abundant on the Bombay side. It is about the size of a bulbul. It sits bolt upright, with tail pointing to the ground, and in this attitude watches for its quarry. It has a grey head, with a conspicuous broad black band—the mark of the butcher-bird community—running through the eye. Its back is reddish brown. It has a white shirt-front, which makes it easy to see; moreover, it always sits on an exposed perch. To mistake a shrike is impossible. There is no other fowl like unto it.

The bay-backed species (_L. vittatus_) is a somewhat smaller bird, but is very like _erythronotus_ in appearance. It may, however, be distinguished at a glance when on the wing by the white in the wings and tail.

The third common species—the Indian grey shrike (_L. lahtora_)—has the whole of the back grey, and thus is recognisable without difficulty.

The nest of the butcher-bird is an untidy, cup-shaped structure, from which pieces of rag frequently hang down. As often as not it is built in a thorny tree, and, by preference, pressed up close against the trunk. Baby shrikes make their _début_ into the world during the hot weather.

IX THE ROOSTING OF THE BEE-EATERS

One evening in August I was “on the prowl” with a pair of field-glasses, when I came across a tree from which emanated the twittering of many green bee-eaters (_Merops viridis_). As the sun was about to set, it was evident that these alluring little birds were getting ready to go to sleep. Most birds seem to roost in company. They do so presumably for the sake of companionship, warmth, and, perhaps, protection. To my mind there is no sight more amusing than that of a number of little birds going to bed, so I turned aside to watch these emerald bee-eaters. The tree in question was an isolated one, growing at the side of a field. I do not know its name, but it was about twenty feet high, with fairly dense foliage, the leaves being in colouring and shape not unlike those of the rose. The bee-eaters in the tree were making a great noise; all were twittering at the top of their musical little voices, and, as there were certainly more than forty of them, to say nothing of some other birds, the clamour may be imagined. From a little distance it sounded like the calling of many cicadas. The birds were evidently busy selecting perches on which to pass the night, and there was, as there seems always to be on such occasions, a certain amount of squabbling. I was going to say “fighting,” but perhaps that would be too strong a word to use for this scramble for places. At times, indeed, the scramble would develop into a fight, and two birds emerge snapping at one another. Once outside they would desist from fighting and return to the tree. Occasionally a bee-eater would dart out of the tree, and make a sally after some flying insect, and, having caught it with a loud snap of its mandibles, return to the tree and disappear into the “leafy bower.” While this was going on amid the foliage, fresh bee-eaters kept coming in from a distance, mostly in pairs. These all made direct for the tree, evidently knowing it well.

I crept up to within about six yards of the dormitory, so as to witness as much as possible of what was going on amongst the leaves.

Some of the birds looked as though they had settled down for the night, since they were quite quiet. Two, in particular, had taken up a position, side by side, close up against one another on a somewhat isolated bough. They sat there quite still except for an occasional turn of the head, which seemed to express surprise and annoyance at the clamour of their fellows. Several other individuals had settled down in the same manner, in rows of two or more, huddled as close as possible together, each row being on a separate branch.

I noticed one line of eight bee-eaters, squeezed up against one another, and very pretty did the eight little heads look. But these rows were subjected to constant disturbance, and were continually being broken up and re-formed. The disturbances came both from within and from without. One of a row, usually the outside one (outside berths are not appreciated by the bird-folk), would suddenly determine to better his position, which he would seek to do by hopping on to his neighbour’s back, and trying to wedge himself in between him and the next bird. This would be resented by the aforesaid neighbour, who would try to shake off the intruder, and the struggle that ensued would, as often as not, result in the break-up of the whole row. Birds that had not already found suitable perches would join rows already in existence. This was a constant source of disturbance. Perhaps four bee-eaters would be sitting on a bough which their weight caused to hang horizontally, then a fifth bird would take it into his little head to alight at the extreme tip of the branch, and bear it down to such an extent that those already on it had to grip hard to maintain their equilibrium. It must be very disconcerting and annoying to a sleepy little bird when the angle of its perch is suddenly changed by fifteen or twenty degrees!

While I was watching all this some village boys caught sight of me, and, with the curiosity so characteristic of the Punjabi, came up to see what I was looking at. Shortly after their arrival one of them showed his country manners by clearing his throat with such violence as to frighten all the bee-eaters out of the tree in which they were settling down for the night! Some flew to a neighbouring tree, but the majority circled in the air with loud twitterings. Within less than three minutes, however, all were back again, trying to find suitable perches. Before they had half settled down a boy again disturbed them. This was obviously done to annoy me, so I sent the urchins about their business. All the bee-eaters were back again almost immediately. By this time the sun had disappeared below the horizon, a fact which the birds seemed to appreciate, judging by the celerity with which they settled down. It soon grew so dark that I could scarcely distinguish the birds from the foliage which they resemble so much in hue. But for the black streak through the eye I should not have been able to do so. I now crept up under the tree, and was able, by looking up, to distinguish little groups of bee-eaters huddled together. I noticed several couples, two rows of three, four rows of four, and one of five. The tails projected from behind, and by counting these I was able to determine the number in a row. I noticed that the tails were not parallel; some were crossed by others, showing that the birds do not roost so closely packed as they appear to be when looked at from the front. Birds are composed largely of feathers, so that it is easy for them to have the appearance of being packed like sardines in a tin when in reality they have plenty of room.

All the birds in a row faced the same way, but some rows looked one way and others another.

Bee-eaters do not sleep with the head under the wing, as some birds do, but are content to allow it to drop into their downy shoulders.

The little company did not all roost at the same elevation, but none slept on the lowest branches, nor could I distinguish any on the highest boughs. I should say that all the birds roost in the middle zone of the tree. The branches selected were not necessarily those where the foliage was thickest, nor, so far as I could make out, where the sleeping birds would be best protected from dew and rain. As it rained very heavily in the night in question, some of those bee-eaters must have had a nocturnal shower-bath.

X OWLS

It is the misfortune of owls that they are universally unpopular. They are heartily detested by their fellow-birds, who never miss an opportunity of mobbing them. They are looked upon with superstitious dread by the more ignorant classes all the world over. Jews and Gentiles, Christians and heathens, alike hate them. Owls are thought to be “death birds,” “foul precursors of the fiend,” “birds whose breath brings sickness, and whose note is death,” death’s dreadful messengers, Satan’s _chapprassis_, the devil’s poultry. Poets join with the vulgar _plebs_ in showering abusive epithets upon them. Owls are gibbering, moping, dull, ghastly, gloomy, fearful, cruel, fatal, dire, foul, baleful, boding, grim, sullen birds, birds of mean degree and evil omen. The naturalist is, however, above the vulgar and ill-founded prejudice against the “sailing pirates of the night.” To him, owls are birds of peculiar fascination and surpassing interest. They are of peculiar fascination because he has learned comparatively little about their habits. We day folk have but a slender knowledge of the lives of the creatures of the night. To most of us owls are _voces, et præterea nihil_—voices which are the reverse of pleasant. Owls are of surpassing interest to the naturalist on account of their perfect adaptation to a peculiar mode of life.

The owl is a bird of prey which seeks its quarry by night, a “cat on wings,” as Phil Robinson hath it. A master of the craft of night-hunting must of necessity possess exceptional eyesight. His sense of hearing too must be extraordinarily acute, for in the stillness of the night it is the ear rather than the eye that is relied upon to detect the presence of that which is sought. Another _sine qua non_ of owl existence is the power of silent progression. Were the flight of owls noisy, like that of crows and other large birds, their victims would hear them coming, and so be able to make good their escape. He who hunts in the night has to take his quarry by surprise. Everyone must have noticed the great staring orbs of the owl. Like the wolf in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, it has large eyes in order the better to see its victim. The eye of the owl is both large and rounded, and the pupil is big for the size of the eye in order to admit as much moonlight as possible. The visual organs of the owl are made for night work, and so are unsuited to the hours of sunlight. Ordinary daylight is probably as trying to the owl as the glare of the noonday sun in the desert is to human beings. But it is not correct to speak of the owl as blind during the day. He can see quite well. He behaves stupidly when evicted from his shady haunts in the daytime because he is momentarily blinded, just as we human beings are when we suddenly plunge from the darkened bungalow into the midday sun of an Indian June. I have seen owls of various species either sitting on a perch or flying about quite happily at midday.

The chief reason why most owls are so strictly nocturnal is because they are intensely unpopular among the birds of the day. These give them a bad time whenever they venture forth. In this the crows take the lead. Crows, like London cads, are intensely conservative. They hate the sight of any curious-looking or strangely dressed person. Put on a Cawnpore tent club helmet, and walk for a mile in the East End of London, and you will learn the kind of treatment to which owls are subjected by their fellow-birds when they venture forth by day. Mr. Evans, writing of the owl in his volume, _The Songs of Birds_, says: “There is some sad secret, which we do not know, which no bird has yet divulged to us, and which seems to have made him an outcast from the society of birds of the day. He is branded with perpetual infamy.” I trust that Mr. Evans will not take it ill if I state that there is no secret in the matter. Diurnal birds are not aware that the country is full of owls, so that when one of these appears they regard it as an intruder, a new addition to the local fauna, to extirpate which is their bounden duty. When a cockatoo escapes from its cage the local birds mob it quite as viciously as they do the owl.

Another peculiarity of the owl lies in the position of its eyes. These are forwardly directed. In most birds the eyes are placed at the side of the head, so that owls alone among the feathered folk can truly be said to possess faces. The position of a bird’s eyes is not the result of chance or accident. A creature whose eyes are forwardly directed can see better ahead of him than he could were they placed at the sides of the head, but he cannot see what is going on behind his back. Animals whose eyes are at the side of the head have a much wider range of vision, for the areas covered by their visual organs do not overlap. Such creatures cannot see quite so well things in front of them, but can witness much of what is going on behind them. They are therefore better protected from a rear attack than they would be did their eyes face forwards. The result of this is that, if we divide birds and beasts into those which hunt and those which are hunted, we notice that in the latter the tendency is for the eyes to be placed at the sides of the head. They thereby enjoy a wider range of vision, while in the former the tendency is for the eyes to be so situated as to enable them best to espy their quarry. Compare the position of the eyes in the tiger and the ox, in the eagle and the sparrow. The tiger and eagle have little fear of being attacked, so have thrown caution to the winds and concentrated their energies to equipping themselves for attack. In owls the eyes are more forwardly directed than in the diurnal birds of prey, because they have to hunt their quarry under more difficult conditions. Even when its ears inform the owl that there is some creature near by, it requires the keenest eyesight to detect what this is. The position of a bird’s eyes is determined by natural selection. With colour and such-like trifles natural selection has but little to do. It works on broad lines. It determines certain limits within which variations are permissible; it does not go into details. So far as it is concerned, an organism may vary considerably, provided the limits it defines are not transgressed. This statement will not meet with the approval of ultra-Darwinians, but I submit that it is nevertheless in accordance with facts. If we try to account for every trivial feature in every bird and beast on the principle of natural selection, we soon find ourselves lost in a maze of difficulties.

It is because the eyes of owls are forwardly-directed that they are such easy birds to mob. They can see only in one direction—a limitation which day-birds have discovered. The result is that when the owls do venture forth during the daytime, they come in for rough handling. The position of the eyes in the owl would lead us to infer that the bird has but few enemies to fear, and, so far as I am aware, there is no creature which preys on them, except, of course, the British gamekeeper. Why, then, are owls not more numerous than they are in those countries where there are no gamekeepers to vex their souls? The population of owls must of course be limited by the abundance of their quarry. But there is more than enough food to satisfy the hunger of the existing owls. What, then, keeps down their numbers? Mr. F. C. Selous has asked a similar question with regard to lions in Africa. Even before the days of the express rifle lions were comparatively scarce, while the various species of deer roamed about the country in innumerable herds. The answer must, I think, be found in the intensity of the struggle for existence. Nature balances things with such nicety that the beasts of prey have their work cut out to secure their food. The quarry is there in abundance; the difficulty is to catch it. If this be so, it follows that the weaker, the less swift, the less skilled of the predaceous creatures must starve to death. In that case the lot of birds and beasts of prey is a less happy one than that of their victims. These latter are usually able to find food in abundance, and death comes suddenly and unexpectedly upon them when they are in the best of health. How much better is such an end than death due to starvation?

In most birds the opening of the auditory organ is small; in owls it is very large and is protected by a movable flap of skin, which probably aids the bird in focussing sounds. In many species of owl the two ear-openings are asymmetrical and differ in shape and size. This arrangement is probably conducive to the accurate location of sound. Want of space debars me from further dilating upon the wonderful ear of the owl.

In conclusion, mention must be made of the flexible wing feathers, and their soft, downy edges. Air rushing through these makes no sound. Hence the ear may not hear, but

“The eye May trace those sailing pirates of the night, Stooping with dusky prows to cleave the gloom, Scattering a momentary wake behind, A palpable and broken brightness shed, As with white wings they part the darksome air.”

XI A BUNDLE OF INIQUITY

The common squirrel of India is a fur-covered bundle of iniquity. He is a bigger rascal than either the crow or the sparrow. I am aware that these statements will not be believed by many residents of Northern India. I am sorry, but the truth must be told. Let those who will imagine _Sciurus palmarum_ to be a pretty, fluffy little creature, as charming as he is abundant. I know better. I have sojourned in Madras. In Northern India the little striped squirrel is merely one of the many tribes that live on your frontier; in South India he is a stranger who dwells within your gates. We who are condemned to residence in the plains of Northern India keep our bungalows shut up during the greater part of the year in order to protect ourselves from the heat, or the cold, or the dust, or whatever climatic ill happens to be in season. And when the weather does permit us to open our doors we have to guard them by means of _chiks_ from the hordes of insects that are always ready to rush in upon us. Thus we keep the squirrel at arm’s length. In Madras you lead a very different life. The gentle breeze is always welcome, you rarely, if ever, close the doors of your bungalow, for extremes of temperature are unknown. Nor are you obliged to protect every aperture by means of a _chik_. There is thus no barrier between the squirrel and yourself. The result is that the impudent little rodent behaves as though he believed that men build their bungalows chiefly for his benefit. Not content with living rent-free in your house during the nesting season, he expects you to furnish his quarters for him, and to provide him with food. As I have hinted elsewhere, Indian bungalows are constructed in such a manner as to lead one to infer that there is a secret compact between the builders and the fowls of the air. The rafters rarely fit properly into the walls, and the spaces left make ideal nesting sites for sparrows and squirrels. These last, although devoid of wings, are such adepts at climbing that there are few spots in any building to which they are unable to gain access.

In Madras punkahs are up all the year round, and, as usually they are pulled only at meal times, squirrels regard them as paths leading to their nests. Running up the hanging rope, walking, Blondin-like, along the leathern thongs that lead to the punkah, jumping from these on to the top of the punkah frame, climbing up the rope to a rafter, and marching along this to the nest, are feats which the little striped rodent performs without effort.

In default of a suitable cavity, the squirrel constructs, among the branches of a tree, a large globular nest, which has the appearance of a conglomeration of grass, straw, and rubbish, but it contains a cosily lined central cavity. Any available soft material is used to make the interior of the nest warm and comfortable. When squirrels are nesting it is not safe to leave any balls or skeins of wool lying about the bungalow. The fluffy little creatures sometimes display considerable ingenuity in adapting materials for use in nest construction. One rascal of my acquaintance destroyed a nearly new grey _topi_, finding the felt covering and the pith “the very thing” for nest-lining.

Books on natural history inform us that the food of this species of squirrel consists of seeds, fruits, and buds, with an occasional insect by way of condiment. This is the truth, but it is not the whole truth. The above list does not by any means exhaust the menu of _Sciurus palmarum_. My experience shows him to be nearly as omnivorous as the myna. Occasionally I fall asleep again after my _chota hazri_ has been brought. In Madras I was sometimes punished for my laziness by the disappearance of the toast or the butter. Needless to state that theft had been perpetrated, and that the crows and the squirrels were the culprits.

On one occasion I feigned sleep in order to see what would happen. For a little all was still; presently a squirrel quietly entered the room, took a look round, then climbed up a leg of the table and boldly pulled a piece of toast out of the rack which was within a couple of feet of my face. It was no easy matter for the little thief to climb down the leg of the table with his big load. A loud thud announced that the toast had fallen on to the floor. The squirrel scampered away in alarm, leaving his booty behind him. In a few seconds his head appeared at the doorway; having regarded me attentively with his bright little eye, and satisfied himself that all was well, he advanced to the toast and bore it off. But, alas, the way of transgressors is hard! A “lurking, villain crow,” who had been watching the theft from the verandah, pounced upon the thief, and bore off his ill-gotten toast. The wrath of the squirrel was a sight for the gods. His whole frame quivered as he told that crow what he thought of him.

_Sciurus palmarum_ is very fond of bread and milk, and will, in order to obtain this, perform deeds of great daring. I once kept a grackle, or hill-myna. This bird, when not at large, used to dwell in a wicker cage. In a corner of this cage a saucer of bread-and-milk was sometimes placed. The squirrels soon learned to climb up the leg of the table on which the cage stood, insert their little paws between the bars, and abstract the bread-and-milk, piece by piece. In order to frustrate them, I placed the saucer in the middle of the cage. Their reply to this was to gnaw through a bar, and boldly enter the cage. They grew so audacious that they used to walk into the cage while I was present in the room; but, of course, the least movement on my part was the signal for them to dash away into the verandah. On one occasion I was too quick for a squirrel who was feeding inside the grackle’s cage. I succeeded in placing my hand in front of the gnawed-through bar before he could escape. He dashed about the cage like a thing demented, and so alarmed the myna that I had to let him out. In half an hour he was again inside the cage!

The little striped squirrel feeds largely on the ground. As every Anglo-Indian knows, it squats on its hind legs when eating, and nibbles at the food which it holds in its fore-paws. In this attitude its appearance is very rat-like, its tail not being much _en évidence_. It is careful never to wander far away from trees, in which it immediately takes refuge when alarmed. It does not always wait for the seeds, etc., upon which it feeds, to fall to the ground: it frequently devours these while still attached to the parent plant. Being very light, it can move about on slender boughs. It is able to jump with ease from branch to branch, but in doing so causes a great commotion in the tree; its arboreal movements seem very clumsy when compared with those of birds of the same size.