Part 13

The clutch is said to contain from four to seven eggs. This is another assertion which I have never attempted to verify, because in order to reach the eggs of the hoopoe one has usually to pull down part of a wall or other edifice and at the same time wreck the nest. However, I can say that I have never observed more than two young hoopoes emerge from a nest, and on several occasions I have noticed that only one issued forth.

As concrete instances are more interesting than generalities I propose in what follows to give an account of the nesting operations of a pair of hoopoes that recently reared up a youngster in a chink in the wall of my verandah at Fyzabad between a wooden rafter and the brickwork. The cavity in question was so situated that I could see its orifice as I sat at my dressing table. I noticed for the first time a hoopoe bringing food to the nest on the 17th March. The food brought appeared to consist chiefly of caterpillars. Whenever the bird arrived at the nest it uttered a soft, pretty, tremulous _coo-coo-coo_. This was to inform its mate that it had come.

The hen hoopoe is said not to leave the nest from the time she begins to incubate until the young emerge from the eggs. This statement is, I believe, correct. It is not one that can be very easily verified because the sexes are alike in outward appearance. Certain it is that the hen sits very closely and the cock continually brings food to her.

As soon as the young are hatched out the hen leaves the nest and assists the cock in finding food for the baby hoopoes. I cannot say on what day the particular hen whose doings are here recorded left the nest. April 9th was the first date on which I noticed both birds feeding the young. At that period the parents were bringing food faster than the occupant of the nest could dispose of it, and one or other of them had often to wait outside with something in the beak until the nestling was ready to receive it. At that time I had no idea how many young birds were inside the nest. The chink that led to it was too narrow to admit of the insertion of one’s hand. It was not until the young bird emerged that I discovered that only one nestling had been reared.

While the parent was thus waiting outside with a succulent caterpillar hanging from its bill, it used to utter its call _uk-uk-uk_. Sometimes while one bird was thus waiting the other would appear. Then the first bird would transfer the quarry to its mate, and the latter would either devour it or wait outside the nest with the morsel.

Most birds when they feed their young collect several organisms in the beak between the visits to the nest. Not so the hoopoe; it brings but one thing at a time, which it carries at the extreme tip of the bill. The reasons for this departure from the usual practice are obvious. The long bill of the hoopoe, like that of the snipe, is a probe to penetrate the earth. During this operation any food already in the bill would be torn and damaged. Moreover, if the hoopoe were to carry the food to the nest in the angle of the beak as most birds do, it would be difficult to transfer this to the long bill of the young bird. Hence it comes to pass that hoopoes visit their nestlings a very great number of times in the course of the day.

When young hoopoes emerge from the egg they are silent creatures, but before they are many days old they begin to welcome with squeaks the arrival of the parents with food. The older the young birds grow the more vociferous they become.

Like the majority of birds that nestle in holes, hoopoes with young display but little fear of man. The nest of which I write was situated over the door of the pantry, where servants work during the greater part of the day. The hoopoes did not seem to object at all to the presence of the servants, but they took great exception to my arrival. Whenever I came upon the scene the parent hoopoes used to greet me with a harsh _chur_ uttered with crest folded back and tail expanded.

One day a corby (_Corvus macrorhynchus_), who doubtless had done to death many a promising nestling, alighted on a table placed in the verandah outside the pantry. The hoopoes were furious at the intrusion. They took up positions, to right and to left of the crow, at a safe distance, and scolded it with great vehemence. The crow took no notice whatever of this hostile demonstration. After a little one of the hoopoes flew to the ground, and from there continued its abuse of the crow. Then, while waiting to regain its breath, it expanded its crest and repeatedly bobbed its head so that the tip of the bill almost touched the ground. This bowing performance is evidently an expression of great excitement. I have seen doves behaving in a similar manner in the midst of a fight, and also when courting. Here, then, we have a case of what is usually considered to be showing off or display to the female, taking place at a time when a bird is very angry. The hoopoe in question was not showing off either to the crow or to its mate; it was assuredly no time, “no matter for his swellings nor his turkey cocks.”

On the 25th April the young hoopoe began to call even when its parents were not at the nest. Each time they brought food it uttered a series of squeaks much like those that emanate from a cycle pump when air is being pumped through it into a nearly fully inflated tyre. By this time the young bird had developed to such an extent that when a parent arrived it would push its head through the aperture of the nest hole.

On the 26th April the young bird left the nest. Assuming that the 17th March was the day when the hen began to sit, we find the young bird emerging from the nest forty days later. It is, however, improbable that I noticed the cock feeding the hen on the very first day of incubation. It is my belief that young hoopoes do not leave the nest for fully a month after they are hatched. When they do leave the nest they differ very little in appearance from the adult. They have the crest and the colouring fully developed. The only difference is that the bill is not quite so long or so curved.

From the time the bird emerges from the nest until the moment when it is gathered unto its fathers, the hoopoe’s plumage does not undergo any change in appearance. This being so I am puzzled to know what a correspondent meant when he recently wrote to the _Field_ about a hoopoe in full breeding plumage that appeared in Yorkshire.

But let us return to the young hoopoe that emerged from the nest in my verandah at Fyzabad on the 26th April, 1912. Not content with thrusting its head and shoulders through the aperture at the visit of its father or mother as it had been doing for some time, it suddenly came right out on to the beam to meet its food-laden parent. After it had eaten the proffered caterpillar and the parent had left, the young bird caught sight of me. Immediately it opened out its crest and began bowing in the manner described above as betokening excitement. Then it fluttered on to a ledge at the distance of six feet. A minute later it flew out of the verandah and alighted on a creeper growing on a wall fifteen yards away. Its flight was wonderfully strong, but I noticed that it was breathing heavily after it had alighted, showing that the short flight entailed considerable exertion. It appeared to dislike the interest I was taking in it, and so flew on to the roof of the bungalow, where I lost sight of it.

These little incidents are, I submit, utterly subversive of the anthropomorphic theory, so much in favour nowadays and expounded by Mr. Walter Long in that much-read book _The School of the Woods_, that birds and beasts are born with their minds a blank, and that they have to be taught how to walk and how to fly just as human babies are taught how to talk and walk. As a matter of fact, young birds require and receive very little education from their parents. A young bird flies as instinctively as a baby cries.

I saw nothing more of the young hoopoe until the morning of the 28th April, when I noticed a hoopoe on the roof of my bungalow calling _uk-uk-uk_ repeatedly, notwithstanding the fact that it had a caterpillar in its beak. Birds can sing with the mouth full! Presently a young hoopoe appeared on the roof. The adult bird ran to the latter and thrust the caterpillar into its mouth. This was acknowledged by a little squeak of thankfulness.

Most young birds flap their wings and make a great commotion when they think it is time they received a beakful of food. Baby hoopoes, however, do not behave in this way at all. They toddle sedately in the wake of the mother or father, but make no clamour for food. They receive this in a most dignified manner, merely uttering a little squeak of thanks.

To return to the young hoopoe of whose exploits I have been writing. I saw a parent come repeatedly and feed him on the roof of the bungalow on that day and on the 29th and the 30th. This, of course, I was prepared for. But I was not prepared for the next event, which was the revisitation of the nest in the verandah by the two parent birds on the 1st May. On the following days they continued to visit the nest hole, but I had no leisure for watching them. On the 5th May I saw one hoopoe, presumably the cock, literally drive the other into the nest hole. They both flew into the verandah and alighted on a ledge that runs round it a little way below the roof. There the cock emitted some harsh cries, expanded his crest and bowed as described above. Then he advanced towards her. She disappeared into the nest hole. He flew up to the aperture and remained outside on guard for some time. After a little he put his head into the aperture and gave vent to his gentle _uk-uk-uk_. Then he withdrew his head, remained standing outside the nest aperture for a few minutes and flew off. The hen emerged from the hole a couple of minutes later.

The next day the cock was bringing food to the nest, and the hen was apparently incubating. On the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th I saw the cock still at work feeding the hen, uttering at each visit to the nest a soft _coo-coo-coo_. From this date I did not see the cock visit the nest again until the 24th, when I saw him fly to the verandah with some food in his mouth, but he emerged from the nest hole without having disposed of the food he was carrying. He then dropped down on to the lawn and gave this to another hoopoe feeding on the grass. From that day onwards I have not seen a hoopoe visit the nest hole in the verandah. It would seem that after sitting on the second batch of eggs a few days the hen hoopoe went on strike! Or, to speak more correctly, the fury of incubation left her, and she regained her normal taste for a life in the open.

XXXI THE LARGEST BIRD IN INDIA

It has always been a cause of wonder and sorrow to me that the sarus crane (_Grus antigone_) does not occur in the neighbourhood of Madras, or indeed in South India at all. The tropical portion of the Indian peninsula, with its millions of acres of green paddy, should be a paradise for cranes; yet not one of these fine birds is likely to be found south of the Godavery, or, at any rate, of the Kistna. There is presumably some good reason for this, but that reason has yet to be discovered.

The sarus might well be called the Indian crane, for it is one of the most characteristic and beautiful birds of Northern India; moreover, it appears to be found nowhere outside India. Saruses occur in Burma, but the Burmese birds have fallen into the hands of the ornithological systematist, and he has, of course, made a separate species of them. The sarus from Burma is now known in the scientific world as _Grus sharpii_—not because very sharp eyes are necessary in order to distinguish him from the Indian form!

The plumage of the sarus is a beautiful shade of grey. The tail feathers are paler than the rest of the plumage, being almost white in some individuals. There is a broad red band round the neck and the lower part of the head. This at the breeding season becomes very brilliant, and then looks like a broad collar of crimson velvet. The legs of the sarus are also bright red and are nearly a yard long. So that the sarus can, when he wishes to assert himself, look over the head of the average human being without unduly stretching his neck.

The sarus is the only crane that stays in India throughout the year. As has already been said, the species is very common in Northern India; indeed, a broad stretch of landscape in that part of the world would not seem true to life did it not contain a pair of saruses standing near together. Every pair of these birds is a regular Darby and Joan. There are instances on record of a sarus having pined away and died because it had lost its mate. This affection of the male and female who pair for life is so notorious that the Indians who eat the flesh of these birds make a point, after they have bagged one of a pair, of killing the mate.

The food of saruses is, as Hume remarks, very varied. No small reptile or amphibian comes amiss to them. They also eat insects and snails, and seeds and green vegetable matter. They are often to be observed feeding at some distance from water. Indeed, my experience is that they are seen more often on dry land than in water. Their long legs appear to be of little use to them except at the nesting season, when they are necessary in order to enable the birds to wade to the nest. Cranes, unlike storks and herons, cannot grip with the foot, so that they never perch in trees. The nest is built on the ground and, presumably for the sake of protection against jackals, wolves, and such-like creatures, is usually surrounded by water. As a rule, it is not constructed on an island, but is itself an islet rising from the bottom of the _jhil_ or tank in which it is situated.

I have not had the good fortune to witness a nest of the sarus in course of construction, but from the behaviour of the owners when heavy rain falls after the nest is completed, I believe that both sexes take part in construction. As the nesting season is in June, July, August, and September, a good deal of rain usually falls while nesting operations are going on. The nest is a mound or cone, composed of rushes and reeds, of which the diameter is two feet at least. The top of this cone, on which the eggs are placed, is usually about a foot above the surface of the water. Thus the eggs lie only a little above the water level; nevertheless, they always feel quite dry, as does the layer of rushes on which they are placed. This is rather surprising—one would expect the water to get soaked up into the parts of the nest above the surface; but this does not happen. It is needless to say that if the top of the nest became submerged it would be impossible to keep the eggs dry; hence, when very heavy rain causes the water level round the nest to rise, the parent saruses raise the top of the nest by adding more material to it.

Two eggs are usually laid. These, as befits the size of the owners, are very large. It is as much as one can do to make both ends meet of a tape eleven inches long, passed round the long axis of the egg. The eggs vary considerably in size, but are usually of a creamy hue, They may be with or without markings. The shell is very thick and hard, so that if sarus’s eggs were used for electioneering purposes, fatalities would often occur.

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 they retire gracefully as soon as the human being gets within twenty yards of the nest. Hume, however, records one case of a sitting sarus making such vigorous pokes and drives at the man who approached her when sitting on the nest that he was forced to flap her in the face vigorously with his waist cloth before she left her eggs. That, says Hume, is the nearest approach to a fight for its _penates_ he has ever seen a sarus make. Recently I visited a nest of these birds, which was situated in a small patch of water, perhaps forty feet square, with a millet field on one side and paddy on the other three. I was on horseback, not wishing to wade nearly to my waist. With me were three men. When we first noticed the nest, the hen was sitting on it and the cock standing near by. As we approached the female rose to her feet very slowly, and then I could see that the nest contained a young one. When we were at a distance of some ten yards the female began to move her feet as if scraping the nest, and the young bird betook itself quietly to the water, and swam slowly into the neighbouring flooded paddy field. The hen then slowly descended from the nest into the water and quietly walked off. On reaching the nest, I found in it one egg. I sent one of the men after the youngster, which he quickly secured and brought to me to look at. It was about the size of a small bazaar fowl, and had perhaps been hatched three days. It was covered with soft down. The down on the upper parts was of a rich reddish fawn colour, the back of the neck, a band along the backbone, and a strip on each wing being the places where the colour was most intense; these were almost chestnut in hue. The lower parts were of a cream colour, into which the reddish fawn merged gradually at the sides of the body. The eyes were large and black. The bill was of pink hue and broad at the base where the yellow lining of the mouth showed. The pink of the bill was most pronounced towards the base, fading almost to white at the tip. The legs and feet were pale pink, the toes being slightly webbed. Even at that stage of the youngster’s existence the legs were long, and enabled him to swim with ease, but they were not strong enough to support him when he tried to walk. Sarus cranes cannot walk properly until they are several months old.

While I was handling the young bird the cock sarus was evidently summoning up his courage, for presently he began to advance in battle array, that is to say, with neck bent, so that the head projected forward, mouth slightly open, and wings about half expanded. Thus he slowly approached, looking very handsome. He did not advance direct, but took a circuitous course as if stalking us. When he had approached within about six feet I made a pretence of striking him with a short cane. Of this act of hostility he took not the least notice, but continued to approach. The men with me, who were on foot, began to fear being attacked, so one of them pulled up some paddy stalks and threw these at him. This made him jump and retreat a few paces. But he soon recommenced his advance in battle array. Then one of the men rushed at him. That caused him to retreat a few paces hastily, but with dignity. He then proceeded to attempt a rear attack, and as he circled round us with bent neck he put me in mind of the villain of the melodrama, who stalks about saying “My time will come!” When the sarus had advanced thus to within four feet of my men and looked as though he were about to spring at them, one of these lunged at him with a short stick, and he would have been struck had he not beaten a hasty retreat. Nothing daunted, he again returned to the attack. We were at the nest for fully ten minutes, and the whole time he was trying to get at us. Only once did he utter his trumpet-like call. The female meanwhile remained watching at a distance of perhaps forty yards.

Having seen what we wanted, we replaced the young bird and the egg in the nest and retreated fifteen or twenty yards. We waited to see what the parent birds would do. The female came up to the cock (she is distinguishable by her smaller size); then they both advanced very slowly towards the nest, the hen approaching the faster. When at a distance of perhaps eight yards from the nest, the cock indulged in some curious antics. He slowly drew himself up to his full height and stood thus motionless for a few seconds, then he stretched out his bill towards the sky. Next, the long neck began to bend slowly until it took roughly the shape of the letter S. Then, while the neck was still so bent, the sarus dipped his bill into the water. After this he again stood upright and repeated the whole performance. Finally he indulged in a little dance. Meanwhile the hen slowly advanced, and when within a yard of the nest stood still and contemplated it for a little, then, after caressing the youngster with her bill, she slowly climbed on to the nest. The nest cavity being a very shallow one, the young bird sitting in it could be seen from a considerable distance, and its reddish fawn plumage showed up in strong contrast to its surroundings. The sarus nestling cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called protectively coloured, but it fares very well, notwithstanding its conspicuousness, because its parents never depart far from the nest, and while they are present it is immune from attack. Even large birds of prey avoid the powerful beak of an infuriated crane.

XXXII THE SWALLOW-PLOVER