Part 4

The pied crested cuckoo (_Coccystes jacobinus_) is the most handsome of all the cuckoos. He is more than this. He stands out head and shoulders above his fellow-deceivers. Lest these words should convey an exaggerated idea of his splendour, let me say that they do not necessarily mean very much. Among the family of parasitic cuckoos the standard of beauty is not high. Most of the _Cuculidæ_ not only lack bright colours, ornamental plumes, and other superfluous appendages, but are also devoid of the smart appearance and soldier-like bearing that characterise the great majority of the feathered folk. Thus it cometh to pass that the pied crested cuckoo, although he cannot hold a candle to such birds as the paradise flycatcher or the oriole, is able to point the claw of scorn at his fellow-cuckoos. His black-and-white livery is distinctly stylish and is embellished by a crest that does not lie down as though it were ashamed of itself, but projects prettily from the back of the head.

Even as a little girl of my acquaintance calls every plump Indian a Bengali, so do the inhabitants of Bengal call all birds possessing these pretty crests bulbuls. On this principle the Bengali name for the pied crested cuckoo is _Kola bulbul_. On the other hand, black bulbuls (_Hypsipetes_), which possess no crests, are not recognised as bulbuls by the natives of India. Obviously, the crest maketh the bulbul.

The pied crested cuckoo is a bird that is easily recognised. The upper parts of his plumage are black, his lower parts and the tips of his tail feathers are white. There is in each wing a conspicuous white bar. Then, there is the black crest. As regards size the plumage of the common cuckoo would fit our pied crested friend like a glove.

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 unthinkable. The generating of sound is to the cuckoo what wine is to the wine-bibber, poker to the gambler, fighting to the soldier, “votes for women” to the Suffragette. According to cuculine philosophy, life without noise is but the image of death. The reason of this is obvious. At the breeding season a vast amount of surplus energy is generated in birds. This has to find some outlet. It is usually dissipated in the form of vocal effort, the dances and antics of courtship, and the labours of nest building and feeding the young. Or it may find expression in more concrete form in the growth of plumes and other ornaments. To the parasitic cuckoos most of these outlets are closed. They do not produce nuptial ornaments; to build nests they know not how. They are denied the pleasurable labours of rearing up their offspring. They do not appear to indulge in elaborate courtship. All their superfluous energy is sent forth in the form of noise. Watch any cuckoo while he is calling, be it the cheery _canorus_, who gladdens the Himalayas, or the koel or the brain-fever bird or the pied crested cuckoo, who enliven the plains, and you will be driven to the conclusion that they are demented creatures. Although the frenzied screaming of the pied cuckoo is easily recognised, it is difficult to describe. “Its call,” writes Stuart Baker, “is a very loud metallic double note, too harsh to be called a whistle. In the early part of the season, before its voice has fully formed, its cries are particularly harsh and disagreeable, and the second note, which should be the same in tone as the first, often goes off at a tangent. Later on in the year, though it becomes more noisy than ever, its notes are rather musical.”

Much remains to be discovered regarding the distribution of the pied crested cuckoo in India. Although it has been observed in most parts of the country, it appears to undergo considerable local migration. In Northern India I have seen the bird only during the rains, but I believe that there are cases on record of its occurring there in winter. On the other hand, I have seen pied crested cuckoos in Madras in July, at which time they are supposed all to migrate northwards. An anonymous writer recently put forward the theory that our Indian cuckoos are not really migratory, that they appear to migrate because of their skulking habits. Cuckoos are loved by their fellow-birds about as much as Lord Morley is loved by Anglo-Indians. As cuckoos dislike demonstrations, the theory is that they habitually shun observation, and are therefore not noticed, except at the breeding season, when their loud excited calls betray their presence. This theory is a plausible one, but the facts are, I think, against it. There can be no doubt that some species of cuckoo are migratory. Indeed, one of the earlier theories to account for the parasitic habits of the common cuckoo was that the bird did not stay in England sufficiently long to enable it to rear up a brood. Again, the Indian koel (_Eudynamis honorata_) certainly migrates. No bird is commoner in Lahore in the hot weather, but I did not set eyes upon the bird there in the course of two winters during which I took several walks a week, armed with field-glasses. Likewise the pied crested cuckoo is also migratory, but the particular direction of its movements remains to be established. I would ask every one interested in birds to make a note of each date on which this cuckoo is seen.

The parasitic habits of the pied cuckoo are interesting. The bird victimises various species of babbler, more especially the jungle babbler (_Crateropus canorus_) and the large grey babbler (_Argya malcomi_). There is nothing particularly remarkable in this, for babblers are the favourite dupes of Indian cuckoos. The point that is of interest is that the common hawk-cuckoo, or brain-fever bird (_Hierococcyx varius_) also victimises the seven sisters. Now this cuckoo is much like a hawk in appearance, so much so that it affords the stock example of aggressive mimicry among birds. Says the Wallaceian: “This cuckoo resembles a hawk so closely that small birds mistake it for one. When the nesting babblers see it, they flee for their lives, and the cuckoo—the ass in the lion’s skin—seizes the opportunity to deposit an egg in the momentarily deserted nest. The strange egg is not noticed by the babblers on their return because it is blue like theirs. We thus see how natural selection has brought about the hawk-like appearance of the brain-fever bird, and caused the egg to become blue.” If all cuckoos parasitic on babblers were like hawks in appearance, I should have nothing to urge against the above explanation. Unfortunately for the Wallaceians, the pied crested and other cuckoos, which do not look in the least like hawks, successfully dupe the seven sisters. It would seem, therefore, that this elaborate disguise of the hawk-cuckoo is quite unnecessary. I grant that it may make very smooth the path of the brain-fever bird. This, however, is not enough. As I have repeatedly said, almost I fear _ad nauseam_, natural selection cannot be said to have brought about a structural peculiarity which is proved to be merely useful, and not essential. Unless it can be shown that, but for a certain peculiarity, a species would have perished, it is incorrect to speak of natural selection as having fixed that characteristic in the species by eliminating all individuals that did not possess it. Moreover, if it can be shown that any specified character has such a survival value, the selectionist has still to prove that the characteristic had this value at the earliest, and at each successive stage of its development.

I submit, then, that the Wallaceian’s explanation of the hawk-like appearance of the brain-fever bird is in all probability not the correct one. In the same way it is doubtful whether the blue eggs of the brain-fever bird and the pied crested cuckoo can be fairly laid to the charge of natural selection. The common cuckoo sometimes lays its eggs, which are not blue, in the nests of birds whose eggs are blue, for example the hedge-sparrow in England and the Himalayan laughing thrush in India.

The pied crested cuckoo, when it first leaves the nest, differs considerably from the adult in appearance. Its upper parts are slaty grey, and its lower parts, the wing patch and the tips of the outer tail feathers are pale buff, so that the young cuckoo, when flying, might easily be mistaken for a bank myna (_Acridotheres ginginianus_) but for the length of its tail. Like all young cuckoos, it is a greedy, querulous thing. It sits on a branch, clamouring continually for food, flapping its wings and uttering a very fair imitation of the babbler call.

September is the month in which to look out for young pied cuckoos. Those that I have seen appear always to be unaccompanied by foster-brothers or sisters. This would seem to indicate either that the parent cuckoos destroy the legitimate eggs at the time of depositing their own, or that the young birds have the depraved habits of the youthful _Cuculus canorus_. But there are cases on record of young pied crested cuckoos being accompanied by young babblers. It is thus evident that much remains to be discovered regarding the habits of _Coccystes jacobinus_.

X VULTURES

Having dealt in _Bombay Ducks_ with what I may perhaps term the domestic vulture of India—_Neophron ginginianus_, or Pharaoh’s chicken—I do not propose again to discuss this worthy but ugly fowl. Nevertheless, before passing on to the aristocratic vultures, I cannot resist the temptation to reproduce Phil Robinson’s inimitable description of our familiar _Neophron_: “A shabby-looking fowl of dirty white plumage, about the size of an able-bodied hen, but disproportionately long for its height, pacing seriously along the high road, taking each step with its legs set wide apart, with all the circumspection of a Chinaman among papers, but keeping its eyes as busily about it for chance morsels of refuse as any other professional scavenger. The traffic, both of vehicles and foot passengers, may be considerable, but the vulture is a municipal institution and knows it. No one thinks of molesting it; indeed, if it chose to obstruct the footpath, the natives would make way for it. Children let it alone, and dogs do not run after it. So it goes plodding through its day’s work, solemn, and shabby, and hungry, uncomplaining, and poor, and at night flaps up into some tree and quietly dozes off to sleep.” _Neophron ginginianus_ always puts me in mind of the heroes in some of George Gissing’s novels.

Very different are the ways of the other members of the vulture tribe. They are not content to wander about among rubbish heaps and in other still less savoury places in the hope of securing any small morsel. They demand substantial fare; nothing less than a large carcase pleases them. It is true that they have sometimes to put up with garbage of the lesser sort, so that those which have not been successful in their hunt have perforce to gather in the trees near the municipal slaughter-house and await the casting forth of the offal. Their usual method of securing a meal is of the won-by-waiting description. They mount high into the air and float on outstretched pinions 3000 or 4000 feet or more above the level of the earth, and thence scan its surface with eager eye. When the hand of death strikes any terrestrial creature, down comes the soaring vulture. His earthward flight is observed by his neighbour, floating in the air a mile away, who follows quickly after number one. In a few seconds numbers three, four, five, six, and others are also making for the quarry, so that the stricken creature, before life has left it, is surrounded by a crowd of hungry vultures, and, as the poet has it, “but lives to feel the vultures bick’ring for their horrid meal.” Nor do these wait for death to set in before they begin their ghastly repast. It suffices that their wretched victim is too feeble to harm them; they then set to work to tear it to pieces, utterly indifferent to its cries of agony. Such behaviour is characteristic of all birds and beasts of prey. These, in consequence, have been dubbed “cruel” by those who should know better. Thus Bonner, in his “Forest Creatures,” writes: “Just as a child likes to enjoy the consciousness of having possession of a cake, and revels for a while in the pleasurable feeling before taking the first bite, feeling sure that delay will not weaken his tenure, so will an eagle very often toy with his victim, and though within his grasp, defer the fatal grip. At such times his appetite is probably not very keen; or he is in a merry humour and likes the fun of seeing the terror he causes, as he races in his mirth round and round the animal almost paralysed with fear. Or perhaps there is somewhat of a Caligula in his nature, and he considers _that_ the only true enjoyment which is purchased by the acute suffering of others. Be this as it may, he will thus dally with a creature’s anguish, and only after having twenty times swooped down as if to seize it in his talons, do so in reality.”

To call such behaviour on the part of a bird of prey cruel is, I submit, utterly wrong, and based on an altogether incorrect perception of the animal mind. It is my belief that vultures and other raptorial birds do not recognise in the screams of their victims the wails of pain. Their power of reasoning is not sufficient to enable them to interpret the meaning of these cries. How can they possibly know that they are hurting their victim, or that it can feel? They have never been taught that it is most painful to be torn to pieces, and they themselves have not experienced the sensation. How, then, are they to understand that it hurts? An Indian coolie, even, does not appear to appreciate the fact that birds can feel pain, for when accompanying a man out shooting he will pick up a winged snipe or duck and put it, while still alive, in the game stick and leave it there to die a lingering death. Now, I readily admit that the Indian villager is not overburdened with brains, but he is capable of simple reasoning, which is more than can be said of any bird. He certainly is not conscious that by putting the head of a live bird into a game stick he is causing unnecessary pain; much more are birds of prey ignorant of the fact that being eaten alive is a most painful experience.

A crowd of vultures gathers round a stricken animal in almost as short a space of time as a mob of gaping Londoners collects round the victim of an accident. Recently, in the course of a shoot in the Terai, the man in the _machan_ next to mine shot a spotted deer, which fell lifeless in an open patch in the forest. By the time the line of beaters had reached our _machans_ fifteen or sixteen vultures had assembled round the dead stag, and it was with difficulty that we, from our _machans_, kept the greedy birds off the carcase.

Vultures are always to be found at the burning _ghat_. Wood is expensive in many parts of India, so that only the more wealthy completely burn the remains of their dead relatives. For the poor and the parsimonious the vultures complete the work commenced by the fire, so that truer than even its author suspected is Michelet’s description of vultures as “beneficent crucibles of living fire through which Nature passes everything that might corrupt the higher life.” When a body, with the face only singed, is cast on to the Ganges, at least one vulture alights upon it and proceeds to devour it as it is borne on the waters of the sacred river; the air and gases in the corpse keep both it and the vulture afloat. Sooner or later a rent causes the gases to escape, then the corpse sinks suddenly and the vulture is often hard put to it to reach the bank, for it cannot fly properly when its wings are wet. The half-burnt corpse is not always consigned to the river, and in these circumstances the scene at the _ghat_ when the living human beings have left it is not one that is pleasant to contemplate. But in India, where Nature’s back premises are so exposed, it is not always possible to avoid it. More than once when strolling along a river bank have I suddenly and unexpectedly come upon a company of vultures squatting in an irregular circle round some object, each fighting with its neighbour for a place at the repast. The vultures are not the only participants. Some pariah dogs run about on the outskirts, every now and then making frantic efforts to wedge themselves in between the vultures and so obtain for their emaciated bodies a mouthful of food. Some crows and kites are invariably present, trusting to their superior agility to snatch an occasional morsel. And in the Punjab some ravens will also be at the feast.

There are several species of vulture in India. Next to the scavenger vulture the commonest is the white-backed species (_Pseudogyps bengalensis_). This is not a bad-looking bird in its solemn lugubrious way. Its general colour is ashy black—the black of a threadbare coat. Its back is white, but this is usually nearly entirely hidden by the dark wings, and shows merely as a thin streak of white along the middle of the back. The dark grey head and neck are almost devoid of feathers and their nakedness is accentuated by a ruff or collar of whitish feathers. The bareness of the head makes the large hooked beak look longer and bigger than it really is. The bird is nearly a yard in length.

A yet finer bird is the black, King, or Pondicherry vulture (_Otogyps calvus_). The back and wings of this species are glossy black relieved by white patches on the thighs. Its bare head and neck are yellowish red, and there is a wattle of this colour on each side of the head. This vulture, unlike the last species, is solitary, and is called the “King vulture” because, when it comes to a carcase, all the vulgar herd of smaller vultures, kites, and crows give way before it, and, as a rule, are afraid to approach until this regal bird has had its fill.

Vultures build huge platforms of nests high up in lofty trees, and, like sand martins, rear up their young in the winter.

XI THE INDIAN ROBIN

Speaking generally, the birds of India are to the feathered folk of the British Isles as wine is to water. The birds, such as the blue tits, which we looked upon in our youth as possessing gay plumage, seem to have lost some of their lustre when we again set eyes upon them after a sojourn in the East. It is not that they or we have grown older, that their feathers have lost their ancient splendour or that the rose rims to our spectacles have worn away. The explanation lies in the fact that we have for years been looking upon allied species of brighter hue. The English robin, however, is one of the few exceptions to this rule. He is in all respects superior to his Indian cousins—the Thamnobias. I mean no offence to the latter, for they are charming little birds, nevertheless they must bow to the superiority of their English brethren. The Indian robins lack the red waistcoat that gives the British bird his well-to-do, homely appearance. It is true that our Indian robins wear a patch of red feathers under the tail. But this, notwithstanding the fact that they make unceasing efforts to display it, is not adequate compensation for the lack of the red waistcoat. It is not so much what one wears as the way in which one wears things that matters. To wear brown boots with light-coloured clothes is no offence against good taste, although at one time the undergraduates at Pembroke College, Cambridge, were not allowed to wear brown boots in chapel; but to don this description of footwear simultaneously with a frock coat is a sin that is likely to be visited upon the children—I was about to say—unto the fourth generation, but in this horrid, democratic, Lloyd-Georgian age I think it would be more correct to say “unto the second generation.” Nor is this the only point of inferiority of the Indian robin. Although he is by no means a poor singer, he is not nearly so brilliant a performer as his British cousin.

Then again, the Indian robin has not the confidential manners of the English species. Often when I have been sitting in an English garden, has a robin come and perched on the arm of my chair, an example which his Indian counterpart has never shown the slightest inclination to follow. In England the robin is a semi-domesticated bird; in India, although a pair often take up their abode in the compound, robins prefer to dwell “far from the madding crowd.” If the truth must be told the Indian species love not the shady garden. The cool orchard has no attractions for them. They abhor the babbling brook. Their idea of an earthly paradise is a brick-kiln, a railway embankment, or a flat, rocky, barren, arid piece of land. Aloes and prickly pear are their favourite plants.

But enough of these odious comparisons. Let me now describe the two Indian species of Thamnobia—the black-backed robin (_T. fulicata_) which has possessed itself of South India and the brown-backed species (_T. cambayensis_) which is found all over Northern India. The cock of the former species is a glossy, jet-black bird, with a narrow white bar in his wing, and the brick-red patch under his tail which I have already had occasion to mention. The hen is sandy brown all over save for the aforesaid patch. The hen of the northern species differs in no appreciable way from her sister in the South; while the cock of the North varies only from his southern brother in having the back brown instead of black. It is my belief that the black-backed species arose as a mutation from the brown-backed form. The hen and the two cocks probably represent three stages in the evolutionary process.