These “Glimpses” originally appeared in one or other of the following periodicals: The Madras Mail, Pioneer, Civil and Military Gazette, Times of India, Bird Notes.

The author takes this opportunity of thanking the editors of the above papers for permission to reproduce the sketches.

GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS

I
BIRDS IN A GROVE

The small groves that usually surround hamlets in Oudh are favourite resorts of birds.

I know of few more pleasant ways of passing an hour than under the trees in such a grove at the beginning of December, when the weather is perfect. The number of birds that show themselves is truly astonishing.

Recently I tarried for a little time in such a grove consisting of half a dozen mango trees, a tamarind and a pipal, and witnessed there a veritable avian pageant—a pageant accompanied by music.

The sunbirds (Arachnechthra asiatica) were the leading minstrels. There may have been a dozen of them in the little tope. To count them was impossible, because sunbirds are never still for two seconds together. When not flitting about amid the foliage looking for insects they are playing hide-and-seek, or pouring out their canary-like song. At this season of the year the cocks are in undress plumage. In his full splendour the male is glistening purple; but in August he loses nearly all his purple gloss and becomes brownish above and ashy grey below, save for a purple stripe running downwards from his chin. The hen is at all times brown above and yellow below.

The red-whiskered bulbuls (Otocompsa emeria) were as numerous and as full of life and motion as the sunbirds. Their tinkling notes mingled pleasantly with the sharper tones of the other choristers.

It is superfluous to state that two or three pairs of doves were in that little bagh, and that one or other of them never ceased to coo.

Further, it goes without saying that there were redstarts in that tope. The Indian redstart (Ruticilla rufiventris) is one of the commonest birds in Oudh during the winter months. During flight it looks like a little ball of fire, because of its red tail: hence its old English name, fire-tail.

At intervals, a curious tew emanated from the foliage. A short search sufficed to reveal the author—the black-headed oriole (Oriolus melanocephalus), a glorious golden bird having the head and neck black and some black in the wing. This creature seems never to descend to the ground; it dwells always in the greenwood tree and its life is one long search for fruit, caterpillars and other creeping things.

The flycatchers were a pageant in themselves; there were more species in that tiny bagh than are to be found in the whole of Great Britain and Ireland.

First and foremost the fan-tailed flycatcher (Rhipidura albifrontata)—the prima donna of the tope—presented herself. Like a fairy in a pastoral play, she comes into view from some leafy bower, announcing her appearance by five or six joyous notes that mount and descend the musical scale. Dainty as a wagtail she is arrayed in black and white like some motacillas. She is dancer as well as singer, and she pirouettes up and down a horizontal branch, bowing now to right and now to left, spreading her tail into a fan and suddenly breaking off her dance to make a flight after an insect.

Even more beautiful was the next flycatcher to introduce itself—Tickell’s blue flycatcher (Cyornis tickelli). The upper parts of

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قراءة كتاب Glimpses of Indian Birds