Birds of the Indian Hills Part 11

In India forktails are confined to the Himalayas and the mountainous parts of Burma.

There are no fewer than eight Indian species, but I propose to confine myself to the spotted forktail. This is essentially a bird of mountain streams. It is never found far from water, but occurs at all alt.i.tudes up to the snow-line, so that, as Jerdon says, it is one of the characteristic adjuncts of Himalayan scenery. Indeed I know of few things more enjoyable than to sit, when the sun is shining, on the bank of a well-shaded burn, and, soothed by the soft melody of running water, watch the forktails moving nimbly over the boulders and stones with fairy tread, half-flight half-hop.

Forktails continually wag the tail, just as wagtails do, but not with quite the same vigour, possibly because there is so much more to wag!

Like wagtails, they do not object to their feet being wet, indeed they love to stand in running water.

Forktails often seek their quarry among the dead leaves that become collected in the various angles in the bed of the stream; when so doing they pick up each leaf, turn it over, and cast it aside just as the seven sisters do. They seem to like to work upstream when seeking for food. Jerdon states that he does not remember ever having seen a forktail perch; nevertheless the bird frequently flies on to a branch overhanging the brook, and rests there, slowly vibrating its forked tail as if in deep meditation.

Spotted forktails are often seen near the places where the _dhobis_ wash clothes by banging them violently against rocks, hence the name dhobi-birds, by which they are called by many Europeans. The little forktail does not haunt the washerman's _ghat_ for the sake of human companionship, for it is a bird that usually avoids man. The explanation is probably that the shallow pool in which the _dhobi_ works and grunts is well adapted to the feeding habits of the forktail.

I may here remark that in the Himalayas the washerman usually pursues his occupation in a pool in a mountain stream overhung with oaks and rhododendron trees, amid scenery that would annually attract thousands of visitors did it happen to be within a hundred miles of London. Not that the prosaic _dhobi_ cares two straws for the scenery--nor, I fear, does the pretty little forktail. As I have already hinted, forktails are rather shy birds. If they think they are being watched they become restless and stand about on boulders, uttering a prolonged plaintive note, which is repeated at intervals of a few seconds. When startled they fly off, emitting a loud scream.

But they are pugnacious to others of their kind, especially at the breeding season. I once saw a pair attack and drive away from the vicinity of their nest a Himalayan whistling-thrush (_Myiophoneus temmincki_)--another bird that frequents hill-streams, and a near relation of the Malabar whistling-thrush or idle schoolboy.

The nursery of the forktail, although quite a large cup-shaped structure, is not easy to discover; it blends well with its surroundings, and the birds certainly will not betray its presence if they know they are being watched. The nest is, to use Hume's words, "sometimes hidden in a rocky niche, sometimes on a bare ledge of rock overhung by drooping ferns and sometimes on a sloping bank, at the root of some old tree, in a very forest of club moss." I once spent several afternoons in discovering a forktail's nest which I was positive existed and contained young, because I had repeatedly seen the parents carrying grubs in the bill. My difficulty was that the stream to which the birds had attached themselves was in a deep ravine, the sides of which were so steep that no animal save a cat could have descended it without making a noise and being seen by the birds.

Eventually I decorated my _topi_ with bracken fronds, after the fashion of 'Arry at Burnham Beeches on the August bank holiday. Thus arrayed, I descended to the stream and hid myself in the hollow stump of a tree, near the place where I knew the nest must be. By crouching down and drawing some foliage about me, I was able to command a small stretch of the stream. My arrival was of course the signal for loud outcries on the part of the parent forktails. However, after I had been squatting about ten minutes in my _cache_, to the delight of hundreds of winged insects, the suspicions of the forktails subsided, and the birds began collecting food, working their way upstream. They came nearer and nearer, until one of them pa.s.sed out of sight, although it was within 10 feet of me. It was thus evident that the nest was so situated that what remained of the tree-trunk obstructed my view of it. This was annoying, but I had one resource left, namely, to sit patiently until the sound of chirping told me that a parent bird was at the nest with food.

This sound was not long in coming, and the moment I heard it, up I jumped like a Jack-in-the-box, but without the squeak, in time to see a forktail leave a spot on the bank about 6 feet above the water.

I was surprised, as I had the day before examined that place without discovering the nest. However, I went straight to the spot from which the forktail had flown, and found the nest after a little searching.

The bank was steep and of uneven surface. Here and there a slab of stone projected from it and pointed downwards. Into a natural hollow under one of these projecting slabs a nest consisting of a large ma.s.s of green moss and liver-worts had been wedged. From the earth above the slab grew some ferns, which partially overhung the nest. Across the nest, a few inches in front of it, ran a moss-covered root. From out of the mossy walls of the nest there emerged a growing plant.

All these things served to divert attention from the nest, bulky though this was, its outer walls being over 2 inches thick. The inner wall was thin--a mere lining to the earth. The nest contained four young birds, whose eyes were barely open. The young ones were covered with tiny parasites, which seemed quite ready for a change of diet, for immediately after picking up one of the young forktails, I found some thirty or forty of these parasites crawling over my hand!

There is luck in finding birds' nests, as in everything else. A few days after I had discovered the one above mentioned, I came upon another without looking for it. When I was walking along a hill-stream a forktail flew out from the bank close beside me, and a search of thirty seconds sufficed to reveal a well-concealed nest containing three eggs. These are much longer than they are broad. They are cream-coloured, mottled and speckled with tiny red markings.

_THE NEST OF THE GREY-WINGED OUZEL_

On several occasions this year (1910) I have listened with unalloyed pleasure to the sweet blackbird-like song of the grey-winged ouzel (_Merula boulboul_) at Naini Tal--a station in the Himalayas, consisting of over a hundred bungalows dotted on the well-wooded hillsides that tower 1200 feet above a mountain lake that is itself 6000 feet above the level of the sea. On the northern slope of one of the mountains on the north side of the Naini Tal lake, is a deep ravine, through which runs a little stream. The sides of the ravine are covered with trees--mainly rhododendron, oak, and holly.

On July 1st I went 1000 feet down this ravine to visit the nest of a spotted forktail (_Henicurus maculatus_) which I had discovered a week previously. Having duly inspected the blind, naked, newly-hatched forktails, I went farther down the stream to try to see something of a pair of red-billed blue magpies (_Urocissa occipitalis_).

The magpies were not at home that afternoon, and while waiting for them I caught sight of a bird among the foliage lower down the hill.

At first I took this for a Himalayan whistling-thrush. I followed its movements through my field-gla.s.ses, and saw it alight on part of the gnarled and twisted trunk of a rhododendron tree. Closer inspection showed that the bird was a grey-winged ouzel. He had apparently caught sight of me, for his whole att.i.tude was that of a suspicious bird with a nest in the vicinity. He remained motionless for several minutes.

As I watched him a ray of sunlight penetrated the thick foliage and fell upon the part of the tree where he was standing, and revealed to me that he was on the edge of a cunningly-placed nest.

The trunk of the rhododendron tree bifurcated about 20 feet above the ground; one limb grew nearly upright, the other almost horizontally for a few feet, and then broke up into five branches, or, rather, gave off four upwardly-directed branches, each as thick as a man's wrist, and then continued its horizontal direction, greatly diminished in size.

The four upwardly-directed branches took various directions, each being considerably twisted, and one actually curling round its neighbour. At the junction of the various branches lay the nest, resting on the flat surface, much as a large, shallow pill-box might rest in the half-closed palm of the hand of a man whose fingers were rugged and twisted with years of hard toil.

The upper part of the trunk was covered by a thick growth of green moss, and from it two or three ferns sprang.

As the exterior of the nest consisted entirely of green moss, it blended perfectly with its surroundings. From below it could not possibly have been seen. When I caught sight of it I was standing above it at the top of the ravine, and even then I should probably have missed seeing it, had not that ray of sunlight fallen on the nest and imparted a golden tint to the fawn-coloured plumage of the nestlings which almost completely filled the nest cup.

The situation of this nest may be said to be typical, although cases are on record of the nursery being placed on the ground at the root of a tree, or on the ledge of a rock. Many ouzels' nests are placed on the stumps of pollard trees, and in such cases the shoots which grow out of the stump often serve to hide the nest from view. The nests built by grey-winged ouzels vary considerably in structure.

The commonest form is that of a ma.s.sive cup, composed exteriorly of moss and lined with dry gra.s.s, a layer of mud being inserted between the moss and the gra.s.s lining. This mud layer does not invariably occur.

The c.o.c.k ouzel remained for fully five minutes with one eye on me, and then flew off. I seized the opportunity to approach nearer the nest, and took up a position on the hillside level with it, at a distance of about 14 feet.

In a few minutes the hen bird appeared. Her prevailing hue is reddish brown, while the c.o.c.k is black all over, save for some large patches of dark grey on the wings. In each s.e.x the bill and legs are reddish yellow, the bill being the more brightly coloured. The hen caught sight of me and beat a hurried retreat, without approaching the nest.

The young ouzels kept very still; occasionally one of them would half raise its head. That was almost the only movement I noticed.

Presently the c.o.c.k appeared, with his beak full of caterpillars. He alighted on a branch a few feet from the nest, where he caught sight of me; but instead of flying off as the hen had done, he held his ground and fixed his eye on me, no doubt swearing inwardly, but no audible sound escaped him.

Whenever I have watched a pair of birds feeding their young, I have almost invariably noticed that one of them is far more alarmed at my presence than the other. The ouzels proved no exception to the rule. In this case it was the c.o.c.k who showed himself the bolder spirit.

He remained watching me for fully ten minutes, his legs and body as immobile as those of a statue, but he occasionally turned his head to one side in order to obtain a better view of me; and I could then see, outlined against the sky, the wriggling forms of several caterpillars hanging from his bill. I hoped that he would pluck up courage to feed his youngsters before my eyes; but his heart failed him, for presently he flew to another tree a little farther away, whence he again contemplated me. After this he kept changing his position, never uttering a sound, and always retaining hold of the beakful of caterpillars. After a little the hen returned with her bill full of caterpillars, but she did not venture within 75 feet of the nest. I was not permitted to observe how long it would take the parental instinct to overcome the natural timidity of the birds.

The sky suddenly became overcast, and a few minutes later I found myself enveloped in what the Scotch call a "wet mist." At certain seasons of the year rain storms come up as unexpectedly in the Himalayas as they do in the Grampians.

The rain put a final end to my observations on that nest, as I had to leave Naini Tal on the following day--an event which caused more sorrow to me than to the ouzels!

_THE BLACK-AND-YELLOW GROSBEAK_

The Indian grosbeaks are birds of limited distribution; they appear to be confined to the forests on the higher ranges of the Himalayas.

Their most striking feature is the stout conical bill, which is an exaggeration of that of the typical finch, and is responsible for the bird's name. In one genus of grosbeak--_Mycerobas_--the bill is as deep as it is long, while in the other genus--_Pycnorhamphus_--it is nearly as ma.s.sive. Three species belonging to this latter genus occur in India, namely, _P. icteroides_, the black-and-yellow grosbeak, found in the Western Himalayas; _P. affinis_, the allied grosbeak, found in Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet, and Western China; and _P.

carneipes_, the white-winged grosbeak, which occurs all along the higher Himalayas.

There is only one Indian species of the other genus; this is known as the spotted-winged grosbeak (_Mycerobas melanoxanthus_), the localities in which this occurs are said to be "the Himalayas from the Hazara country to Sikkim at considerable elevations and Manipur."

The only Indian grosbeak which I have met in the flesh is the yellow-and-black species. This bird is common in the hills round about Murree, so that, when on ten days' leave there, I had some opportunity of studying its habits. It is a bird of the same size as the Indian oriole (_Oriolus kundoo_). The c.o.c.k grosbeak, indeed, bears a striking resemblance to the black-headed oriole (_Oriolus melanocephalus_). His whole head, chin, throat, wings, shoulders, upper-tail-coverts, and thighs are black, the remainder of the plumage is a rich yellow, tinged with orange at the hind neck. Thus the colour and markings are almost identical with those of the black-headed oriole, the chief difference being that the latter has a little yellow in the wing. So great is the resemblance that the casual observer will, in nine cases out of ten, mistake the grosbeak for an oriole. The resemblance extends to size and shape, as the following table shows:

Length Length Length Length Length of Bird. of Tail. of Wing. of Tarsus. of Beak.

Grosbeak . . 9.0 in. 3.7 in. 5.2 in. 1.0 in. 1.0 in.

Oriole ... 9.5 " 3.4 " 5.4 " 1.0 " 1.3 "

The hen grosbeak differs considerably in colour and marking both from the c.o.c.k of her species and from the hen black-headed oriole. She is a dull ashy-grey bird, tinged faintly with yellowish red on the back and abdomen. Her wings and tail are black. The only young grosbeak that I have seen resembled the female in appearance, except that it had a yellow rump. It was being fed by a c.o.c.k bird.

Grosbeaks live in forests, and go about either in couples or in small companies. They seem to feed largely on the ground, picking up insects.

The beak of the finch tribe is adapted to a diet of seeds; nevertheless, many finches vary this food with insects. I saw a grosbeak seize, shake, and devour a caterpillar about two inches in length. Grosbeaks also eat berries and stone fruit. When disturbed they at once betake themselves to a tree, among the branches of which they are able to make their way with great agility. Grosbeaks are restless birds, always on the move, here to-day and gone to-morrow. The c.o.c.k emits a call at frequent intervals. This is not easy to describe. It sounds something like _kiu kree_.

The nest is a cup-shaped structure, composed exteriorly of twigs, gra.s.s, and moss, and lined with stalks of maiden-hair fern and fine roots. It is usually placed high up in a fir tree. Colonel Rattray believes that the birds bring up two broods in the year. They lay first in May, and, as soon as the young are able to shift for themselves, a second nest is made. Thus in July both young birds at large and nests with eggs are likely to be seen. The eggs are not unlike those of the English hawfinch; the ground colour is pale greenish grey, blotched and spotted with blackish brown. Sometimes the markings occur chiefly at the broad end of the eggs.

The most striking feature of the black-and-yellow grosbeak, and that on which I wish particularly to dwell, is the extraordinary resemblance that the c.o.c.k bird bears to the c.o.c.k black-headed oriole.

If this extended to the hen, and if the grosbeak were parasitic on the oriole, it would be held up as an example of mimicry. We should be told that owing to its resemblance to its dupe it was able to approach the nest without raising any suspicion and deposit its egg.

But the grosbeak is not parasitic on the oriole, and it is the c.o.c.k and not the hen that bears the resemblance; moreover, the black-headed oriole does not occur in the Himalayas, so that neither the grosbeak nor the oriole can possibly derive any benefit from this resemblance.

Now, cabinet zoologists are never tired of writing about mimicry.

They a.s.sert that when organisms belonging to different families bear a close external resemblance, this resemblance has been brought about by natural selection. Having made this a.s.sertion, they expend reams of paper in demonstrating how one or both of the species benefits by the resemblance.

However, scientific books make no mention of the resemblance between the oriole and the grosbeak. The reason for this is, of course, that the resemblance in this instance cannot be a case of mimicry. Now, I regret to have to say that men of science take up the same att.i.tude towards their theories as lawyers do regarding the cases they argue in Courts of Justice. There would be no harm in taking up this att.i.tude if men of science were to explain that they are acting the part of advocates, that they are fighting for a theory, and trying to persuade the world to accept this theory. It is because they masquerade as judges, and put forward a one-sided case as a matured judicial finding, that I take exception to their methods.

The trouble is that scientific men to-day form a brotherhood, a hierarchy, which lays claim to infallibility, or rather tacitly a.s.sumes infallibility.