Part 15

Since the day, some years back, when I first set eyes upon the bird, I determined to learn something of its habits; but I had to wait long before I was able to carry out my determination. It was not until I came to Lahore that I saw much of the species. Here let me say that the capital of the Punjab, unpromising as it looks at first sight, is, when one gets to know it, a veritable gold mine for the ornithologist.

Paradise flycatchers migrate there in great numbers in order to breed. They arrive at the end of April and at once commence nesting operations. Before describing these, let me, in order to enable non-ornithological readers to appreciate what follows, say a few words regarding the plumage of the bird. The young of both sexes are chestnut in colour, with the exception of a black head and crest and whitish under parts. This plumage is retained by the hen throughout life. After the autumn moult of the second year the two median tail feathers of the cock grow to a length of sixteen inches, that is to say, four times the length of the other tail feathers, and are retained till the following May or June, when they are cast. After the third autumn moult they again grow, and the plumage now begins to become gradually white, the wings and tail being the first portions to be affected by the change; thus the cock is for a time partly chestnut and partly white, and it is not until he emerges from the moult of his fourth autumn that all his feathers are white, with, of course, the exception of those of his head and crest. The bird retains this plumage until death. Cock birds breed in either chestnut or white plumage; this proves that the metamorphosis from chestnut to white takes place after the bird has attained maturity.

In Lahore this species nests in considerable numbers along the well-wooded banks of the Ravi. Since the birds keep to forest country it is not easy to follow their courting operations for any length of time; the birds engaged in courtship appear for a moment and then are lost to view among the foliage, but the species is certainly monogamous, and I think there can be but little doubt that the hen courts the cock quite as much as he courts her. On 28th April I was out with Mr. G. A. Pinto, and he saw a couple of hens chasing a cock in white plumage. Presently one of the hens drove away the other, then the cock showed off to the triumphant hen, expanding his wings and uttering a sweet little song, like the opening bars of that of the white-browed fantail flycatcher (Rhipidura albifrontata). I myself was not a witness of that incident, the birds not being visible from where I was standing at the time; but on 3rd June I saw a cock bird in chestnut plumage and a hen fighting; before long the birds disengaged themselves and the male flew off; then a cock in white plumage came up to the hen and gave her a bit of his mind. After this they both disappeared among the foliage. Presently I saw two hens chasing a chestnut-coloured cock. I do not understand the full significance of these incidents, but they tend to refute Charles Darwin’s contention that there is competition among cocks for hens but none among hens for cocks, and to show that the hen takes an active part in courtship. To this I shall return.

It does not seem to be generally known that the cock paradise flycatcher is capable of emitting anything approaching a song. Thus Oates writes in The Fauna of British India of these flycatchers, “their notes are very harsh.” This is true of the usual call, which is short, sharp, and harsh, something like the twitter of an angry sparrow. But in addition to this the cock has two tuneful calls. One resembles the commencement of the song of the white-browed fantail flycatcher, and the other is a sweet little warble of about four notes. I have repeatedly been quite close to the cock when thus singing and have seen his throat swell when he sang, so there can be no question as to the notes being his. He thus furnishes one of the many exceptions to the rule that brilliantly plumaged birds have no song.

The nest is a deepish cup, firmly attached to two or more slender branches; it is in shape like an inverted cone with the point prolonged as a stalk. It is composed chiefly of vegetable fibres and fine grass; these being coated outwardly by a thick layer of cobweb and small white cocoons. Let me take this opportunity of remarking that cobweb affords a most important building material to bird masons; it is their cement, and many species, such as sunbirds and flycatchers, use it most unsparingly.

The paradise flycatcher seems to delight to build in exposed situations, hence a great many of their nests come to grief, especially in the Punjab, where, if there be anything in phrenology, the bumps of destructiveness and cruelty must be enormously developed in every small boy.

The nesting habits of the paradise flycatcher have been described in detail in the preceding article. They are of considerable biological importance. I would lay especial stress on the active part in courtship played by the hen, the large share in incubation taken by the cock, and the change in the plumage of the cock bird from chestnut to white in the third year of his existence.

Darwin, as I have already pointed out, devoted much time and energy in trying to prove that there is in most species competition among males for females, and that these latter are in consequence able to exercise a selection. They choose the most brilliant and beautiful of their numerous suitors. Thus we have what he calls sexual selection, or, as I should prefer to call it, feminine selection. On this theory the poor cock exercises no selection; any decrepit old hen is good enough for him! He is all eagerness, while the hen is blasé and indifferent. This theory is, I submit, improbable on a priori grounds. It is certainly opposed to human experience, and is, I believe, not borne out by animal behaviour.

I have paid some attention to the subject lately, and am convinced that in most cases the desire of the hen for the cock is as great as the desire of the latter for the hen. It was only this morning that I watched two hen orioles trying to drive each other away, while the cock was in a tree near by.

To repeat what I have already said, the hen courts the cock quite as much as he courts her. When a pair of birds mate they are mutually attracted to one another. That there is such a thing as sexual selection I am convinced, but I do not believe that this selection is confined to the hens. The hen selects the best cock she can get to pair with her, while the cock selects the best hen available.

I speak here of monogamous species; among polygamous ones there must of necessity be considerable competition for hens.

The second point upon which I desire to lay stress is the active part taken by the cock paradise flycatcher in incubation. This, again, is, I believe, nothing very uncommon, even in sexually dimorphic species, for I have myself put a cock minivet (Pericrocotus peregrinus) off the nest. Yet this fact seems to dispose of Wallace’s theory that the more sombre hues of the hen are due to her greater need of protection, since she alone is supposed to incubate.

As a matter of fact, a bird sitting on a nest is not, in my opinion, exposed to any special danger, for it seems that birds of prey as a rule only attack flying objects.

Finally, there is the extraordinary metamorphosis undergone by the cock in his fourth year. It is difficult to see how this can have been caused by the preference of the hen for white cock birds, since a great many chestnut ones are observed to breed; the dimorphism must, therefore, have originated late in the life history of the species, and although a hen bird might prefer a white to a chestnut husband, it is difficult to believe that she would prefer a skewbald one, and this skewbald state must have been an ancestral stage if we believe that the transition is due to feminine selection of white birds. I may be asked, “If you decline to believe that the hen has greater need of protection than the cock, how do you account for the phenomena of sexual dimorphism, and if it is not sexual selection which has caused the white plumage of the cock paradise flycatcher to arise, what is it?”

This article has already attained such a length that even had I complete explanations to offer I could not set them forth in this place. I must content myself with giving what I believe to be the key to the solution of the problem. I think that there is little doubt that what a bird looks for in its mate is, not beauty or brilliance of plumage, but vigour and strength. If beauty is a correlative character to strength, then the hen selects the most beautiful of the cocks willing to mate with her, not because of his beauty, but on account of his strength; likewise the cock. Now there is a very intimate connection between the generative cells and the body cells, and the male element tends to dissipate energy and the female element to conserve it. Thus it is that the general tendency of the cock is to become gaily coloured and to grow plumes and other ornaments, while the tendency of the hen is to remain of comparatively sombre hue.

BUTCHER BIRDS

Butcher birds are so called because they are reputed to have a habit of impaling on thorns their larger victims, or as much of them as they, owing to want of accommodation, are incapable of eating at the time of the murder. A bush which displays a number of impaled victims—young birds, lizards, locusts, and the like—is supposed, by a stretch of the ornithological imagination, to look like a butcher’s shop. All that is wanted to perfect the illusion is a sign-board, bearing the legend “Lanius vittatus, Purveyor of Meat.” I must here admit, with characteristic honesty, that I have never set eyes upon such a butcher’s shop, or larder, as it should be called, for the shrike does not sell his wares—he merely stores them for personal consumption. Nor have I even seen a shrike impale a victim. My failure cannot, I think, be attributed to lack of observation; for I never espy one of these miniature birds of prey without watching it attentively, in the hope that it will oblige me by acting as all books on ornithology tell me shrikes do. Every butcher bird I have witnessed engaged in shikar has pounced down upon its insect quarry from a suitable perch, seized the luckless victim upon the ground, immediately carried it back to its perch and devoured it then and there. I have seen this operation repeated scores of times. I, therefore, think I am justified in suggesting that the habit of keeping a larder is probably restricted to the larger species of shrike, and that these only impale their victim when there is still something of it left over, after they have eaten so much that for the time being they cannot possibly stow away any more. Jerdon, I notice, makes no mention of ever having seen a butcher bird behave in the orthodox manner. Colonel Cunningham, who is a very close observer of bird life, says, as the result of a long sojourn in India, that shrikes “do not seem very often to impale their victims, probably because these are usually easily broken up; but when they have secured a lizard they sometimes fix it down upon a stout thorn so as to have a point of resistance whilst working at the hard, tough skin.” If any who read these lines have seen a shrike’s larder, either in India or in England, I should esteem it a great favour if they would furnish me with some account of it.

Let me not be mistaken. I do not say that butcher birds never keep larders, for they undoubtedly do; of this I am satisfied. Thus Mr. E. H. Aitken says of the shrike: “It sits upright on the top of a bush or low tree, commanding a good expanse of open, grassy land, and watches for anything which it may be able to surprise and murder—a large grasshopper, a small lizard, or a creeping field mouse. Sometimes it sees a possible chance in a flock of small birds absorbed in searching for grass seeds. Then it slips from its watch-tower and, gliding softly down, pops into the midst of them without warning, and forgetting all about the true nature of its deep plantar tendons, strikes its talons into the nearest. No other bird I know of makes its attack in this way except the birds of prey. The little bird shrieks and struggles, but the cruel shrike holds fast and hammers at the victim’s head with its strong beak until it is dead, then flies away with it to some thorn bush which is its larder. There it hangs it up on a thorn and leaves it to get tender. . . . This is no fable, I have seen the bird do it.” Again, the Rev. C. D. Cullen, with whom I have enjoyed many an ornithological ramble in England and on the continent of Europe, informs me that once in Surrey he came upon a shrike’s larder, and on that occasion the “shop” consisted of the legs of a young green finch.

The usual food, then, of the butcher bird appears to be small insects. When a suitable opportunity offers, the larger species will attack a lizard or a young or sickly bird, especially a bird in a cage. Of the rufous-backed shrike Mr. Benjamin Aitken writes: “It will come down at once to a cage of small birds exposed at a window, and I once had an amadavat killed and partly eaten through the wires by one of these shrikes, which I saw in the act with my own eyes. The next day I caught the shrike in a large basket which I set over the cage of amadavats.” But, of course, it is one thing to catch a bird in a cage and another to capture it in the open. Shrikes are savage enough for any murder, but most little birds are too sharp for them.

Fifteen species of shrike occur in India. The commonest are, perhaps, the Indian grey shrike (Lanius lahtora) and the bay-backed shrike (Lanius vittatus). The latter is the one that frequents our gardens. He is not a large bird, being about the size of a bulbul. The head and back of the neck are a pretty grey. The back is chestnut-maroon, shading off to whitish near the tail. There is a broad black streak running across the forehead and through the eye, giving the bird a grim, sinister aspect. The breast and lower parts are white; the wings and tail black, or rather appear black when the bird is at rest. During flight the pinions display a conspicuous white bar, and the white outer tail feathers also come into view. The stout beak is black, and the upper mandible projects downwards over the lower one. This further adds to the ferocity of the bird’s mien. It is impossible to mistake a butcher bird; look out for its grey head, broad, black eyebrow, and white breast.

The usual note of the shrike is a harsh cry, but during the breeding season, that is to say, from March to July, the cock is able to produce quite a musical song.

At all times the butcher bird is a great mimic. I am indebted to a correspondent for the following graphic account of his histrionic performances: “Of late one of these birds has daily perched himself on a neem tree in my compound and treated me to much music. His hours of practice are early in the morning and at sunset. He begins with his natural harsh notes, and then launches out into mimicry. I gave him a patient hearing this morning, and he treated me to the following: the lap-wing, the sparrow-hawk, the partridge, the Brahminy minah, the kite, the honeysucker, the hornbill (of these parts), the scream of the green parrot, and the cry of a chicken when being carried off by a kite.”

The nests of the various species of shrike resemble one another very closely. Speaking generally, the nest is a neatly made, thick-walled, somewhat deep cup. All manner of material is pressed into service—grass, roots, wool, hair, leaves, feathers, pieces of rag, paper, fine twigs, and straw. The whole forms a compact structure firmly held together by cobweb, which is the cement ordinarily utilised by bird masons.

The nursery is usually situated in a small tree, a thorny one for preference, in the fork of a branch, or the angle that a branch makes with the main stem. Seen from below it looks likes a little mass of rubbish. As a rule one or two pieces of rag hang down from it and betray its presence to the egg-collector.

The normal clutch of eggs is four. The ground colour of these is cream, pale greenish, or grey, and there is towards the large end a zone of brown or purplish blotches.

The shrike is not a shy bird. I have sat within eight feet of a nest and watched the parents feeding their young. No notice was taken of me, but a large lizard that appeared on the branch on which the nest was placed was savagely attacked. The young seem to be fed chiefly on large green caterpillars.

Newly fledged butcher birds differ considerably from the adults, and while in the transition stage are sometimes rather puzzling to the ornithologist.

DUCKS