Part 14

Were each species of bird to record in writing its opinion of men, the resulting document would certainly not be flattering to the human race. The inhumanity of man would figure largely in it. The majority of the feathered folk have but little cause to love their human neighbours. Men steal their eggs, destroy their nests, kill them in order to eat them or to decorate women with their plumage, and capture them in order to keep them in cages. A few species, however, ought to regard man with friendly eyes, for they owe much to him. The swallow tribe, for example, must acknowledge man as its greatest benefactor. Take the case of the common swallow (Hirundo rustica), the joyful herald of the English summer, the bird to which Gilbert White devotes a particularly charming letter. All the places in which this species builds owe their origin to human beings. The myriads of swallows that visit Great Britain in the spring find in the chimneys of houses ideal nesting places—hence the birds are known as house or chimney swallows.

“The swallow,” writes White, “though called the chimney swallow, by no means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and outhouses against the rafters, and so she did in Virgil’s time:

‘Ante Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo.’

“In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the barn swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English-built. In those countries she constructs her nest in porches and gateways and galleries and open halls. Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place, as we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose of manure; but in general with us this Hirundo breeds in chimneys, and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a constant fire, no doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in the immediate shaft where there is a fire, but prefers one adjoining to that of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke of that funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of wonder.”

In the days before man began to build substantial houses for his habitation, the swallows can have nested only in caverns and under natural ledges in cliffs, so cannot have existed in anything like their present numbers. Hirundo rustica is a common bird in India. During the winter it spreads itself over the plains, and may be seen, as in England, dashing through the air after tiny insects. In the East the gentle twittering of the birds as they propel themselves through the air sounds doubly sweet, since it recalls scenes in our distant island. The swallows which winter in India migrate to the Himalayas or Kashmir or Afghanistan, where they rear up their families.

But to-day I write of a more beautiful bird even than Hirundo rustica, of the most beautiful of the swallow kind, of a species on which Gilbert White could not have set eyes. Like the common species, the wire-tailed swallow (Hirundo smithii) is a glossy, steel-blue bird. The forehead, crown, and nape are chestnut, and all the lower plumage, including the chin, is white. In this last respect it differs considerably from the common swallow, which has the chin and throat chestnut, a black pectoral band, and the rest of the under parts pale reddish brown. In both species there is a white spot on each of the tail feathers, except the median pair. These white spots are very conspicuous when the bird sits with tail expanded.

The chief characteristic of Hirundo smithii is the great development of the shafts of the outer tail feathers. In most swallows the shaft is elongated. In H. rustica it extends 2½ inches beyond the other tail feathers. In the wire-tailed swallow the shaft of each of the outer tail feathers attains a length of seven inches, and is thus more than twice as long as the body of the bird. This swallow, indeed, looks as though two pieces of wire had been inserted into its tail; hence the popular name, which is far more appropriate than the scientific one. Jerdon called this species H. filifera, an excellent name, but among cabinet ornithologists the excellence or appropriateness of a bird’s name counts for nothing. Many years ago a member of the Smith family made the acquaintance of the bird, and it was named after him. This name being the oldest is the one by which we must call the bird until some bibliophile manages to unearth some yet earlier name.

The elongated shafts of the outer tail feathers are brittle and easily broken, so that it is the exception rather than the rule to see a bird with both the delicate filiferous appendages complete.

The habits of this swallow are similar to those of other species, except that it is probably not migratory. It is found all the year round in the plains of North-West India. It is rare in Lower Bengal, Assam, Upper Burma, and in South India. Although it occurs in the Madras Presidency, it is not often seen as far south as the city of Madras. Since water is always conducive to the presence of the small insects on which swallows feed, these birds usually seek their quarry in the vicinity of the liquid element, and naturally roost near their feeding grounds. This fondness for the neighbourhood of water doubtless gave origin to the once prevalent belief that some swallows did not leave England in the autumn, but remained behind and hibernated underwater. This idea is, of course, erroneous.

Wire-tailed swallows like to roost in considerable companies in the minarets of mosques or in other lofty towers. Unlike swifts, swallows frequently perch. Telegraph wires are a very favourite resting place. When these are not available the birds will settle on stones or tufts of grass.

As chimneys are scarce in the plains of India, the wire-tailed swallow has to look elsewhere for nesting sites. True to the traditions of its family, it almost invariably elects to build on some structure erected by man. Nine out of ten nests are built under the arches of low bridges or culverts, preferably those under which there is a little water lying. The nest projects from the arch like a little shelf. It resembles a deep saucer in shape, and is composed of a shell of mud, lined with feathers.

Wire-tailed swallows obtain the mud they use from the edge of water, and carry it in the bill in precisely the same way as the house martin does in England. One of the prettiest sights of a London suburb is to watch the house martins taking the materials for their nests from a muddy road, which they always contrive to do without soiling their white-feathered legs. Muddy roads are not common in India, hence wire-tailed swallows are not able to resort to them for nest-building materials.

The cup of the nest is usually fairly thick, especially at the place where the nest is attached to its foundation. The outside of the cup has a rugged appearance, and each of the projections which it displays corresponds to a mouthful of mud added to it by the bird. According to Mr. James Aitken, the birds occupy about four weeks in building the nest, “a narrow layer of mud being added each day and left to dry.”

When once a pair of wire-tailed swallows have made up their minds to nest in a certain spot they are not easily deterred from carrying out their intention. Mr. Aitken admits having on one occasion removed two eggs, out of a clutch of three, but the little mother sat on and hatched out the one egg that remained. A man of my acquaintance, who, although an egg collector, is not altogether devoid of the milk of kindness, always carries about with him one or two sparrow’s eggs which he exchanges for the birds’ eggs he wishes to add to his collection. One May day at Lahore this person came upon a wire-tailed swallow’s nest which contained one egg. This he removed, and substituted for it a sparrow’s egg. The owners of the nest either did not, or pretended not to, notice the exchange, and the hen laid two more eggs, so that when I visited the nest three days later I found that two legitimate eggs had been placed beside the spurious one. The incubating bird sat very tight, and allowed me to touch her, and had I wished to do so I could easily have caught her; such is the strength of the incubating instinct in some birds. The nest in question was built under a low arch, one end of which was blocked up. The only other occupants of the arch were a number of wasps. Birds seem to have little or no fear of wasps. Indeed, it is rather the wasps that fear the birds, which have a disagreeable habit of swallowing them, notwithstanding their sting and warning colouration! Three weeks later I paid another visit to the arch in question, and found that the swallow’s nest had been removed by some person or persons unknown, but under the same arch was another nest containing two eggs. It would seem that the plucky little birds, undaunted by the fate of their first nest and eggs, had quickly set to work to make good the loss.

XXVI WINTER VISITORS TO THE PUNJAB PLAINS

Six months ago we welcomed the birds that came to spend the summer with us—the tiny iridescent purple sunbird, the emerald bee-eater, its larger blue-tailed cousin, the golden oriole, the superb paradise flycatcher, the yellow-throated sparrow, the solemn night heron, and the noisy koel.

These have all built their nests, reared up their families (except, of course, the koels who made the crows do their nursemaids’ work) and departed. The sunbirds were the first, and the koels the last, to go. By August the former had all disappeared, but throughout the first half of October young koels were to be seen, perched in trees, flapping their wings, opening a great red mouth, and making creditable but ludicrous attempts at cawing.

Even the koels have now gone and will not reappear until the sun once again causes us human beings to wonder why we have come to this “Land of Regrets.”

The places left vacant by the summer visitors are being rapidly filled up. Lahore has for birds a winter as well as a summer season. The former is the more important of the two. So numerous are our winter bird visitors that it is not feasible to enumerate them in this place; we must be content with a glimpse at those which come in the greatest numbers and are, therefore, most likely to attract attention.

The earliest to arrive are the rosy starlings (Pastor roseus) or Gulabi Mainas, or Tilyers as the natives call them. They are easy to recognise. They go about in great flocks. When a flock settles on a tree it is a point of etiquette for all the individuals that compose it to talk simultaneously. The head, crest, neck, throat, upper breast, wings, and tail are glossy black. The rest of the plumage is a beautiful rose colour in the adult cock and pale coffee colour in the hens and young cocks.

Rosy starlings arrive in Lahore as early as July. As they do not leave us until the end of April, and are supposed to nest in Asia Minor, it might be thought that they are the discoverers of some specially rapid method of nest-construction, egg-incubation, and bird-rearing. This is not so. The fact is they do not migrate simultaneously. The birds that were in Lahore in such numbers last April are not those which appeared in July. These latter probably migrated to Asia Minor in February.

It is only in the spring that the rosy starlings go about in very large flocks; these are the result of “packing” prior to migration. At other times the birds occur in nines and tens and associate with the ordinary mynas, feeding either on fruit or grain.

They appear to be the favourite game bird of the native of the Punjab. They are quite good to eat. A charge of small shot fired into a tree full of them brings down a dozen or more, so that a “crack” shot is easily able to secure a large bag and brag about it to his friends!

Several other species of starling visit the plains of the Punjab during the winter, arriving in November. These, like the familiar English starling, are all dressed in black, glossed with blue, green, and purple, and spotted with white. The species-making propensity of the professional ornithologist has led to the division of these into a number of species, although it requires an expert with an ornithological imagination to distinguish them from one another. They go about in flocks and, like the rosy starlings, all “talk at once.”

The winter visitors that appeal most to the sportsman are the game birds—the grey quail, the various species of duck, teal, geese, and snipe. The quail (Coturnix communis) are the first to appear. They arrive in Lahore late in August or early in September. It is the moon rather than the temperature that determines the date of their arrival. They migrate at night-time and naturally like to travel by moonlight. A few grey quail remain with us all the year round. These are probably birds that have been wounded by shikaris and have not in consequence sufficient strength for the long migratory flight across the Himalayas. The fact that some quail remain in India throughout the hot weather, and are able to breed successfully, shows that their migration is a luxury rather than a necessity.

It is a universal rule that all migratory birds of the Northern Hemisphere breed in the more northerly of their two homes. This seems to indicate that they were formerly permanent residents in the latter. Geology tells us that thousands of years ago the climate of this earth suddenly became colder. The result was that the more northerly portions of it were rendered uninhabitable for birds during the winter—the frost killed insect life and the snow made vegetable food difficult to procure; hence, the birdfolk were confronted with the alternative of starving in winter or going south in search of food. They chose the latter alternative. So powerful is the “homing instinct”—the instinct that man has developed so wonderfully in the homer pigeon—that these migrants invariably returned in the summer to their old homes for breeding purposes.

The climate has again become milder, so that for many migratory birds migration is no longer necessary; nevertheless, they still perform the double journey every year. The force of habit is strong in birds. Those Australian finches which are imported into India, even when kept in aviaries in the Himalayas, nest in December and January as they did in Australia, where these are summer months.

The ducks and geese that visit the Punjab in winter are too numerous to be dealt with in this brief essay, which of necessity is not exhaustive. It merely deals with such of the winter visitors to the Punjab as are seen every day. Every winter Northern India is invaded by millions of grey-lag and barred-headed geese, and by hundreds of thousands of brahmany ducks, mallard, gadwall, teal, wigeon, pintails, shovellers and pochards. The other game birds which visit the Punjab in great numbers every winter are the jack and the common snipe.