Part 16

XXXIX BABBLER BROTHERHOODS

The Crateropus babblers, known variously as the Sath Bhai, seven sisters, or dirt birds, furnish perfect examples of communal life. So highly developed are their social instincts that a solitary babbler, or even a pair, is a very unusual sight. They do not congregate in large flocks; from six to fourteen usually constitute a brotherhood, eight, nine, or ten being, perhaps, the commonest numbers. There is no truth in the popular idea that they always go about in flocks of seven. Sir Edwin Arnold recognised this when he wrote of “the nine brown sisters chattering in the thorn.”

Notwithstanding the fact that babblers are among the commonest birds in India, there is much to be discovered regarding the nature of their flocks. The raison d’étre of these flocks is not far to seek. One has but to observe the laboured flight of a babbler to appreciate how easy a mark he is to a bird of prey. The strength of the babbler lies in his clan. Eight or ten pairs of eyes are superior to one. A party of seven sisters is not often caught napping. The incessant squeaking, and screeching, and wheezing indulged in by each member keep them all in touch with one another. Then, in time of danger, it is good to see how they combine to drive off the hawk-cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius) which victimises them, and which they undoubtedly mistake for a species of raptorial bird.

But their clannishness does not shelter them from all tribulation. They are the dupes of the hawk-cuckoo, and they sometimes fall victims to birds of prey. A few weeks ago I had occasion to visit a friend, who was unwell and confined to his bungalow. I found him sitting in the verandah. While greeting him I heard a great clamour of scolding babblers (Crateropus canorus) emanating from a neem tree hard by. I had come just too late to witness a little jungle tragedy. There was a babbler’s nest containing young in that tree. A pair of rascally crows had discovered the nest, and one of them attacked it; the babbler in charge, with splendid courage, went out to meet his big antagonist, who promptly turned tail and fled, pursued by the screeching babbler. This left the nest open to the other crow, who carried off a young bird. When I arrived, the victims of the outrage were swearing as only babblers and bargees can, and making feints at the crows.

It is thus obvious why these clubs, or brotherhoods, have been formed, but we are almost altogether in the dark as to how they are formed, as to their nature and constitution. We do not even know what it is that keeps them apparently so constant in size. It is even a disputed point whether these little companies persist throughout the year, or disband at the nesting season. As to the nature of the companies, Colonel Cunningham maintains that they are family parties. This view is, however, untenable, unless we assume that the seven sisters are polygamists or polyandrists, because three or four is the normal number of eggs laid, so that if each little gathering were a family party, it should consist of not more than six members. The flocks are too large to be made up of mother, father, and children, and usually too small to be two such families.

There is at present living in the compound of the Allahabad Club a company consisting of, I think, eight babblers. Seven are adults, and one is quite a child. This last goes about with its elders, every now and again flapping its wings, opening wide its yellow mouth, and calling for food. A day or two ago it took up a position within a few feet of my door, so that I was able to watch it closely through the chik. I saw one of the company come up with a grub in its bill, which it, with due ceremony, put into the young bird’s “yellow lane.” Having fed the youngster, it began rummaging about in the grass near by. Shortly afterwards a second babbler came up to the young one, bringing a caterpillar. This particular individual carried his (or her, for I don’t pretend to be able to sex a babbler at sight) tail askew. That organ protruded from under the left wing, instead of projecting between the wings, as is usual with tails—babblers, like actors and artists, affect a careless style of dress. Having delivered up its caterpillar to the clamorous youngster, it hopped away. I kept my eye carefully upon both it and the bird I had first seen bring food. In a few seconds a third babbler came up and presented a caterpillar to the baby brown sister. Now, I submit that this can only mean that babblers are not monogamous, or that they nest in common sometimes, or, so close are the ties that bind the members of the little company that each feeds both his own offspring and those of his brethren. Personally, I am inclined to think that babblers are monogamous. That the same nest is sometimes used by more than one pair seems to be established by the fact that there are cases on record of nests containing as many as eight eggs, or young ones. This, however, is not a usual occurrence, and it is my belief that the members of the club are so greatly attached to one another that they look upon each infant as common property. Hume quotes Mr. A. Anderson as saying: “During the months of September and October I have observed several babblers in the act of feeding one young Hierococcyx varius (the brain-fever bird or hawk-cuckoo, which, as we have seen, is parasitic on babblers) following the bird from tree to tree, and being most assiduous in their attentions to the young interloper.” This observation, I submit, supports the view that each member of the flock takes a personal interest in the offspring of other members, even though it be spurious!

Thus we may take it that these gatherings are not family parties, but rather of the nature of clubs. The question, then, arises: What determines the membership of these clubs? At present our knowledge of the ways of these common birds is not sufficient to enable us to frame a satisfactory reply. It is even an open question whether or not these clubs break up at the breeding season, or whether the nesting birds still continue to seek food in company. Colonel Cunningham declares that during April and May babblers “cease to go about in parties, and pairs of them are everywhere busily occupied in nesting.” Jerdon, on the other hand, states that the parties persist throughout the breeding season. I feel sure that Jerdon is right. No matter where one is stationed, parties of babblers are to be seen at all seasons of the year. From this, of course, it does not necessarily follow that the nesting birds do not forsake their brethren, at any rate for a time. It is probable, nay certain, that all the members of a flock do not pair and nest simultaneously. The breeding season extends at least from March to July. But the fact that there is quite a baby bird in the babbler brotherhood that dwells in the compound of the Allahabad Club seems to indicate that the nesting birds continue to find their food in company. There is no reason why they should not, for babblers neither migrate nor wander far afield.

But the question arises: What happens to the young birds when they are grown up? If they attached themselves to the existing flocks, these would tend to increase in size, and sometimes, at any rate, we should see an enormous assembly. So far as one’s casual observation goes, the flocks keep constant in number throughout the year. It is, of course, quite possible that casual observation leads one astray in this case. Any person interested in the subject, who has a more or less fixed abode, would do some service to ornithology if he would make a point of looking out for babbler clubs, and endeavouring to count the members of each, and keep a record of the results, with the date of each census. I am aware that it is not easy to count accurately a babbler club, for its members are always on the move, and odd birds are apt to pop out of unexpected places. But even rough figures, if they extended to a number of flocks, would, being all liable to the same error, prove fairly accurate as regards averages. Such observations, if they were to extend over a year, might lead to some interesting results. They would almost certainly show a reduction of numbers during the summer months, when nesting operations were in progress, but would this be followed by a considerable rise later in the year? If so, it would seem to indicate that some, at any rate, of the young ones attached themselves permanently to the flock in which they were born.

A somewhat more elaborate experiment which might yield interesting results would be to trap a whole “school” of babblers; they might be captured while asleep. After a piece of coloured material had been tied round the leg of each, every bird being decorated by a different colour, the irate sisters would be restored to liberty. Then it might be possible to follow the fortunes of each separate bird, and learn whether a given flock is always made up of the same individuals, whether they practise exogamy or favour endogamy, and a hundred and one other interesting facts relating to the vie intime of the brown sisters. I use the word “might” advisedly. For alas! bitter experience has taught me that, more often than not, the most cunningly devised ornithological experiments yield no definite results. It is quite possible that the club of babblers thus captured and decorated with gay colours might flee from the neighbourhood in wrath and terror. The birds would not understand the why and the wherefore of the proceeding, and might, perhaps, think that you were going to make a practice of catching them every night and tying things round their limbs. A bird whose leg has been pulled once is apt to be twice shy.

XL THE MAD BABBLER

The seven sisters (Crateropus canorus), which occur in every garden in India, are veritable punchinellos, so much so that schoolboys in the Punjab always call them “mad birds.” But nature is not content with having produced these. So readily does the babbler clan lend itself to the humoresque, that from it has been evolved the large grey babbler (Argya malcomi), a species even more comic than the noisy sisterhood. This is the Verri chinda, the mad babbler of the Telugu-speaking people. Pull the tail out of one of the seven sisters, and insert in its place another, half as long again, with the outer feathers of conspicuously lighter hue than the median ones, then brush up the plumage of the converted sister, and you will have effected a transmutation of species, turned a jungle babbler into a large grey one. This latter species has a wide range, but is capricious in its distribution. It does not, I believe, occur in the neighbourhood of the city of Madras, but is abundant in some parts of South India. The habits of this species seem to vary with the locality. In the south it appears to shun the madding crowd; in the north it frequents gardens and loves to disport itself in the middle of the road, and is in no hurry to get out of the way of the pedestrian or the cyclist. Probably many a large babbler has, owing to its tameness, succumbed to the motor-car. Bold spirits, such as the little striped squirrel, which take a positive delight in experiencing a series of hair-breadth escapes, suffer considerably when a new and speedier conveyance is introduced into a locality. They have learned by experience how close to the inch they may with safety allow the ordinary vehicle to approach before they skedaddle, and it takes time for them to discover that with a speedier vehicle a larger margin must be allowed. The little Indian squirrel has not yet learned to gauge the pace of the motor-car. Recently I counted five of their corpses on the road between Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, which is much frequented by motor-cars.

The Sath Bhai are usually accounted noisy birds, but they are taciturn in comparison with their long-tailed cousins. From dewy morn till dusty eve the large grey babblers vie with the crows in their vocal efforts. The crows score at the beginning of the day, for they are the first to awake, or, at any rate, to begin calling. The king crow (Dicrurus ater) is usually said to be the first bird to herald the cheerful dawn. This is not always so; the voice of Corvus splendens sometimes precedes that of the king crow. But ere the sun has shown his face the grey babblers join vociferously in the chorus that fills the welkin. And how shall I describe the notes of these light-headed birds so as to convey an adequate idea of them to those who have not heard with their own ears? I ought to be able to do so, for Allahabad, where I am now stationed, is the head-quarters of the clan of large grey babblers. Argya malcomi are to that city what the Macphersons are to Inverness-shire. You cannot avoid them. The sound of their voices is never out of my ears during the hours of daylight. Some of them are shouting at me even now. Yet words to describe what I hear fail me. The only instrument made by man that can rival the call of the mad babbler is the “rattle” used at our English Universities, or at any rate at Cambridge, to encourage the oarsmen in the Lent or May races. It is the delight of two of these birds each to take up a position at the summit of a tree and for one to commence calling. He bellows till his breath runs short; then his neighbour takes up the refrain—I mean, hullabaloo—and, ere number two has ceased, number one, having recovered breath, chimes in. In addition to this rattle-like call the grey babblers emit a more mellow note, which is well described by Jerdon as “Quey, quey, quey, quo, quo,” pronounced gutturally. Occasionally one of these extraordinary birds bursts out into a volley of excited squeaks, like the voice of Punch as rendered by the showman at the seaside. This I take to be a cry of alarm. The bird while uttering it careers about madly among the foliage of a tree, hopping from bough to bough with great dexterity.

Mad babblers go about, like the seven sisters, in flocks of ten or twelve, and feed largely on the ground. Their mode of progression when not on the wing is by a series of hops. Their movements are very like those of a thrush on an English lawn—a dash forward for about a yard, followed by an abrupt halt. They seem to subsist chiefly on insects, but grain does not come amiss to them. In places where they abound, several of them are usually to be seen in every field of large millet, each perched at the summit of a stalk eagerly devouring the ripening grain. When thus occupied they sometimes forget to call. They are birds of peculiarly feeble flight. Their tail is long and their wings are somewhat sketchy, and the result is that they have to flutter these latter frantically in order to fly at all. But for the fact that they always keep together in flocks, even at the nesting season, they would fall easy victims to birds of prey. Thanks to their clannishness and pluck, they appear to be tolerably immune from attack. Jerdon says: “If the Shikra sparrow-hawk be thrown at them, they defend each other with great courage, mobbing the hawk and endeavouring to release the one she has seized.” Only yesterday I saw a party of about a dozen large grey babblers attack and drive away a couple of black crows (Corvus macrorhynchus) from a position which the latter had taken up on the ground. The babblers advanced slowly in a serried mass, while the corbies remained motionless watching them. When the front rank of the babbler posse had advanced to within a foot of the crows a halt was called, and the adversaries contemplated one another in silence for a few seconds. Then one of the babblers made a lunge at the corby, which caused it to take to its wings. Immediately afterwards the other crow was similarly driven away. While the babblers were still celebrating their bloodless victory with a joyful noise, a tree-pie (Dendrocitta rufa) came and squatted on the ground near them, evidently spoiling for a fight. The babblers advanced against him, this time in open order. On their approach the pie lunged at a babbler and caused it to retire. But immediately another babbler made a feint at the tree-pie, and things were becoming exciting when something scared away the combatants.

Argya malcomi constructs a nest of the typical babbler type; that is to say, a somewhat loosely woven cup, which is placed, usually not very high above the ground, in a tree or bush. Nests are most likely to be found in the rains. The eggs are a beautiful rich blue—the hue of those of our familiar English hedge-sparrow (Accentor modularis)—which is so characteristic of babblers.

Like all of us, this happy-go-lucky babbler has its trials and troubles. It is victimised by that handsome, noisy ruffian, the pied crested cuckoo (Coccystis jacobinus), which deposits in the nest an egg, which is a first-class counterfeit of that of the babbler. The feckless babblers sit upon the strange egg until it gives forth its living contents. The presence of the spurious child does not greatly perturb the babblers. As we have seen, the flock does not break up even at the nesting season. Under such circumstances the whole flock probably takes part in administering to the young cuckoo the wherewithal to fill the inner bird, so that on the principle “many hands make light work” the extra mouth to feed is scarcely noticed. But is it an extra mouth? Does the young pied cuckoo eject its foster-brethren, or do the parents turn out the legitimate eggs?

XLI THE YELLOW-EYED BABBLER

The babbler community embraces a most heterogeneous collection of birds. Every Asiatic fowl which does not seem to belong to any other family is promptly relegated to the Crateropodidæ. Thus it comes to pass that such dissimilar creatures as the laughing thrushes and the seven sisters find themselves classed together. Now, taken as a whole, the babbler class is characterised neither by beauty nor melodiousness. The best-known members are the widely distributed seven sisters, which in many respects are very like those human babblers who style themselves Labour Members of Parliament. They are untidy in appearance and exceedingly noisy; their voices are uncouth, and they never tire of hearing themselves shout. They are apt to meddle with affairs that do not concern them. Of course the Sath Bhai have their good points; so, I suppose, have Labour M.P.’s—at any rate when they are in their natural habitat. When they come to India and then try to wield the pen—but it is not of human babblers that I wish to write, nor of the plainly attired, noisy, avian babblers, for have not the seven sisters had a double innings already? Even as some Labour Members of Parliament wear frock-coats and top hats, so are there some well-dressed members of the babbler clan. The yellow-eyed babblers belong to this class; and the most widely distributed of these—Pyctorhis sinensis—is the subject of the present discourse. This bird is, according to Oates, found in every portion of the Indian Empire up to a height of 5000 feet. As a matter of fact I have not seen it in or near the city of Madras, but that, perhaps, was not the fault of the bird, because we have Jerdon’s testimony that he saw it in every part of South India.

The yellow-eyed babbler is a sprightly little creature not much larger than a sparrow. Its upper plumage is a rich reddish brown, changing to cinnamon on some of the quill feathers. The chin, throat, cheeks, and breast are as white as snow. The conspicuous orange-yellow eye is set off by a small white eyebrow. The abdomen is cream-coloured. The bill is black and the legs a curious shade of dull yellow. The tail is 3½ inches long, at least the median feathers thereof are; the outer ones are barely two inches in length. This gradation in the size of the caudal feathers is, of course, visible only when the tail is spread during flight. The yellow-eyed babblers that inhabit Ceylon differ from those of the mainland in some unimportant details; hence systematists, with their usual aptitude for species-making, call the former Pyctorhis nasalis to distinguish them. In many parts of India the yellow-eyed babbler is quite a common bird. It is especially addicted to tall grass and hedgerows, and will occasionally enter a garden that is well provided with bushes. It is not so clannish as most of its brethren; sometimes a small party of six or seven feed in company, but more often only solitary birds or pairs are seen. They hop about in and out of small bushes or on the ground, industriously seeking out the small beetles and other insects on which they prey. Every now and then one of these sprightly birds permits itself a little relaxation in the shape of a sweet melody, which it composes and pours forth from the summit of a convenient bush. Its more usual note is described by Jerdon as “a loud sibilant whistle”; it also utters a variety of chattering sounds, which proclaim it a true babbler.

For an Indian bird it is shy; if it sees that it is being watched it quickly disappears into cover.

The nest of this species is a veritable work of art. Its usual form is that of an inverted cone, composed of dried grass, fibres, or other suitable material very compactly and neatly woven, the whole being plastered over exteriorly with cobweb, which, as I have said before, is the cement generally used by bird artisans. The well-built little nursery is sometimes wedged into a forked branch of a tree; more often it will be found snugly tucked away in a bush. In the Punjab the nest is very frequently found attached to the stalks of growing millet, in much the same way as a reed-warbler’s nest is fastened to reeds. The babbler weaves its nest round a couple of adjacent stalks, so that these are worked into its walls. A nest which is thus supported by two stalks is in shape like the cocked hat worn by a political officer.

The eggs, which may be looked for at any time between May and September, are very beautiful. To describe them in a few words is not easy, because they exhibit great diversity in colour and markings. This is one of the hundreds of facts inconsistent with the orthodox theories of the significance of colour in organic nature that confront the field naturalist at every turn. The existence of such facts does not perturb in the least those theorists who “rule the roost” in the scientific world. Their attitude is “our word is law—if facts don’t fit in with it, so much the worse for facts.” As Hume points out, three main types of eggs occur, and there are many combinations of these types. Of the two types most often seen, “one has a pinkish-white ground, thickly and finely mottled and streaked over the whole surface with more or less bright and deep brick-dust red, so that the ground colour only faintly shows through here and there as a sort of pale mottling; in the other type the ground colour is pinkish white somewhat sparingly, but boldly, blotched with irregular patches and eccentric hieroglyphic-like streaks, often bunting-like in their character, of bright blood or brick-dust red.”

XLII THE INDIAN SAND-MARTIN

The Indian sand-martin (Cotile sinensis) is, I believe, the smallest of the swallow tribe. So diminutive is he that you could put him in your watch-pocket, were you so minded, without fear of damaging his plumage. His charm lies in his littleness and activity rather than in his colouring, for he belongs not to the dandies. Neat and quiet are the adjectives that describe his attire. The head, shoulders, and back are pale brown tinged with grey. The wing-feathers are dark brown. The under parts are white with a touch of grey on the chin and breast. The sexes dress alike. This description applies equally well to the sand-martin (Cotile riparia) that nests in sand-pits in England, for the only differences between this species, which occurs sparingly in India, and the Indian form are that the former is a little larger and possesses a dark necklace.

The feeding habits of sand-martins are those of the rest of the swallow tribe. They live on minute insects which they catch on the wing, not, after the manner of fly-catchers, by making little aerial sallies from a perch, but by careering speedily through the air during the greater part of the day and seizing every insect that they meet.

The Indian sand-martin is a species especially dear to the ornithologist because it nests in winter, when comparatively few other birds are so occupied. Speaking generally, the cold weather may be said to be the “silly season” of the bird world.

There is one drawback to India from the point of view of the ornithologist, and that is the habit of the great majority of birds of building their nests at the time when the sun shines forth pitilessly from a cloudless sky for twelve hours out of the twenty-four, burning up all vegetation and raising the temperature of the air to furnace heat. Under such conditions the pleasure of watching the birds is tempered by the physical discomfort to which the bird-watcher is put. Very pleasant, then, is it, after months of excessive heat, to awake from sleep one morning to find that the cool weather has come at last, to feel the morning air blow fresh against the cheek, and to look out on an earth enveloped in dense mist. Before one’s horse is saddled, the first rays of the sun dissipate the mist with almost magic suddenness, and then one rides forth over dew-bejewelled plains of grass. If on such a morning one repairs to a sand-pit or a river bank, one is likely there to meet with a colony of sand-martins, for it is early in the cold weather that those birds begin to construct their nests, which are holes bored in sand-banks by the birds themselves.

Like the majority of very small birds, sand-martins show but little fear of human beings. Tits, white-eyes, warblers, sand-martins, etc., will come in search of food quite close up to a motionless human being. Mr. W. H. Hudson relates in his Birds and Man how, when one day he went into his garden and walked under the trees, there was a great commotion among the little birds overhead, who mobbed him in the manner they mob an enemy. He discovered that the reason of this strange behaviour on the part of the small birds that usually paid no attention to him, was that he was wearing a striped cloth cap, which the birds appeared to mistake for a cat. It would almost seem that there is so vast a difference in size between a tiny bird and a human being that the former fails to recognise the latter as a living object provided he keeps still. This does not imply poor eyesight on the part of birds. The minds and eyes of birds are almost invariably directed on small things. Now, a man bears to a small bird much the same relation as a horse three hundred hands high would bear to a man. As regards detail, the eyesight of birds is probably superior to that of men, for each sand-martin seems never to mistake its nest, although the entrance to it is merely one of several score of holes scattered irregularly over the face of the cliff. To the human eye these holes look all very much alike, but each must possess minute peculiarities which loom large in the eye of the sand-martin. Whether or not the above explanation is the true one, the fact remains that a human being can take up a position within a few feet of the cliff without disturbing the martins in their nest-building operations.

Some birds, when busy at their nests, work with feverish haste, as though they were under contract to finish them by a given date. Not so the sand-martins. With them, the spells of work at the nest would seem to be mere interludes between their gambols in the air. Each bird appears to visit its nest every few seconds, but generally it contents itself with hovering in front of the hole for a fraction of a minute and then dashes away. Frequently one sees a martin perch at the aperture for a few seconds without doing any work, and then fly off again. For every visit made with the object of doing work, ten or twelve seem to be made for the mere fun of the thing. Sand-martins appear to derive the greatest pleasure from the contemplation of the growing nursery. If the cliff be examined carefully, its soft sandy surface will be found to be scored in many places by marks made by the sharp little claws of the martins as the birds alight.