Part 18

As the darkness begins to gather these birds, one and all, put more energy into their movements. Each seems to be aware of the rapid approach of the night when work must cease, and each appears fully determined not to lose a moment of the precious daylight.

While the sun is still well above the horizon great flocks of mynas sweep swiftly overhead towards the dense clump of bamboo bushes in which they will spend the night. They are joined by other species of starling. Before settling among the bamboos they perch in trees hard by, and make a joyful noise; every now and then some of the throng take to their wings and perform, like trained soldiers, a series of rapid evolutions. When at length the gloom compels them reluctantly to desist from their vigorous exercise, and to disappear into the bamboo clump, they give out energy in the form of loud clamour.

From the grove of tall trees yonder, where thousands of crows will spend the hours of darkness, an even greater noise issues. Some twenty minutes before the sun dips below the horizon the advance guard of the corvi arrives; then, for the succeeding quarter-hour, continuous streams of crows come pouring in from east and west, from north and south.

Meanwhile the sparrows have been foregathering in their hundreds in the low shrubs that fringe the edge of the garden. And what a dissonance issues from those bushes!

Truly phenomenal is the activity of the birds at eventide. It is especially marked in India, where during the middle of the day the sun nearly always shines fierce and hot, so that the birds are glad to enjoy a siesta in the grateful shade. From this they emerge like giants refreshed.

This liveliness of the feathered folk at sunset is no small matter. It is one of the most pleasing facts of natural history. It shows how immensely birds enjoy life. It proves how healthy, how full of energy they are, how they, to speak figuratively, live within their incomes.

Contrast such scenes as those described above with what may be seen in the City of London at six o’clock on a weekday. A multitude of pale, anxious, worn-looking men, and thin, tired, haggard women pursue with listless steps their homeward way. Compared with the lot of these, how happy is that of the birds.

Birds are, like children, loath to go to bed. They feel no weariness, and so great is their enjoyment of life, that they are almost sorry when the sun disappears for a little.

Jules Michelet, than whom no more wrong-headed naturalist ever lived, declares that birds dread the night. “Heavy,” he writes, “for all creatures is the gloom of evening. . . . Night is equally terrible for the birds. . . . What monsters it conceals, what frightful chances for the bird lurk in its obscurity. Its nocturnal foes have this characteristic in common—their approach is noiseless. The screech-owl flies with a silent wing, as if wrapped in tow. The weasel insinuates its long body into the nest without disturbing a leaf. The eager polecat, athirst for the warm life-blood, is so rapid that in a moment it bleeds both parents and progeny, and slaughters a whole family.

“It seems that the bird, when it has little ones, enjoys a second sight for these dangers. It has to protect a family far more feeble and more helpless than that of the quadruped, whose young can walk as soon as born. But how protect them? It can do nothing but remain at its post and die; it cannot fly away, for its love has broken its wings. All night the narrow entry of the nest is guarded by the father, who sinks with fatigue, and opposes danger with feeble beak and shaking head. What will this avail if the enormous jaw of the serpent suddenly appears, or the horrible eye of the bird of death, immeasurably enlarged by fear?”

Greater nonsense than this was never penned outside a political pamphlet. Birds do not, as Michelet seems to imagine, go to sleep quaking with terror. They know not the meaning of the word death, nor have they any superstitious fears of ghosts and goblins.

Birds with young sleep the sleep of a man without a single care.

At other times birds do not roost in solitude, but gather together in great companies, the members of which are as jolly as the young folks at a supper party after the theatre. The happiness of the fowls of the air at the sunset hour is almost riotous.

Darkness, however, exercises a soothing influence over them. A feeling of sleepiness steals over them, and they then doubtless experience the luxurious sensation of tiredness which we human beings feel after a day spent in the open air; for, although they know it not, their muscles are tired as the result of the activity of the day.

Their sweet slumbers completely refresh them. Before dawn they are awake again, and are up and about waiting for it to grow sufficiently light to enable them to resume the interrupted pleasures of the previous day.

With the exception of “The Education of Young Birds,” which came out in The Albany Review, the chapters which compose this book appeared in one or other of the following Indian periodicals: The Madras Mail, The Times of India, The Indian Daily Telegraph, The Indian Field, The Indian Forester.

The author begs to tender his thanks to the several editors for permission to reproduce this collection of essays.

GLOSSARY

Bandobast. Arrangement.

Bhimraj. The racket-tailed drongo (Dissemurus paradiseus).

Chabutra. A masonry platform, erected outside the bungalow in the compound on which people sit in the evenings during the hot weather.

Chamar. The name of a low caste of Indians who skin animals and tan their skin.

Chaprassi. Lit., a badge-wearer. A servant who runs messages.

Chik. A number of thin pieces of bamboo strung together to form a curtain. Chiks are usually hung in front of doors and windows in India with the object of keeping out insects, but not air.

Chota hazri. Early morning tea.

Dak bungalow. Government rest-house.

Jhil. A lake or any natural depression which is filled with rain water all the year round or only at certain seasons.

Kankar. Lumps of limestone with which roads are metalled in Northern India.