Birds of the Indian Hills

by Douglas Dewar

Black bulbuls belong to the genus Hypsipetes. Three species occur in India—the Himalayan (H. psaroides), the Burmese (H. concolor), and the South Indian (H. ganeesa). All three species resemble one another closely in appearance. Take a king-crow (Dicrurus ater), dip his bill and legs in red ink, cut down his tail a little, dust him all over so as to make his glossy black plumage look grey and shabby, ruffle his feathers, apply a little pomade hongroise to the feathers on the back of his head, and make some of them stick out to look like a dilapidated crest, and you may flatter yourself that you have produced a very fair imitation of a black bulbul as it appears when flitting about from one tree summit to another. Closer inspection of the bird reveals the fact that "black" is scarcely the right adjective to apply to it. Dark grey is the prevailing hue of its plumage, with some black on the head and a quantity of brown on the wings and tail.

The Himalayan species has a black cheek stripe, which the other forms lack; but it is quite unnecessary to dilate upon these minute differences. I trust I have said sufficient to enable any man, woman, or suffragette to recognise a noisy black bulbul, and, as the distribution of each species is well defined and does not overlap that of the other species, the fact that a bird is found in any particular place at once settles the question of its species. The South Indian bird occurs only in Ceylon and the hills of South-west India; hence Jerdon called this species the Nilgiri or Ghaut black bulbul. Men of science in their wisdom have given the Himalayan bird the sibilant name of Hypsipetes psaroides. The inelegance of the appellation perhaps explains why the bird has been permitted to retain it for quite a long while unchanged.

I have been charged with unnecessarily making fun of ornithological nomenclature. As a matter of fact, I have dealt far too leniently with the peccadillos of the ornithological systematist. Recently a book was published in the United States entitled The Birds of Illinois and Wisconsin. Needless to state that while the author was writing the book, ornithological terminology underwent many changes; but the author was able to keep pace with these and with those that occurred while the various proofs were passing through the press. It was after this that his real troubles began. Several changes took place between the interval of the passing of the final proof and the appearance of the book, so that the unfortunate author in his desire to be up to date had to insert in each volume a slip to the effect that the American Ornithologists' Union had in the course of the past few days changed the name of no fewer than three genera; consequently the genus Glaux had again become Cryptoglaux, and the genera Trochilus and Coturniculus had become, respectively, Archilochus and Ammodramus! But we are wandering away from our black bulbuls. The hillmen call the Himalayan species the Ban Bakra, which means the jungle goat. Why it should be so named I have not an idea, unless it be because the bird habitually "plays the goat!"

Black bulbuls seem never to descend to the ground; they keep almost entirely to the tops of lofty trees and so occur only in well-wooded parts of the hills. When the rhododendrons are in flower, these birds partake very freely of the nectar enclosed within their crimson calyces. Now, I am fully persuaded that the nectar of flowers is an intoxicant to birds, and of course this will account, not only in part for the rowdiness of the black bulbuls, but for the pugnacity of those creatures, such as sunbirds, which habitually feed upon this stimulating diet. Black bulbuls, like sunbirds, get well dusted with pollen while diving into flowers after nectar, and so probably act the part of insects as regards the cross-fertilisation of large flowers. In respect of nesting habits, black bulbuls conform more closely to the ways of their tribe than they do in other matters. The nesting season is early spring. The nursery, which is built in a tree, not in a bush, is a small cup composed largely of moss, dried grass, and leaves, held together by being well smeared with cobweb. The eggs have a pink background, much spotted with reddish purple. They display a great lack of uniformity as regards both shape and colouring.

A WARBLER OF DISTINCTION

So great is the number of species of warbler which either visit India every winter or remain always in the country, so small and insignificant in appearance are these birds, so greatly do they resemble one another, and so similar are their habits, that even the expert ornithologist cannot identify the majority of them unless, having the skin in one hand and a key to the warblers in the other, he sets himself thinking strenuously. For these reasons I pay but little attention to the warbler clan. Usually when I meet one of them, I am content to set him down as a warbler and let him depart in peace. But I make a few exceptions in the case of those that I may perhaps call warblers of distinction—warblers that stand out from among their fellows on account of their architectural skill, their peculiar habits, or unusual colouring. The famous tailor-bird (Orthotomus sartorius) is the best known of the warblers distinguished on account of architectural skill. As a warbler of peculiar habits, I may cite the ashy wren-warbler (Prinia socialis), which, as it flits about among the bushes, makes a curious snapping noise, the cause of which has not yet been satisfactorily determined. As warblers of unusual colouring, the flycatcher-warblers are pre-eminent. In appearance these resemble tits or white-eyes rather than the typical quaker-like warblers.

Cryptolopha xanthoschista and Hodgson's grey-headed flycatcher-warbler are the names that ornithologists have given to a very small bird. But, diminutive though he be, he is heard, if not seen, more often than any other bird in all parts of the Western Himalayas. It is impossible for a human being to visit any station between Naini Tal and Murree without remarking this warbler. It is no exaggeration to state that the bird's voice is heard in every second tree. Oates writes of the flycatcher-warblers, "they are not known to have any song." This is true or the reverse, according to the interpretation placed on the word "song." If song denotes only sweet melodies such as those of the shama and the nightingale, then indeed flycatcher-warblers are not singers. Nevertheless they incessantly make a joyful noise. I can vouch for the fact that their lay is heard all day long from March to October. Before attempting to describe the familiar sound, I deem it prudent to recall to the mind of the reader the notice that once appeared in a third-rate music-hall:—"The audience are respectfully requested not to throw things at the pianist. He is doing his best." To say that this warbler emits incessantly four or five high-pitched, not very musical notes, is to give but a poor rendering of his vocal efforts, but it is, I fear, the best I can do for him. He is small, so that the volume of sound he emits is not great, but it is penetrating. Even as the cheery lay of the Otocompsa bulbuls forms the dominant note of the bird chorus in our southern hill stations, so does the less melodious but not less cheerful call of the flycatcher-warblers run as an undercurrent through the melody of the feathered choir of the Himalayas.

In what follows I shall speak of Hodgson's grey-headed flycatcher-warbler as our hero, because I shrink from constant repetition of his double double-barrelled name. I should prefer to give him Jerdon's name, the white-browed warbler, but for the fact that there are a score or more other warblers with white eyebrows. Our hero is considerably smaller than a sparrow, being only a fraction over four inches in length, and of this over one-third is composed of tail. The head and neck are grey, the former being set off by a cream-coloured eyebrow. Along the middle of the head runs a band of pale grey; this "mesial coronal band," as Oates calls it, is far more distinct in some specimens than in others. The remainder of the upper plumage is olive green, and the lower parts are bright yellow. Coloured plate, No. XX, in Hume and Henderson's Lahore to Yarkand, contains a very good reproduction of the bird. The upper picture on the plate represents our hero, the lower one depicting an allied species, Brook's grey-headed flycatcher-warbler (C. Jerdoni). It is necessary to state this because the book in question was written in 1873, since when, needless to say, the scientific names of most birds have undergone changes. The plate in question also demonstrates the slenderness of the foundation upon which specific differences among warblers rest.