Our hero is an exceedingly active little bird. He is ever on the move, and so rapid are his movements that to watch him for any length of time through field-glasses is no mean feat. He and his mate, with perhaps a few friends, hop about from leaf to leaf looking for quarry, large and small. The manner in which he stows away a caterpillar an inch long is a sight for the gods!
Sometimes two or three of these warblers attach themselves, temporarily at any rate, to one of those flocks, composed mainly of various species of tits and nuthatches, which form so well-marked a feature of all wooded hills in India. Hodgson's warblers are pugnacious little creatures. Squabbles are frequent. It is impossible to watch two or three of them for long without seeing what looks like one tiny animated golden fluff ball pursuing another from branch to branch and even from tree to tree.
The breeding season lasts from March to June. The nest is globular in shape, made of moss or coarse grass, and lined with some soft material, such as wool. The entrance is usually at one side. The nest is placed on a sloping bank at the foot of a bush, so that it is likely to escape observation unless one sees the bird flying to it. Three or four glossy white eggs are laid. Many years ago Colonel Marshall recorded the case of a nest at Naini Tal "at the side of a narrow glen with a northern aspect and about four feet above the pathway, close to a spring from which my bhisti daily draws water, the bird sitting fearlessly while passed and repassed by people going down the glen within a foot or two of the nest." At the same station I recently had a very different experience. Some weeks ago I noticed one of these warblers fly with a straw in its beak to a place on a steep bank under a small bush. I could not see what it was doing there, but in a few seconds it emerged with the bill empty. Shortly afterwards it returned with another straw. Having seen several pieces of building material carried to the spot, I descended the bank to try to find the nest. I could find nothing; the nest was evidently only just commenced. I then went back to the spot from which I had been watching the birds, but they did not return again. I had frightened them away. Individual birds of the same species sometimes differ considerably in their behaviour at the nesting season. Some will desert the nest on the slightest provocation, while others will cling to it in the most quixotic manner. It is never safe to dogmatise regarding the behaviour of birds. No sooner does an ornithologist lay down a law than some bird proceeds to break it.
THE SPOTTED FORKTAIL
"Striking" is, in my opinion, the correct adjective to apply to the spotted forktail (Henicurus maculatus). Like the paradise flycatcher, it is a bird which cannot fail to obtrude itself upon the most unobservant person, and, once seen, it is never likely to be forgotten. I well remember the first occasion on which I saw a spotted forktail; I was walking down a Himalayan path, alongside of which a brook was flowing, when suddenly from a rock in mid-stream there arose a black-and-white apparition, that flitted away, displaying a long tail fluttering behind it. The plumage of this magnificent bird has already been described.
As was stated above, this species is often called the hill-wagtail. The name is not a particularly good one, because wagtails proper occur in the Himalayas.
The forktail, however, has many of the habits of the true wagtail. I was on the point of calling it a glorified wagtail, but I refrain. Surely it is impossible to improve upon a wagtail.
In India forktails are confined to the Himalayas and the mountainous parts of Burma.