XVII
SUMMER VISITORS TO THE PUNJAB PLAINS
During the months that Father Sol is doing his best to make the Punjab an earthly Inferno the birds are busy at their nests. They do not seem to mind the heat. Some of them positively revel in it, visiting us only in the hot weather. These summer visitors form an interesting group.
The bee-eaters are the first to make their appearance. In the first or second week in March, two species of bee-eater visit the Punjab—the little green one (Merops viridis), and the blue-tailed species (M. philippinus). The former is a grass-green bird about the size of a bulbul. Its beak is slightly curved and black; a bar of the same hue runs through the eye. The throat is a beautiful turquoise blue. The wings are tinted with bronze, so that the bird, when it flies, looks golden rather than green. The most distinctive feature of the bee-eater is the middle pair of tail feathers, which are blackish and project beyond the others as sharp bristles.
Bee-eaters feed upon insects which they catch on the wing. The larger species live up to their name by devouring bees and wasps. Like every other bird that hawks flying insects the bee-eater takes up a strategic position on a telegraph wire, a railing, a bare branch or other point of vantage, whence it keeps a sharp look-out for its quarry. When an insect appears it is smartly captured in the air, the mandibles of the bee-eater closing upon it with a snap, audible at a distance of several yards.
Bee-eaters begin nesting almost immediately upon arrival. The nest is a chamber, rather larger than a cricket ball, which the cock and hen, working turn about, scoop out of a sandbank with beak and claw. The nest chamber communicates with the exterior by a passage about three feet long, so narrow that the bird is unable to turn round in it. Every kind of sandbank is utilised. Numbers of nests are to be found in the mounds that adorn the Lawrence Gardens at Lahore. Others may be seen in the artificial bunkers on the uninviting maidan which is by courtesy called The Lahore Golf Links. The butts on the rifle range are sometimes made use of, the bee-eaters being utterly regardless of the bullets that every now and then bury themselves with a thud in the earth near the nest hole.
The blue-tailed bee-eater is distinguishable by its larger size, its yellowish throat, and its blue tail. It is not so abundant as the green species, and excavates its nest at a higher level. The note of both kinds of bee-eater is a soft but cheery whistle.
The honey-suckers (Arachnechthra asiatica) or sunbirds, as they are frequently called, follow hard upon the bee-eaters. As these charming little birds form the subject of a subsequent chapter, it is only necessary to state in this place that they build thousands of nests in the various stations of the Punjab during the summer months. At least, one nest is to be found in every garden. In each little nursery two or three families are reared in succession.
The koel (Eudynamis honorata) is perhaps the most interesting of our summer visitors. We are all of us acquainted with his fluty crescendo ku-il, ku-il, ku-il, also with the excited kuk, koo-oo, koo-ooo, which the bird pours forth in a veritable torrent.
The koel is sometimes erroneously called the brain-fever bird. This proud title properly belongs to another parasite, namely the hawk cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius), which does not come as far west as Lahore, but may be heard at Umballa. This noisy fowl shrieks brain fever, brain fever, brain fever, beginning low down in the scale and ascending higher and higher until his top note is reached, then he begins all over again, and repeats the performance for an indefinite period. He would have a future before him as a foghorn were it only possible to make him call at will!
The cock koel is a jet black bird with a red eye and a green bill. When flying he looks like a slenderly built, long-tailed crow. The hen is speckled black and white. This cuckoo cuckolds crows.