One summer visitor remains to be described, but he need not detain us long, for, save his respectability, he has nothing in particular to commend him. I allude to the yellow-throated sparrow (Gymnorhis flavicollis). This bird probably sometimes passes for a hen house sparrow; close inspection, however, reveals a yellow patch on the throat. According to Jerdon this creature has much the same manners and habits as the common sparrow. This I consider libellous. The yellow-throated sparrow is a bird of retiring disposition and I have never heard of one forcing its way into a sahib’s bungalow. It nestles in a hole in a tree. Having lined the ready-made cavity with dry grass and feathers, it lays four eggs which are thickly blotched all over with sepia, chocolate brown, or purple. A pair of these birds lives in the octagonal aviary at the Lahore Zoo.
XVIII
A BIRD OF MANY ALIASES
The paddy bird has as many aliases as a professional criminal of twenty years’ standing. I do not refer to his scientific names. Of course he has a number of these. Every bird has. A person who desires violent exercise for the memory cannot do better than try to keep pace with the kaleidoscopic changes which Indian ornithological terminology undergoes. The paddy bird is now known as Ardeola grayii, but I do not guarantee that he will be so called next month. When I assert that the paddy bird is a creature of many aliases, I mean that he has a number of popular names. He is sometimes known as the pond heron, because no piece of water larger than a puddle is too small to serve as a fishing ground for him. His partiality to flooded rice fields has given rise to the name by which he most commonly goes. He is frequently dubbed the blind heron, especially by natives. The Tamils call him the blind idiot. Needless to say the bird is not blind, its confiding disposition is responsible for the adjective. It might be blind for all the notice it takes of surrounding objects as it stands at the water’s edge, huddled up like a decrepit old man.
Before proceeding further, let me, for the benefit of those who are unacquainted with the avifauna of India, describe the bird. It is much smaller than the common heron, being about the size of a curlew. The head, neck, and the whole of the upper plumage are greenish brown, each feather having a darker shaft stripe. The under parts are white, as are the larger wing feathers, but these latter are so arranged as to be altogether invisible when the wings are closed, so that the bird, when it flies, seems suddenly to produce from nowhere a pair of beautiful white pinions and sail away on them. Before it has flown far it usually performs the vanishing trick. This, like most effective conjuring tricks, is very easy to perform when one knows how to do it. The bird merely folds its wings, then the dark coverts alone are visible. These are of the same hue as the damp sand or mud on which the paddy bird spends a considerable portion of the day. The dingy hues of the paddy bird are the outcome of its habits; it is a shikari that stalks its prey or lies in wait for it. If it were as showy as the cattle egret its intended victims would “see it coming” and mock at it. Hence the necessity for its workaday garb.
The paddy bird is a very sluggish creature; it comes of a lazy family. There is not a single member of the heron tribe that does sufficient work to disqualify it for membership of the most particular trade union.
Most herons, however, do stalk their prey, which is more than the paddy bird usually does. One may sometimes see him progressing through shallow water at the rate of six inches a minute; but more commonly he stands in shallow water as motionless as a stuffed bird, with his head almost buried in his shoulders, looking as though he were highly disgusted with things in general. As a matter of fact he is thoroughly enjoying himself. His ugly eye is fixed upon some luckless frog in the water. The moment this comes within striking distance the pond heron will shoot out his long neck, seize the frog and swallow it whole. One cannot but feel sorry for the frog as it finds itself being hustled down the heron’s throat. It probably mistook the motionless creature for a rock and, even had it not made this mistake, it could not be expected to know that the bird had buried in its shoulders a patent telescopic neck. After the amphibian is safely lodged in ventro, the paddy bird resumes his strategic position at the water’s edge and maintains it for hours.
One day when I have nothing else to do I mean to mark down a paddy bird in its roosting tree, follow it to its fishing ground and picnic there all day and watch its behaviour. I shall then write an essay entitled A Leaf from the Diary of a Lazy Bird.
I imagine that the daily entry will read somewhat as follows:—
8 a.m.—(One hour after sunrise) woke up. 8—8.30—Pruned my feathers. 8.30—Flew to my fishing ground. 8.32—Settled there for the day. 8.40—9—Caught a few water insects for breakfast. 9—10—Had a nap. 10.30—Caught a frog. 10.32—12—Had a nap. 12.15—Caught another frog. 12.17—2—Had a nap. 2.20—Caught a third frog. 2.22—Walked three yards. 2.24—4—Had a nap. 4.40—Caught a fourth frog. 5—6—Had a nap. 6.15—6.30—Caught and ate my supper. 6.30—Flew to roost. 6.35—40—Had a row with a neighbour who had taken my private roosting site. 7 p.m. onwards—Slept the sleep of the just.
The above is not a statement of actual fact. Like many scientific productions it is based on imagination and not observation. I have not yet devoted a whole day to the paddy bird. I have, however, spent an hour at a pond heron’s dormitory and record in the next chapter what I saw there.