The wryneck derives its name from a curious habit it has of twisting its neck as it seeks for insects on a tree-trunk or mound.
Wrynecks are very rarely seen in cages or aviaries, probably because they are not songsters and because their habits are not such as to render them attractive in an aviary. Nevertheless, wrynecks thrive in captivity. Bishop Stanley records an instance of a wryneck which “lived for a year and a half in a cage, and never appeared to show impatience during its confinement; it was observed always to take its food by throwing out its long tongue.”
During the winter the wryneck seems to visit all parts of India, except possibly the Malabar coast, and it is sufficiently common in South India to have a Tamil name—Moda nulingadu.
The wryneck breeds neither in the plains of India nor, I believe, in the Himalayas, but its nest has been recorded in Kashmir. It busies itself with parental duties in the summer—in May and June in England—laying its glossy white eggs in a hollow in a tree. Unlike the woodpecker the wryneck does not hollow out its hole for itself. It is sensible enough not to undertake that which can be equally well done by others. In this respect, as in so many others, it differs from the woodpeckers proper.
XXII
GREEN PIGEONS
Green birds are comparatively few in number, but nearly all of those that do exist are very beautiful objects. Green is a colour which is rarely found alone in birds. The fowls of the air of which the plumage is mainly green almost invariably display patches of other colour. In the familiar green parrots red, pink, blue, and black occur; the green coppersmith flaunts the most gaudy hues of red, crimson, and yellow; the emerald merops adorns itself with gold and turquoise ornaments; while green pigeons are birds which display the whole spectrum of colours, each in a subdued form. In the common Indian species the forehead is greenish yellow; the nape and sides of the head French grey; the chin and neck are old gold shading off into olive; the body is greenish olive; the shoulder is washed with lilac. The primary wing feathers are dark grey, while the secondaries are similarly coloured, but have pale yellow tips. The tail is slate-coloured, becoming greenish yellow at the base. The feathers under the tail are a dark claret colour with creamy bars. The lower parts are slate-coloured tinged with green, save for the feathers of the thigh, which are canary yellow. The legs are orange yellow. The eye is blue, with an outer ring of carmine. Yet, notwithstanding all this show of colour, there is nothing gaudy about the green pigeon. Every tint is most delicately laid on, and each hue blends into the surrounding ones in a truly exquisite fashion, so that it is no exaggeration to call the green pigeon a vision of perfect loveliness.
In the unlikely event of any one taking the trouble to compare the above description with those given in the fauna of British India for Crocopus phœnicopterus (the Bengal green pigeon) and C. chlorogaster (the Southern green pigeon), that person will observe that it does not tally exactly with either of them. Nevertheless, my description is taken from a specimen shot by me in the Basti district of the United Provinces. The fact of the matter is that in places where the Bengal form meets the southern species the two interbreed, as, I believe, do all, or nearly all, allied species at the point of junction. And, in such cases, the hybrid birds appear to be perfectly fertile and to thrive equally with the parent species; neither of which would be the case were facts in accordance with the Wallaceian theory. But, as we shall see later, green pigeons seem to lay themselves out to destroy the biological orthodoxy of to-day.
Green pigeons appear to live exclusively on fruit. They go about in small flocks, seeking out trees of which the fruit is ripe; when they hit upon such a tree they behave as if they were schoolboys let loose in a tuck shop!
The Hindustani name for the green pigeon is Harrial. The natives, or at any rate some of them, assert that the bird never descends to the ground, because when its foot touches the earth the bird loses a pound in weight, in other words, shrivels up into nothingness! If asked how it drinks, they will reply that it settles on a reed which bends with its weight, so that it is able to partake of the water beneath without touching the earth. In the absence of a conveniently situated reed, the green pigeon overcomes the difficulty by carrying a twig in its feet. It would be interesting to discover the origin of this story, which is on a par with that which asserts that the red-wattled lapwing (Sarcogrammus indicus) sleeps on its back with its legs in the air, in order to be ready to catch the sky on its feet if ever this should fall! As a matter of fact green pigeons are very arboreal in their habits. I do not remember ever having seen one of them on the ground.
The note of the green pigeons is not a coo, but a pleasant whistle. The birds are sometimes caged on account of their song. But they are uninteresting pets. In captivity they soon lose their beauty, because they are so gluttonous as to smear the head and neck with whatever fruit be given them to eat.