IV
MINIVETS
Were a beauty show held open to all the birds of India, the minivets would, I think, win the first prize. To say this is to bestow high praise, for India teems with beautiful birds.
All the colours of the rainbow appear in our avian population. Indeed, the Indian pitta (Pitta brachyura)—the bird of nine colours—is a rainbow in himself, displaying as he does red, yellow, grey, and various shades of blue and green, to say nothing of black and white.
Most of our beautiful birds, however, pin their affections more especially to one colour. The parakeets, the chloropses, the green pigeons, the bee-eaters, and the barbets wear sufficient green to satisfy the most patriotic Irishman.
Golden yellow is affected by the orioles and the ioras.
The kingfisher, the roller and the purple porphyrio are as blue as Putney on boat-race day.
Sunbirds, pheasants, and peafowl favour us with a gorgeous display of metallic hues.
The rose-coloured starling and the flamingo wear their pink as proudly as a Westminster boy.
The minivets are the leaders of fashion as regards the reds and yellows. The cocks vie with the hens as to who shall be the more resplendent, and, in so doing, make short work of the attempts of Wallace and Darwin to explain sexual difference in plumage. In most species of minivets the cocks are arrayed in bright scarlet, whence the name Cardinal-bird, rich crimson, deep rose colour, flaming red, or soft orange, while their respective wives are studies in the various shades of yellow. But the beauty of the minivet is not merely that of colouring. The elegance of its slender, well-proportioned form rivals that of the wagtail.
Minivets are little birds with longish tails which flit about among the leaves of trees in flocks of half a dozen, conversing in low but exceedingly melodious tones.