The popular legend is that the goose was the Vâhan of Brahma, on whom fell the curse of Shiva, that henceforth he should not be an object of popular worship. The gait of the goose or the swan (for the two birds seem to be considered the same in the slip-shod talk of the people) is reckoned as next graceful to those of the elephant or the partridge. They say in serious praise of a lady's carriage that she walks like a goose. In Europe we seem to look closer and discriminate the sort of lady with a goose gait, nor do we count it for praise.
The Brahminy Duck.—The note of the ruddy sheldrake or Brahminy duck (Casarca rutila) has won for this bird, which is always seen in pairs, a place in Indian classic poetry as the type of longing but divided lovers. Every night across the river the male cries, "Chakvi, may I come?" and the female responds, "No, Chakva." Then the female mourns, "Chakva, may I come?" and the answer is, "No, Chakvi." (The open Indian vowel sounds give the plaintive bird's cry better than the English "May I come?") With a super-subtle elaboration of the idea of nightly separation, the birds in some verses I have heard, but cannot fully recall, are dolorously apart in spirit even when put in the same cage. The simile was originally good in a poetical sense, and is still alive to the Indian mind, which loves familiar and accustomed turns; but its constant recurrence gives it a mechanical creak to English ears.
The Peacock.—The peacock is the Vâhan or vehicle, of Karttikeya, a god of war, and also of Saraswati, goddess of learning, and is sacred. Many of the troubles between villagers and English soldiers out shooting have arisen from the ignorance of the latter of the veneration in which peacocks are held.
In Guzerat, throughout Rajputana, and in many parts of the Central and North-West Provinces, peacocks run wild, and are as common as rooks in England. A rhyming proverb says, "The deer, the monkey, the partridge, and the peacock are four thieves," but they are never punished for their thefts. They are, however, sometimes caught alive by out-caste jungle folk and brought to market with their eyes sewn up with filaments of their own quills in order to prevent them fluttering and spoiling their plumage. Solomon rebuked the vanity of the peacock's tail by an ungenerous and not particularly apt reference to the ugliness of its legs, and his gibe is still in men's mouths. They are in reality good legs, strong and capable; but it is said, "The peacock danced gaily, till he saw his legs, when he was ashamed and wept bitterly." In some places this saying is accounted for by a story. The peacock and the partridge, or, as some say, the maina, had a dancing match. In those days the peacock had very pretty feet. So when he had danced, the partridge said, "Lend me your feet and see me dance." They changed feet, but instead of dancing, the deceitful partridge ran away and never came back again. The saying is used as an expression of regret for a foolish bargain. Ancient European bestiaries say when the peacock wakes it cries and mourns its lost beauty. In Assam they say with reference to vain people: "If I must die, I must die, but don't touch my top-knot, said the peacock." Women when they dislike a sister woman call her a peacock-legged person, and sometimes after sickness speak of their own limbs in humorous disparagement as like those of the peacock, where an English countrywoman would refer to pipe-stems or bean-sticks. Yet "peacock gaited" is a poetical expression for a graceful carriage, and "a neck like a peacock" is a common compliment to a beautiful woman.
The peacock is credited with a violent antipathy to snakes, and is said to dance them to death, but a vigorous cobra is scarcely likely to be tired out by a bird. In the excitement of a fight the peacock would probably dance round its enemy, and the engagement would be long and doubtful. That the bird is a recognised enemy of snakes in England as well as in India is shown in the interesting volume On Surrey Hills, edited by Mrs. J. A. Owen, where gardens and grounds infested by vipers are said to be infallibly cleared by peacocks.
This bird is said to scent the coming rain, and to scream and dance with delight at its approach. "Frogs and peacocks are refreshed by the rain." In Europe the bird's cry is a rain sign, but we do not credit it with a longing for moisture.
In London drawing-rooms peacock feathers are considered unlucky. In India it would seem to be otherwise. I once saw a Hindu servant limping round with a peacock feather tied on his leg. "Yes, sir, I have a bad pain in my leg and this is very good for it." A spell or mantra must have accompanied the tying, but this I was not privileged to learn. Taus, the Arabic (and Greek) word for a peacock, is current as well as the Hindi Mor. A pretty form of guitar, shaped and painted like a peacock, is known as a taus.
The Owl.—There are birds of evil as well as of good omen, and the owl is here, as elsewhere, a byword of ill luck. "Only owls live alone," is a proverb flung at unsociable people, and a man is said to be as drunk as an owl, while a stupid fellow is most unjustly described as "A son of an owl." Of humble folk and their obscure lives it is said, "Only an owl knows the worth of an owl." "What does a phœnix know of an owl?" It has not occurred to the Oriental jester to speak of a boiled owl in connection with intoxication, but when a husband is abjectly submissive to his wife her friends say she has given him boiled owl's flesh to eat. There are owls of most varieties in India, but a small owl like the cue owl of Italy is the most common and raises a cheerful chuckle at twilight.
In Ceylon the cry of a large owl known as the Devil bird is believed to be a certain herald of death. Nocturnal habits are all that the universal world, including Hindus and Muhammadans, can bring against the owl as a bird of fate. In India, however, though the owl's cry may be dreaded as portending a desolate home, nobody is idiotic enough to kill so valuable a vermin destroyer. That pinnacle of stupidity is the exclusive right of English game preservers.
The Pigeon.—The pigeon, the bird of Mecca, is almost as much a Hindu as a Muhammadan bird, and was chosen by Shiva, the third person of the Hindu Trinity, for Incarnation as Kapoteshwara. I was assured not long ago by a Hindu devotee that in a small temple near the Kashmir frontier, the image of Mahadeo at times takes life as a pair of pigeons which flutter and disappear in the roof. In cities where Hindus preponderate, large flocks of pigeons are regularly fed by Hindu merchants and shopkeepers. The traveller is reminded, by the roar of their wings, of Venice and Constantinople, and if he went farther north he would find them cherished in the villages of Kābul, where they are supposed to pay for their keep by fertilising the soil. Pigeon fanciers are to be found in most towns of Northern India and are generally Muhammadan. They talk of various breeds, and especially prize the Shirāzi and the small strutting white fan-tail, on whose coral-coloured legs they frequently fasten jingling bangles of brass; but they seem to have little of the English skill and care in breeding varieties which Darwin found so full of suggestion. The flight is pretty to watch; it is possible to bet on some incidents of it, and it is also possible to beguile some of a neighbour's to join your own flock. But, like quail fighting, it is not considered a respectable pursuit; and though most boys would like to keep pigeons, respectability is in India as stony and implacable as in the West. A popular proverb says the housewife keeps the parrot, the lover keeps the avadavat, and the thief keeps pigeons. In the English Midlands, thirty years ago, pigeon-flyers were (and are still) called disreputable, and you were supposed to be able to distinguish the scamp from his respectable fellow-workmen by the drake's-tail curl of his hair at the back, the result of continually looking aloft at his birds. It is curious that precisely the same notion obtains here in India.