Foreign Cage-Birds at Home 



was full of their songs. I did not notice their 

 music much in Calcutta, where, if the birds 

 had been far commoner, the cawing crows and 

 squealing kites would have silenced them ; but 

 of course they sang at times. The shama, 

 though a common captive in India, is, when 

 wild, a shy woodland bird, like our nightingale, 

 and I never met with it in that state. 



The most familiar to home bird-lovers of all 

 Indian "soft-bills" is, however, the liothrix or 

 Pekin robin, and when I first visited his haunts 

 in the Himalayas — it was at Darjeeling — it was 

 not long before I heard the pretty five-noted call 

 which betrayed his presence. Judging from the 

 frequency of the sound, the birds were very 

 common, but they are much more likely to be 

 heard than seen, being of a retiring nature, 

 much like our hedge-sparrow ; while their colour, 

 gay as it looks in a cage, is well adapted for 

 concealment. Every now and then, however, 

 one of the pretty birds would show itself in a 

 tree, or flit to a roadside fence, so that the beauty 

 of its coral bill and orange-streaked wings could 

 be well observed ; but, on the whole, the species 

 cannot be called a conspicuous one, even where 

 it is numerous. 



Finches, with the exception of the common 

 house-sparrow, are not very noticeable members 

 of bird society in India. Once only did I see 



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