Ornithological and Other Oddities 



beautiful of all small water-fowl. From the 

 pheasant tribe it borrows a long tapering tail 

 and a patch of pure gold on its neck, the rest of 

 its plumage being black and white ; in carriage it 

 has all the grace of the crane in a body no bigger 

 than a turtle-dove's, and the enormously long 

 green toes which support it on the tank-weeds 

 are not noticeable in its natural surroundings. 

 This is a resident bird, but in winter it entirely 

 alters its appearance, losing its long tail and most 

 of the black and gold in its plumage, and thus 

 incidentally disproving a recent theory to the 

 effect that only animals in a country with a 

 hard winter change their colour according to 

 the seasons. Godwits and curlews, sandpipers 

 and stints, are in numbers beyond telling, with 

 quantities of waders of the non-sporting types, 

 herons, bitterns, and storks, from the gigantic 

 bald-headed adjutant, formerly a street scavenger 

 in Calcutta, to the "paddy-bird," a quaint dwarf 

 heron found wherever there is a plash of water, 

 and changing mysteriously from an incon- 

 spicuous brown object in repose to a snowy- 

 white creature when it takes wing, which it 

 only does when it catches your eye. 



Beside all this host of land game-birds and 

 fresh-water fowl, the sea-birds of India make a 

 singularly poor show. There are no auks or 



divers, and very few petrels, while even the 



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