94 BOMBAY DUCKS 



the crow as unsurpassable. It is nothing of the kind. 

 I verily believe that the average Madras squirrel could 

 give the local crow its ten worst sins and then easily 

 prove itself the greater villain. 



When a crow invades the bungalow it does so with a 

 more or less guilty air. J. K. Jerome says that only 

 cats and Nonconformists have consciences ; I think that 

 the Indian crow should be added to this list. In any 

 case, I have noticed that when a crow is about to 

 commit a felony in my bungalow, he approaches it 

 unostentatiously : he does not court observation, he will 

 not commit the crime if he knows that your eye is 

 upon him. 



The squirrel has no such scruples. Even as I write one 

 of those villains is actually committing theft under my 

 very nose. He is perfectly well aware that I am watch- 

 ing him : he does not care two straws for that, he knows 

 that, without moving, I can do him no harm, so he 

 keeps one bright, wicked little eye upon me while the 

 other is fixed on the food of my grackle {Eulabes 

 religiosd) or hill myna, as the species is popularly and 

 incorrectly called. This bird has every day for its 

 breakfast a plantain and a saucer of bread and milk. 

 This latter is the object of the squirrel's designs. The 

 nimble little rodent climbs up the leg of a bamboo 

 table — there is nothing, by the way, which a squirrel 

 cannot climb — and, having reached the cage, he inserts 

 between the bars his two forepaws and thus abstracts, 

 piece by piece, the myna's breakfast. 



Strangely enough, the myna does not seem to resent 

 the larceny. He sits on the perch and watches with an 



