THE ADJUTANT BIRD 33 



another is gruesome, and the injuries resulting from the 

 fray are often ghastly ; blinded eyes and bloody cocks- 

 combs being matters of everyday occurrence." 



Captive adjutants seem to be most placid birds. 

 There are three of them in the " Zoo " at Lahore, kept 

 in a large park-like enclosure, and I have never seen 

 these fighting. They appear to be always, if not on the 

 best of terms, at any rate, indifferent to one another. 

 The three will stand for many minutes at a time in 

 a row, motionless as statues. Sometimes a male and 

 a female will huddle up to one another and remain thus, 

 with their heads almost touching, looking like carica- 

 tures of Darby and Joan. 



The table manners of adjutants, like those of most 

 other carrion feeders, are not polite. I will therefore 

 not attempt to describe them. In the good old days, 

 feeding adjutants used to be a favourite pastime of 

 Mr. Thomas Atkins at Calcutta. I regret to have to 

 say that his motives were not always purely philan- 

 thropic. To connect two pieces of meat by a long 

 string and then throw them among a crowd of adju- 

 tants savours of practical joking. One bird, of course, 

 swallows one piece of meat, while a second adjutant 

 secures the other morsel. All goes well until each of 

 the birds tries to go its own way — then a tug-of-war 

 results, fraught with gastronomical disturbance to the 

 combatants. 



Adjutants are nowhere very abundant ; they are 

 nevertheless spread over the whole of Northern India, 

 but do not appear to be found so far south as 

 Madras. Another species, however — the smaller adju- 



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