XXIV 

 THE INDIAN PITTA 



SOME Indian birds are adepts at self-advertise- 

 ment. To use an expressive vulgarism, they 

 continually " hit you in the eye " ; they ob- 

 trude themselves upon you in season and out 

 of season. Others are so retiring that you may live 

 among them for years without observing them. To this 

 class, to the class that hide their light under a bushel, 

 the beautiful Indian pitta [Pitta brachyura) belongs. 

 There is at least one favoured compound in Madras 

 where a pitta, or possibly a pair of them, spends the 

 cool- weather season. Pittas proclaim their presence 

 by uttering at dawn their cheery notes, which have 

 been described as an attempt to whistle, in a moderately 

 high key, the words *' quite clear." If, on hearing this 

 call, you are sufficiently energetic to go out of doors, 

 you will probably see on the ground a bluish bird, 

 about the size of a quail, but before you have had time 

 to examine it properly it will have taken to its wings 

 and disappeared into the hedge. Those who are not 

 so fortunate as to have pittas on the premises may be 

 tolerably certain of seeing a specimen by visiting the 

 well-wooded plot of land bordered on the west by the 

 canal and on the south by the Adyar River. 



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