266 PET BIRDS OF BENGAL 



This bird is a general favourite, a bird 

 preferred and kept by all people, rich or 

 poor. In India there are roughly speak- 

 ing two classes of people infected with the 

 hobby of caging birds viz., those who form 

 the top and the bottom of the social edi- 

 fice. The ordinary middle-class man is 

 too busy with bread-earning to give any 

 thought to the pleasures of aviculture. 

 The life of the Indian Plebeian may not 

 be an object of envy but yet he is a 

 contented person, possessing no disturb- 

 in^ ideas about a standard of livino' 

 and cherishing no unholy sentiments 

 against the better-placed and better-fed 

 members of his society. He has his 

 small joys of life, one of which is the 

 care of birds. If you take a stroll 

 through the slums of an Indian city, or 

 the coolie lines of an industrial centre, or 

 the bazaar of a cantoment station, you 

 vvdll never fail to see birds of some kind 

 or other hano^ino^ in eagles, covered or 

 uncovered, in front of small shops, bar- 



