PADDY BIRDS AT BEDTIME 113 



water. Nearly all birds, on approaching the tree in 

 which they roost,- literally throw themselves into the 

 foliage, they plunge into it at headlong speed. Need- 

 less to say, the paddy bird does nothing so reckless 

 as this ; nevertheless, when approaching the tree in 

 which he intends to spend the night he travels faster 

 than at any other time, except, of course, when he is 

 being chased by a falcon. The advance-guard of the 

 mynas arrives very shortly after the first bagla. The 

 mynas belong to two species — the common and the 

 bank mynas (Acrtdotheres tristis and A. ginginianus) . 

 They come in squads of twenty or thirty. The various 

 squads arrive in rapid succession. Then the uproar 

 begins and continues to swell in volume as the numbers 

 in the tree increase. 



The paddy birds come in ones and twos, and, as 

 stated, invariably alight on one of the lower branches. 

 They usually select a branch so thin that it would be 

 impossible for so large a bird to obtain a foothold on 

 it did not the claws of that bird grip like a vice ; and 

 even so it is not without much flapping of their white 

 wings that the pond herons manage to reach a state of 

 equilibrium. 



If, when a paddy bird has succeeded in steadying 

 itself on a slender branch two feet or so above the 

 level of the water, another feckless fellow elects to 

 alight on the selfsame branch, there follows trouble 

 compared to which the Turco-Italian War is, as the 

 babu says, a mere storm in a teapot ; both birds seem 

 in danger of taking a bath. On such occasions, the 

 bird first on the tree greets the new-comer with gurgles 

 I 



