194 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



But let us return to the young hoopoe that emerged 

 from the nest in my verandah at Fyzabad on the 26th 

 April, 1912. Not content with thrusting its head and 

 shoulders through the aperture at the visit of its father 

 or mother as it had been doing for some time, it 

 suddenly came right out on to the beam to meet its 

 food-laden parent. After it had eaten the proffered 

 caterpillar and the parent had left, the young bird 

 caught sight of me. Immediately it opened out its 

 crest and began bowing in the manner described 

 above as betokening excitement. Then it fluttered 

 on to a ledge at the distance of six feet. A minute 

 later it flew out of the verandah and alighted on a 

 creeper growing on a wall fifteen yards away. Its 

 flight was wonderfully strong, but I noticed that it 

 was breathing heavily after it had alighted, showing 

 that the short flight entailed considerable exertion. 

 It appeared to dislike the interest I was taking in it, 

 and so flew on to the roof of the bungalow, where I lost 

 sight of it. 



These httle incidents are, I submit, utterly subver- 

 sive of the anthropomorphic theory, so much in favour 

 nowadays and expounded by Mr. Walter Long in that 

 much-read book The School of the Woods, that birds 

 and beasts are born with their minds a blank, and that 

 they have to be taught how to walk and how to fly 

 just as human babies are taught how to talk and walk. 

 As a matter of fact, young birds require and receive 

 very little education from their parents. A young 

 bird flies as instinctively as a baby cries. 



I saw nothing more of the young hoopoe until the 



