200 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



Two eggs are usually laid. These, as befits the size of 

 the owners, are very large. It is as much as one can do 

 to make both ends meet of a tape eleven inches long, 

 passed round the long axis of the egg. The eggs vary 

 considerably in size, but are usually of a creamy hue, 

 They may be with or without markings. The shell 

 is very thick and hard, so that if sarus's eggs were 

 used for electioneering purposes, fatalities would 

 often occur. 



Various observers give very different accounts 

 of the behaviour of the parent saruses when their 

 nest is attacked. The general experience is that 

 they show no fight, but that they retire gracefully 

 as soon as the human being gets within twenty yards 

 of the nest. Hume, however, records one case of a 

 sitting sarus making such vigorous pokes and drives 

 at the man who approached her when sitting on 

 the nest that he was forced to flap her in the face 

 vigorously with his waist cloth before she left her 

 eggs. That, says Hume, is the nearest approach to 

 a fight for its penates he has ever seen a sarus make. 

 Recently I visited a nest of these birds, which was 

 situated in a small patch of water, perhaps forty feet 

 square, with a millet field on one side and paddy on 

 the other three. I was on horseback, not wishing 

 to wade nearly to my waist. With me were three 

 men. When we first noticed the nest, the hen was 

 sitting on it and the cock standing near by. As we 

 approached the female rose to her feet very slowly, 

 and then I could see that the nest contained a young 

 one. When we were at a distance of some ten yards 



