212 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



Now a closer observer of nature than Richard 

 Jefferies never existed, and he knew every square 

 yard of the Wick Farm, so that we ma}^ be sure that 

 the list he gives is exhaustive. 



This list seems very meagre to one who is accustomed 

 to bird life in India. If the Wick Farm were trans- 

 ported bodily and set down in the middle of India 

 it would be visited by seventy or eighty species of 

 birds instead of twenty-six. 



Every garden of tolerable size in Madras is the 

 abode of quite twice as many birds as those which 

 visit a downland farm in England, so superior is India 

 to England as a field for the ornithologist. 



Every Madrassi whose bungalow is placed in a 

 garden worthy of the name may, without leaving 

 the same, count upon seeing fifty species of birds 

 before he has been many months in the country. 



First there are the perennials — the birds which, 

 like the poor, are always with us — the jungle and the 

 house crows, the white-headed babbler, the iora, 

 the red-vented and the white-browed bulbuls, the 

 king-crow, the tailor bird, the common and the 

 brahmany mynas, the common sparrow, the golden- 

 backed woodpecker, the bush lark, Loten's and the 

 purple-rumped sunbirds, the coppersmith, the white- 

 breasted kingfisher, the hoopoe, the koel, the crow- 

 pheasant, the spotted owlet, the common and the 

 brahmany kites, the spotted and the httle brown doves, 

 and the cattle egret ; while if the garden boast of 

 anything in the shape of a pond there will be found 

 the common kingfisher and the paddy bird. 



J 



