214 GLIMPSES OF INDIAN BIRDS 



garden takes up a perch on a bare branch, and there 

 remains like a sentinel on a watch-tower, until it 

 espies an insect on the ground. On to this it swoops, 

 displaying, as it descends, much white in the wings 

 and the tail. 



The wood-shrike (Tephrodornis pondiceranus) fre- 

 quents trees and hedgerows. But for its broad white 

 eyebrow and the white in its tail, it might pass for 

 a sparrow. It is most easily recognised by its melodious 

 and cheerful call — tanti tuia, tanti tuia. 



The pied wagtail [Motacilla maderaspatensis) — ele- 

 gance personified — loves to sit on the housetop and pour 

 forth a lay which vies with that of the canary. Sud- 

 denly away it flies, speeding through the air in un- 

 dulating flight, until it reaches the ground, where, 

 nimble-footed as Camilla, it chases its insect quarry. 



The fantail flycatcher [Rhipidura alhifrontata) is 

 another study in black and white. This most charming 

 of birds frequents leafy trees, whence it pours forth 

 its sweet song of six or seven notes. Every now and 

 again it, after the manner of all flycatchers, sallies 

 into the air after insects. Having secured its victim, 

 it alights on a branch or on the ground, and there 

 spreads out its tail and turns as if on a pivot, now to 

 one side, now to the other. 



We must seek the robin {Thamnobia fulicata) 

 among the tangled undergrowth in some corner of 

 the compound neglected by the gardener. There shall 

 we find the pair of them — the cock a glossy black bird 

 with a narrow white bar in the wing, the hen arrayed 

 in a gown of reddish brown. In each sex there is a 



