More Indian Birds.



211



especially marked when the bird is digging for its living in the earth.

The sight of my first Hoopoe was a long anticipated event, and was of

unusual significance from the fact that it was the first foreign bird in

a free state to be met of which I had retained a mental picture from

my early childhood, or more correctly speaking, it was a mental picture

of a picture one found in the second book I owned. It was a book

then, a wonderful book, though now it would be called a tiny brochure

of twenty-four pages. Its title is A History of Birds for Children.

Its illustrated cover is wonderful ; still more so is its wood-cut

illustration of the Hoopoe, for it proves the theory of evolution. This

illustration shows that fifty-five or more years ago the Hoopoe was

a thick-set, thick-billed bird, resembling a Grosbeak, with a gently

curving crest becoming to the form and disposition of a Bluebird.

In the course of ten or twelve years the structure of the species had

undergone considerable change, which can be proved by the picture of

it that is to be found in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, edition

of 1870. And now in January, 1914, I find from the living birds seen

in India that in a structural sense vastly greater changes have taken

place within the last forty-five years. The bird at present, with its

short legs, long, sharp bill, and barred wings, looks somewhat like

a Woodpecker. In fact, some of the tourists insisted that it was a

Woodpecker.


One Golden-backed Woodpecker ( Brachypternus aurantius) was

the sole representative of the Picus family seen in India. With the

usual cheerful spirit that characterizes the family the world over it

searched tree-trunks and inspected the hood of an electric lamp on one

of the principal streets of Delhi.


Other species of birds found by me near the hotels more often

than elsewhere were the Bulbuls, the Babblers, Indian Tree-pie,

Common Indian Starling, Magpie Robin, Brown-backed Indian Robin,

Indian Redstart, Indian Tailor-bird, Flycatchers, Warblers, and

Purple Honeysucker. Some ornithologists prefer to call the last-

mentioned species the Purple Sunbird ( Arachnechthra asiatica). By

its quick movements among the flowers while seeking its food of insects

and nectar, as well as by its size and colour, it brought to mind the

Hummingbirds. Especially is this true of the male Sunbird, that is of



