BIEDS OF INDIA — DEWAR. 619 



would otherwise be by a structure known as a " casque." This is a 

 horny excrescence, nearly as large as the bill, which causes the bird 

 to look as though it were wearing a hat, which it had placed for a 

 joke on its beak, rather than its head. The eye is red, and the upper 

 lid is fringed with eyelashes, Avhich add still further to the oddity of 

 the bird's apj)earance. The creature has an antediluvian air, and one 

 feels, when contemplating it, that its proper companions are the 

 monsters that lived in prehistoric times. The actions of the hornbill 

 are in keeping with its appearance. Each morsel of food is tossed 

 into the air and caught in the bill preparatory to being swallowed. 

 Mr. E. V. Lucas describes the hornbill as the best short slip in the 

 Zoological Gardens. Hornbills are the clowns of the forest. 



THE ADJUTANT. 



Even more grotesque is the adjutant. This is a stork with an 

 enormous bill, a tiny head, and a long neck, all innocent of feathers. 

 From the front of the neck hangs a considerable pouch, which the 

 bird can inflate at will. Eound the base of the neck is a ruff of white 

 feathers that causes the bird to look as though it had donned a lady's 

 feather boa. 



It is the habit of the adjutant to stand with its head buried in its 

 shoulders, so that, when looked at from behind, it resembles a hunch- 

 backed, shriveled-up old man wearing a gray swallow-tailed coat. 

 It looks still more ludicrous when it varies the monotony of life by 

 kneeling down. Its long shanks then stretch out before it, giving 

 the impression that they have been mistakenly inserted hind part 

 foremost. Its movements partake of the nature of a cake-walk. 

 Lockwood Kipling writes: 



For grotesque devilry of dancing the Indian adjutant beats creation. Don 

 Quixote or Malvolio was not half so solemn or mincing, and yet there is an 

 abandonment and lightness of step, a wild lift in each solemn prance which are 

 almost demoniacal. If it were possible for the most angular, tall, and demure 

 of elderly maiden ladies to take a great deal too much champagne and then to 

 give a lesson in ballet dancing, with occasional pauses of acute sobriety, per- 

 haps some faint idea might be conveyed of the peculiar quality of the adjutant's 

 movements. 



If the hornbill be the clown of the forest, the adjutant is the buffoon 

 of the open plain. 



AVIAN CRAFTSMANSHIP. 



When we turn to avian craftsmanship we find no lack of skilled 

 workmen among our Indian birds. The famous weaver bird {Ploceiis 

 haya) and the less well-known wren warbler {Prima inornata) are 

 past masters of the art of weaving. The tailor-bird {Orthotomus su- 



