10 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



plumage and ye] low cere, pacing along the grass and 

 parapet-walls at the sides of the road between the 

 jetty and the town. The mental effect produced 

 by these first experiences was so powerful that 

 even now, after an interval of more than thirty 

 years, whenever these birds casually come into my 

 thoughts, it is as they were then seen and heard. 

 Later experience might have led one to imagine 

 that the crows would have been equally impressive, 

 but superficially they are not so strange to British 

 eyes, and it is only by dint of continued acquaint- 

 ance that a just appreciation of their diabolical 

 peculiarities and astounding cleverness is arrived 

 at. This will account for the fact that I have no 

 distinct impression of my earliest introduction to 

 them. 1 must have met with them as soon as I 

 arrived as soon, that is, as kites and mynas, but 

 any vivid mental pictures that I have of them date 

 from later periods, and have not the quality of 

 surprise and novelty that adheres to those of the 

 other birds. The exotic characters of the latter 

 can, however, only partly account for the persistent 

 impressions which the first sight of them left, since 

 no such effect has been produced by that of much 

 more strikingly unfamiliar forms at a somewhat later 

 time. At the time of year at which I first arrived 

 in Calcutta no gigantic storks are present, but only 

 a few months later they must have begun to make 

 their appearance, and yet the event has left no 



