70 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



and, lighting on a shrub close to me, showed evident 

 signs of a desire to attract my attention. I forthwith 

 returned to the house and, having secured a plantain 

 from the breakfast-table, went out into the verandah 

 and showed it to her. Almost at once she flew over 

 towards me and lighted on one of the cane blinds 

 of the verandah, and as I retired inwards, first 

 followed me and then lighted on one of my hands 

 and began to feed eagerly on the fruit, so that I was 

 able to carry her quietly to the aviary and pass her 

 in through the door. As a rule they are very 

 peaceable birds, but I have seen one suddenly fly 

 down from a tree to commit a quite gratuitous 

 assault on a bulbul who was quietly busy over its own 

 affairs in a flower-bed below. They are light sleepers, 

 often waking up to call aloud at any hour of a 

 brightly moonlit night. As has been already men- 

 tioned, they constantly begin to shout at or even 

 before dawn, and they continue to call in the even- 

 ing far on into the gloaming, and long after the bats 

 are flickering about in the growing dusk. They have 

 a strange way of basking in the sunshine, with their 

 tail widely expanded, their wings drooping, and the 

 head thrown right over on to the back, so that the 

 crown of it rests between the shoulders, and the beak 

 is reversed and points obliquely downwards towards 

 the tail. The character of their flight varies greatly 

 at different times ; when they are quite at their ease 

 it is noisy, laborious, and flapping, like that of the 



