122 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



miniature peacock trains, they become so con- 

 spicuous that, as the birds perform their curiously 

 abrupt revolutions, it seems almost as though the 

 rest of the body were turned by them. When 

 a fantail flies across an open space with its train 

 trailing along behind it, the broad end seems so 

 much detached from the rest of the body that, 

 like the racketed end of the tail of a flying 

 bhimraj, Dissemurus paradiseus, it looks like a 

 second bird or a large insect pursuing its owner at 

 a fixed distance. They are wonderfully plucky 

 little birds, and will fearlessly attack dogs that 

 intrude on their privacy, flying out at them with 

 widely expanded tails, and coming down to the 

 lowest boughs of shrubs to sing defiance at them. 

 Mango-trees are very great favourites with them, 

 probably because the horizontal habit of the 

 branches affords specially convenient sites in which 

 they can dance, spread out their tails, and revolve 

 with ease and security. 



Whilst fantails are most attractive when perch- 

 ing, Paradise flycatchers, Terpsiphone paradisi, 1 are 

 specially delightful on the wing ; and the first 

 sight of one of them, floating softly along and 

 seeming to swim through the air in a series of 

 gentle impulses, gives rise to a very lasting mental 

 impression. As one of the mature male birds flies 



1 The body is little larger than that of a common grey wagtail, but a 

 male bird, with fully developed train, may have a total length of as much 

 as 21 inches. 



