HONEYSUCKERS AND TAILOR-BIRDS 137 



gasping with widely gaping bills and incapable of 

 anything beyond whispered conversation ; and when 

 the still and fiery air is only rarely disturbed by 

 the querulous whistle of a kite, even then the tailor- 

 birds are all alive with noisy excitement. Whilst 

 listening to them, or to the cries of other loud-voiced 

 small birds, one realises the beauty of the dispensa- 

 tion that has decreed that in the animal kingdom 

 there should be no necessarily direct ratio between 

 size and vocal power ; an elephant with a voice on 

 the scale of that of a tailor-bird would have been 

 a nuisance to a whole district ! Even the longest 

 use and wont leave it a ceaseless marvel how such 

 pigmies can manage to make such a hubbub, whilst 

 they run and creep about among the bushes, more 

 like little brown mice than any feathered creatures. 

 They have two common calls, the first consisting 

 of an urgent repetition of the syllable "peet," and 

 the second, even more insistent and sounding, "pe 

 peep, pe peep, pe peep, pe peep." Long after most 

 other birds are silent ; after even the crows and 

 mynas have finally settled down for the night, and 

 only an occasional belated kite is audible, their call 

 may still be heard issuing from the flower-beds and 

 shrubberies, where the birds continue to run mouse- 

 like about in the gathering gloom, jumping after 

 the insects lurking among the leaves. When highly 

 excited over anything they shout their loudest, and, 

 with their tails so excessively elevated that they 



