172 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



"wak, wak," that issued from it. Every now and 

 then a bird would set out without its mate, and on 

 finding that it had done so, would return and wheel 

 round and round over the island, crying aloud 

 until it was joined, and affording a practical 

 demonstration of the utility of their habit of con- 

 stantly calling to and answering one another during 

 the course of their nocturnal journeys. I do not 

 know what the history of this colony has been since 

 the spring of 1897, but even then it had increased 

 to such an extent as to overflow from its original 

 place on the island, and invade trees on the banks 

 of the pond so much as to call for repressive 

 measures. 



In addition to all these residents and casual 

 visitors of gardens, specimens of the great white 

 egret, Herodias alba, and occasionally of other large 

 herons, may now and then be seen " trailing it with 

 legs and wings " athwart the sky far above the 

 noisome streets of the town and the densely- wooded 

 suburbs, as they travel to and fro between their 

 feeding r grounds in the endless morasses of the open 

 country around. All herons are apt to be uncanny 

 inmates of a mixed aviary, but I have never known 

 any of them quite so bad as an old male Herodias 

 alba, who for many years inhabited the Zoological 

 Garden in Alipur, and who, when in full breeding 

 plumage and all the glory of snowy plumes and 

 vividly green cere, was one of the greatest ornaments 



