218 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



grain might be forgiven, but it is purely enraging 

 to watch the way in which they cut off head 

 after head only to throw them contemptuously 

 aside, or, at the utmost, to do so after having 

 daintily picked out one or two grains from the 

 mass. In their malignant love of destruction and 

 mischief they run crows very hard, and seem only 

 to fall short of that standard through the happy 

 ordinance that their mental development has halted 

 a good way behind that of their rivals. They are, 

 therefore, incapable of devising such manifold and 

 elaborate schemes of mischief as the crows work 

 out, but in so far as intent and disinterested love 

 of evil goes, there is not a pin to choose between 

 them. They take the same heart-whole delight in 

 destruction for destruction's sake, and find the 

 same bliss in tormenting and annoying other living 

 things. 



Even with the most substantial ground for hating 

 them, it is almost impossible to withhold admiration 

 for the brilliant flocks that " cling and flutter " among 

 the trees, or flash hither and thither, in company 

 with drifting clouds of whistling swifts, around the 

 grey and red minars and cloistered courts of tombs, 

 mosques, and temples ; and, where they are not 

 inconveniently abundant, one can hardly tire of 

 watching their brilliant colouring, delicate outlines, 

 and dainty ways. In any garden in Calcutta in 

 which sunflowers, especially the large old-fashioned 



