220 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



are the amazing energy and speed of their whirring 

 flight; and their attitudes, when just about to alight, 

 as they hang hovering with extended wings and 

 widespread tails, are singularly attractive. 



Parrots, like crows, are very ready to mob and 

 annoy any strange bird, especially any large raptorial 

 one; and a wholly inoffensive eagle may often be 

 seen a victim to their noisy attentions. At the same 

 time they usually show a wholesome respect for 

 common kites, and when a troop of them is busily 

 engaged in excavating and prying about a tree 

 in which a kite's nest happens to be, the arrival of 

 either of the owners of it, sailing in during the course 

 of the visit, is generally enough to secure an im- 

 mediate dispersion of the company amid a torrent of 

 execrations. 



The only other parrot that is ordinarily met with 

 in the neighbourhood of Calcutta is the beautiful 

 blossom-headed Palceornis rasa. Sometimes in small 

 flocks, but oftener as solitary visitors, birds of 

 this species will now and then haunt a garden for 

 a few days at a time. Even the most inveterate 

 enemies of the common parrots can hardly refuse to 

 welcome them, and in Calcutta the matter of regret 

 is that they should be so rare. Whenever one of 

 them does enter a garden, the event is at once 

 made known by a sound of sweet notes, suggestive 

 of forests along the edges and lower slopes of the 

 hills, and quite unlike those of any other garden-bird. 



