230 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



arid ill-ordered slaughter-house lay at a short distance 

 from the Zoological Garden at Alipur ; and, in 

 consequence of its allurements, a large number of 

 adjutants spent the day in its neighbourhood, and 

 came in at night to roost on some of the trees 

 in the garden (Plate XIII.). In the evening they 

 usually assembled in considerable number on the 

 banks of the tidal water- course running along its 

 northern boundary, and in order to reach their roosts 

 had to surmount the lofty hedge of the garden and 

 then fly over a large pond between it and their 

 favourite trees. The distance to be traversed was 

 so short that their flight was heavy and laboured 

 throughout, and, therefore, likely to be noisy. So 

 indeed it commonly was, but in very varying degree, 

 from loud to barely audible, although there were no 

 other apparent differences in the character of flight. 

 Some birds may have gorged themselves more than 

 others, or have been on the wing for somewhat 

 shorter distances than their neighbours ; but there 

 was nothing to show that this was the case. 



Their troubles are by no means safely over even 

 when they have laboriously reached their roosting 

 places, for there is almost always much acrid com- 

 petition for specially favourite perches. About a 

 dozen of them used to roost on the top of a pipal- 

 tree quite close to a house in the southern part of 

 the town in which I once spent a few days; and 

 their homing in the evening was always the occasion 



