234 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



sunken head, or when settled down for the night 

 and standing in statuesque attitude on the top of 

 some lofty tree or building, projected against the 

 glowing background of a sunset sky. 



The extent and range of their appetites are 

 truly amazing, and their feats in disposing of bulky 

 masses of offal are almost beyond belief. I have 

 seen one of them gulp down the entire abdominal 

 and thoracic viscera of a large dog en masse and 

 without any difficulty ; indeed, he would not have 

 turned a hair over the performance had it not 

 been that by some mishap a loop of gut caught 

 over his upper mandible so as to anchor his 

 mouthful, or rather cropful, in a distressing fashion. 

 This irked him greatly, and the attempts that he 

 made to set things straight were extremely ludicrous. 

 Again and again he loosened the tension of the 

 cord passing down into his stomach by depressing 

 and violently shaking his head so that the loop 

 over his bill slackened off and slipped downwards 

 towards the tip. But time after time he relaxed 

 his efforts too soon, and made things as bad as 

 ever by premature attempts to swallow, and it 

 was only after the expenditure of much time and 

 toil that he was able to finish his meal. Feeding 

 the adjutants used to be a favourite after-dinner 

 amusement with the European soldiers in Fort 

 William and the military hospital, and many were 

 the ingenious devices and tricks to which the poor 



