236 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



in these circumstances, and then the catastrophe 

 was not the result of any direct struggle for the 

 possession of a particular treasure. It arose from 

 the heedlessness of the victim, who was one of 

 a party of crows flying hither and thither in quest 

 of plunder, and who in his eagerness came so close 

 to an adjutant as to be within reach of its great 

 beak, which was suddenly thrust out to engulf 

 him in full flight. 



Two distinct species of adjutants, Leptoptilus 

 dubius and L. javanicus, occur in the neighbour- 

 hood of Calcutta, but the second and smaller one 

 seldom ventured within urban limits even in the 

 days when its larger relative was most abundant 

 there. During the latter years of my residence 

 in Calcutta, it was necessary, in order to be sure 

 of seeing either species, to visit certain places in 

 the suburbs where there were slaughter-houses or 

 deposits of street-sweepings and offal. There, in the 

 company of hosts of vultures and crows, they con- 

 tinued to congregate in such numbers that all the 

 larger trees in the neighbourhood were permanently 

 disfigured and bowed down by the throng of lodgers 

 who nightly loaded the branches. 



