260 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



Calcutta during the winter months are the rose- 

 finch and the ruby-throat. Specimens of the former 

 bird, Carpodacus erythrinus, are not at all un- 

 common, and, shortly before the spring migration, 

 are often in such brilliant plumage as to tempt one 

 to cage them, in spite of their notoriously quarrel- 

 some nature. Ruby-throats, Calliope camtschat- 

 kensis, are not so abundant, but a few specimens 

 are usually to be met with every season in any 

 good-sized garden, where they linger on until the 

 middle of April, and form most decorative elements 

 in the shrubberies which they haunt, questing about 

 among the leaves for insects, and showing the 

 beautiful scarlet of their throat-patches in startling 

 contrast with the sober tints of the rest of the 

 plumage. 



Several kinds of warblers, among which 

 Phylloscopus affinis is specially abundant, occur in 

 most gardens in winter, and then, too, the Indian 

 redstart, Ruticilla rufiventris, makes its appearance. 

 It has a great liking for bamboos, and almost every 

 group of these is tenanted by several birds. They 

 are especially active in the mornings and evenings, 

 when they are constantly hopping about among 

 the densely tangled twigs, uttering a continuous flow 

 of harsh, chattering notes, and wriggling their tails 

 about in a strangely quivering way. 



In any region, like the lower Gangetic delta, 

 where great tidal rivers and endless smaller channels 



