ADJUTANT BIRD. 



39 



The whole race of the storks are, from the structure 

 of their feet, inarching birds, rather than runners. 

 Their long- journeys are all performed on the wing ; 

 and when they advance a considerable way on foot, 

 they do it with the body erect and the wings' elevated ; 

 though they strut rather majestically, with the wings 

 close. Their feet have the front toes rather long, and 

 united by membranes at their bases ; and though the 

 hind toe is articulated on the tarsus, the lower ex- 

 tremity of which forms an elastic knob, that toe is of 

 sufficient length for the first joint to rest on the ground. 

 In flying lliey do not extend the neck, but fold it 

 back on the shoulders, though they project the feet 

 behind. They are social in their breeding places, 

 and the sexes have little difference in appearance ; but 

 the young of the first year have the plumage much 

 more mottled than that of the mature birds. The 

 eggs are two, three, or four, of a dull white colour, and 

 very much elongated. The pairs are much attached 

 to each other, and to their young ; and the same birds 

 are said to return annually to the same places, in all 

 their migrations, the several colonies joining as they 

 leave the country, and parting for their usual haunts 

 on their arrival. " 



Indian Adjutant. 



THE INDIAN ADJUTANT (Ciconia nrgala). This 

 bird is ash-coloured, except the belly, and part of 

 the scapulares and the wing coverts, which are white. 

 The head and neck are naked, except a few straggling 

 hairs ; and the feathers of the breast are long and pen- 

 dulous ; the bill is very large, and gullet capable of 

 vast extension, so that the bird could easily swallow 

 entire an animal as large as a common wild rabbit. 

 The craw is also very extensile, and hangs like a 

 pouch in front of the breast. The bird altogether is of 

 large size, measuring nearly six feet in height when 

 it stands, and seven when it stretches the neck ; and the 

 wings from tip to tip measure little less than fifteen 

 feet. From the dimensions of their gullets, they have 

 been properly called " wide throats," and also " bone 

 takers," as they swallow animals and parts of animals, 

 bones and all. They do not, however, " grind " the 

 bones with their bills, as has sometimes been stated '; 

 and neither the tomia, or cutting edges of the bill, 

 nor the muscles by which they are moved, are adapted 

 for such a purpose, the bones being returned by the 



gape, after all the digestible part has been removed by 

 the action of the gastric juice. 



They are uncouth, and almost, as one would say, 

 ugly " birds. Their colour is dingy ; and the bare 

 head and neck, with the ruff of produced feathers, 

 make them look ragged, as if the plumage of those 

 parts were torn off. Their noise, too, is hoarse and 

 grating, and resembles the roaring of a beast of prey. 

 The length and strength of their legs, however, enable 

 them to march with long strides, and in a stately 

 manner ; and when on the wing they appear very large, 

 though they have the swinging flight which is charac- 

 teristic of all the tribe of herons, cranes, and storks. 



In India, they haunt the jungles of the Lower 

 Ganges in the dry season ; and as the rains set in they 

 migrate up the valley of the river, being almost as com- 

 mon in Calcutta and the other towns as sparrows are in 

 any part of England. They stand upon the tops of the 

 buildings, walk the streets, and are especially abun- 

 dant in those parts of the towns which are inhabited 

 by the Hindoos, who pay little attention to cleanliness. 

 Even in the European parts of these towns, there is 

 much food for the adjutants. Animal substances 

 will not keep, especially in the rainy weather, as they 

 do in our northern latitudes ; and as the servants are 

 chiefly Hindoos, and their religious prejudices prevent 

 them from eating animal food, the broken meat is 

 thrown into the streets, where it is soon picked up by 

 the adjutants during the day, as well as by the jackalls 

 and dogs during the night. But though the birds 

 are great consumers of offal and carrion, and, in 

 a country where animal substances so soon putrify and 

 taint the air, they are of great service in so doing, yet 

 they do not wholly confine themselves to that descrip- 

 tion of food. They eat reptiles, many species of 

 which are peculiarly annoying and offensive in those 

 hot countries ; they also eat birds, which they some- 

 times capture in their flight, and they make prize of 

 the smaller quadrupeds, sometimes of domestic cats, 

 the bodies of which, as also those of land tortoises, have 

 been found entire in their craws. The veneration in 

 which these reptile-destroying birds have always been 

 held by rude nations is one of the most conclusive 

 proofs of their value ; and though the genius of the 

 Hindoo's religion does not lead him directly to deify 

 the adjutant, as the inhabitants of ancient Egypt did 

 the ibis, yet he regards it as something sacred, and 

 under the especial protection of Heaven. According 

 to the doctrine of metempsychosis, which forms part of 

 the Hindoo faith, these birds are temporary residences 

 for the souls of holy Bramins; and therefore they are 

 not only spared with religious veneration, but con- 

 sidered as invulnerable, in consequence of the sanctity 

 of that caste, of whose souls they are, for the time, the 

 special receptacle. The Mussulmans and Christians of 

 the same regions spare it on account of its less saintly 

 and elevated but more useful character of scavenger ; 

 and thus, what with religious, what with animal respe.'t, 

 the bird ranges the wide plains and valleys of India 

 at its pleasure, contributing much to the picturesque 

 effect, though little to the beauty of the places which 

 it haunts. When the birds are in a state of quietude on 

 the housetops, they seem as if they were parts of the 

 architecture ; and, in the season, an Indian city would 

 look as unlike itself without adjutants, as an English 

 one without chimneys. 



But though when there is " nothing going," the ad- 

 jutants remain at rest on their watch-towers, they 

 keep a vigilant look out, so that offal cannot be cast 



