16 THE BIRDS OF CALCUTTA. 



first part of the name being inappropriate, for it is found 

 everywhere, and the last singularly happy, for it does 

 babble with a vengeance. As may be inferred from their 

 popular names, these birds go about in small packs of 

 about half-a-dozen there are not invariably seven, nor can 

 these be a family party, since only three or four eggs are 

 laid. They hop about searching for food on the ground or 

 branches, murmuring squeakily to themselves meanwhile, 

 and ever and anon burst out into a startling volley of 

 wheezy hysterical chatter, which gets terribly upon one's 

 nerves in time in a place where they are common. Lin- 

 naeus, when he called the bird Turdus canorus, the tuneful 

 thrush, must have been wildly ignorant of it, or 

 have hopelessly mixed it up with an ally and a real 

 songster, the huamei of China (Trochalopterum cano- 

 rum ), which he included under the same name. 

 Modern ornithologists call our babbling brotherhood 

 Crateropus canorus, placing them in a different family 

 from the true thrushes, to which they nevertheless 

 bear a strong general resemblance in form and size. 

 But the differences are very soon perceptible if one studies 

 the living birds. Your thrush is sleek, stiff, and starch ; 

 he is a musical artist, but allows himself no artistic license 

 in his dress, which is neat to primness. The Babblers, on 

 the contrary, have a fluffy, frowsy appearance ; their tails 

 hang loosely, and their wings, which are short, are not 

 neatly tucked up as they should be, but lie anyhow. 

 Nor have they the excuse of pleasing colour, such as many 

 clumsy birds can boast of ; a brownish grey, of ' 'unpar- 

 alleled dignitude" as Baboo Jabberjee would say, is almost 



