KING-CROW 



" I am monarch of all I survey ." Cowper. 



THE King-Crow, or Drongo as he is called in books, 

 has a wide enough kingdom to rule over, extending from 

 West Africa to China, and here in India he may claim to 

 be one of our most characteristic birds, for it would hardly 

 be an exaggeration to say that there is one of these jet- 

 black fork- tailed birds between every two telegraph 

 posts for many miles of country. Where there are no 

 telegraph-wires the king-crow will put up with a dead 

 branch or a cow's back ; he wants some perch that will 

 afford a clear outlook and plenty of room for evolutions 

 around it, and though sometimes, as on the maidan, he 

 will sit about on the ground, he is grievously falling from 

 the traditions of his family in so doing, for the Drongos 

 generally are as much given to pride of place as the green 

 pigeon, concerning which native traditions avers that 

 when it comes down to drink it carries a twig in its feet, 

 lest its enemies should say that it had ever deigned to 

 leave a perch. Perhaps our common Drongo (Dicrurus 

 ater) owes his prosperity to waiving his family pride, since 

 even settling to catch prey is contrary to strict Drongo 

 etiquette, and he is constantly doing this, though he is 

 active enough at taking insects on the wing. But he is 

 by way of being a very versatile bird, and though he 



