114 THE BIRDS OF CALCUTTA. 



ordinary Vultures a sparsely downy head and neck, the 

 Longbilled a longer and nakeder neck, and the King luxuri- 

 ates in complete bald-headedness accentuated by side-flaps, 

 and a naked red patch inside each thigh. A very similar 

 gradation may also be traced with the American kinds. 

 So, too, with the cranes. The little Demoiselle (Anthro- 

 poides virgo] has her pretty head well covered ; the Coolung 

 (Grus communis) is much bigger and is bare on the -top ; 

 the white Crane (Grus leucogeranus), bigger still, is bare 

 trom beak to eyes all round ; and the great Sarus is 

 naked all over his head and some way down his neck. 

 Thus we arrive at the fact that baldness and prosperity in 

 birds somehow go together ; when a species gets up in the 

 world it can afford to take off some of its feathers where 

 they will not be missed, and go about more or less decol- 

 lete. A simpler explanation would be that when a bird 

 gets over a certain size it can't grow enough feathers to 

 cover itself properly ; but after all this involves the 

 other, for it must be prosperous to be big at all. Vultures 

 may certainly claim to be well-to-do, though they don't 

 look it. Their simple tastes are more easily gratified than 

 the expensive ones of the eagles, who, however, will condes- 

 cend to bully the best of them occasionally in order to 

 take of their high yet humble repast; and nobody owes 

 them a grudge, for they do no one any harm to speak of. 

 Yet there are curious limits to their spread which are hard 

 to understand. It is strange that there should be none 

 in Ceylon, for instance, and that none inhabit Australia ; 

 for though not migratory, they are great travellers on 

 occasion the Arabs of North Africa said that during the 



