THE ADJUTANT BIRD 



^"" ""^HE adjutant bird (Leptoptilus dubius) is one 

 of Nature's little jokes. It is a caricature of 

 a bird, a mixture of gravity and clownish- 

 -^^ ness. Everything about it is calculated to 

 excite mirth its weird figure, its great beak, its long, 

 thin legs, its conspicuous pouch, its bald head, and every 

 attitude it strikes. The adjutant bird is a stork which 

 has acquired the habits of the vulture. Forsaking to 

 a large extent frogs and such-like delicacies, which 

 constitute the normal diet of its kind, it lives chiefly 

 upon offal. Now, most, if not all, birds which feed on 

 carrion have the head and neck devoid of feathers. 

 This arrangement, if not ornamental, is very useful. 

 The bare head and neck are, as " Eha " remarks, " the 

 sleeves tucked up for earnest work." The adjutant 

 forms no exception to the rule, it wears the badge of its 

 profession. But let me here give a full description of 

 this truly comic bird. It stands five feet in its stockings. 

 Its bill is over a foot in length and correspondingly 

 massive. As we have seen, the whole head and neck 

 are 'bare, except for a few feathers scattered over it like 

 the hairs on an elephant's head. The bare skin is not 

 lacking in colour. On the forehead it is blackish; it 

 becomes saffron -yellow on the upper neck, while lower 



29 



