A CROW IN COLOURS 69 



be attributed to the profession tax, let me say that the 

 best legal authorities are of opinion that the bird would 

 not be liable to pay the tax. Not that it would make 

 any difference if the bird were liable. If I know him 

 aright, he would say to the importunate tax collector, 

 " Go and get your hair cut," or words to that effect. 

 Nor is there, so far as I can see, anything in the 

 much-abused climate of Madras to frighten away the 

 bird. Perhaps the doves are too much for him. If 

 there be one thing more than another calculated to 

 disturb the easily upset equilibrium of the gentle dove 

 it is the sight of a tree-pie. In those places where it 

 occurs you may, any day of the week, see one of these 

 long-tailed rascals being pursued and buffeted by a pair 

 of irate and hysterically screaming doves. In this 

 particular case the doves have some excuse for their 

 anger. The tree-pie, or the Indian magpie as Jerdon 

 calls him, is, to use a colloquialism, dead-nuts on a new- 

 laid egg for his breakfast, and, as doves always display 

 their oological productions on a shakedown in a tree, 

 and as I defy even a museum ornithologist to discover 

 any trace of protective colouration about the aforesaid 

 oological treasures, we cannot be surprised if the tree- 

 pie thinks that doves lay eggs for his especial benefit. 

 Even if the tree-pie does not happen to have been 

 breakfasting off their eggs the doves have ample excuse 

 for chastising him, for does not tradition tell us that 

 Noah's curse is upon the bird? The rascal flatly re- 

 fused to enter the Ark with the other birds, so that the 

 Patriarch had actually to send Japhet to catch it ! 

 Unfortunately, the tree-pie does not draw the line 



