194 A BIRD CALENDAR 



It has bright orange orbs and long, pointed 

 aigrettes. Its legs are devoid of feathers. 

 According to Blanford it has a dismal cry like 

 haw, haw, haw, ho. " Eha " describes the call 

 as a ghostly hoot a hoo hoo hoo, far-reaching, 

 but coming from nowhere in particular. These 

 two descriptions do not seem to agree. There 

 is nothing unusual in this. 



The descriptions of the calls of the noc- 

 turnal birds of prey given by India ornitholo- 

 gists are notoriously unsatisfactory. This is 

 perhaps not surprising when we consider the 

 wealth of 'bird life in this country. It is no 

 easy matter to ascertain the perpetrators of 

 the various sounds of the night, and, when the 

 naturalist has succeeded in fixing the author 

 of any call, he finds himself confronted with 

 the difficult task of describing the sound in 

 question. Bearing in mind the way in which 

 human interjections baffle the average writer, 

 we cannot be surprised at the poor success 

 that crowns the endeavours of the naturalist 

 to syllabise bird notes. 



As regards the call of the brown fish-owl 

 the writer has been trying for the past three or 

 four years to determine by observation which 

 of the many nocturnal noises are to be as- 



