NAT ORE 
THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1904. 
THE ANIMALS OF INDIAN GARDENS. 
Some Indian Friends and Acquaintances: a Study of 
the Ways of Birds and other Animals Frequenting 
Indian Streets and Gardens. By Lieut.-Colonel 
D. D. Cunningham, C.I.E., F.R.S. Pp. viii+ 423. 
(London: John Murray, 1903.) Price 12s. net. 
OOKS on the animals, birds especially, that 
abound in Indian gardens tend to become 
numerous. This is not surprising, for the wealth of 
animal life to be found in Indian cities, and especially 
in suburban gardens, far exceeds anything known in 
Europe. Not only is the fauna much richer, but, as 
Colonel Cunningham points out, all animals are tamer 
and are protected by the human inhabitants of the 
country, “‘ who,”’ as he says, “‘ are free from the desire 
to capture or kill any strange or beautiful living thing 
hereditary instinct for bird-nesting, and in mature life 
no natural appreciation of ‘ murder as a fine art.’ ”’ 
Whether the last phrase is quite correctly applied to 
a race amongst whom Thugs and Dacoits flourished 
at no distant period in the past may perhaps be open 
to doubt, but there is no question that veneration for | 
animal life is a living principle amongst Hindoos and 
Buddhists, and consequently that in but few countries 
in the world are wild birds and beasts more familiar 
than in India. 
The richness of the vegetation in Indian gardens 
will in a few months, if not checked, convert any 
vacant space into a thicket, and the cover that is thus 
produced affords a great attraction to the wild animals | 
of the neighbourhood. Calcutta, where most of 
Colonel Cunningham’s notes were made, has a richer 
fauna and flora than Indian cities in general, and 
amongst its suburban gardens are the beautiful 
Botanic Gardens of Shibpur, which are unsurpassed in 
India, and the fauna of which has long been almost as 
famous as the flora. 
Of the opportunities afforded by Calcutta suburban 
gardens for the observation of birds and other animals 
Colonel Cunningham has made admirable use, and his 
notes may be fairly compared with Aitken’s well- 
known ‘‘ Tribes on My Frontier’ and “A Naturalist 
on the Prowl.” So far as it has been possible to check 
the accounts in the present work, all the animals, 
birds, beasts, reptiles, batrachians and _ fishes are 
correctly identified, and the accounts of their habits 
are from actual observation, not, as is so frequently 
the case, from tales told by imaginative natives of the 
country. Only one instance has been met with in 
which Colonel Cunningham’s experience is opposed 
to that of other writers. He says that tree-snakes, 
Dryophis mycterizans, are decidedly ill-tempered 
animals and very ready to bite ”’ (p. 338). The ex- 
perience of the present writer is precisely the contrary, 
but there is probably some explanation of the 
difference. 
It is true that many of the observations now re- 
corded have been made by other writers and published 
NO. 1793, VOL. 69| 
in older works, but they are so interesting that they 
will bear repeating, and the liability of all observers 
to error in noting the habits of wild animals is so 
great that it is only by repeated observations that 
accuracy can be attained. Moreover, many of the facts 
noticed, even if they have been observed before, are 
not generally known. As an instance of such con- 
tributions to natural history the following account of 
the device adopted by a pair of ‘‘ koils,’”? the famous 
Indian fruit-cuckoos, when engaged in laying eggs in 
the nests of crows may be quoted. It is, of course, 
| well known that the sexes in the koil differ much more 
than they do in the majority of cuckoos, the male being 
glossy black, the female speckled brown, and it 
is extraordinary that a bird of inferior intelligence and 
inferior pugnacity should succeed in foisting its eggs 
04 a crow, its superior in both respects. 
“The order of events is this: when everything is 
ready and a desirable nest has been chosen, the cock- 
| koil, conspicuous in his shining black plumage and 
that they may meet with, who have no youthful | 
crimson eyes, seats himself on a prominent perch, 
whilst the hen, in modest speckled grey garb, lurks 
hidden amongst dense masses of neighbouring foliage. 
He then lifts up his voice and shouts aloud, his voice 
becoming more and more insistent with every repeti- 
tion of his call, and very soon attracting the attention 
of the owners of the nest, who rush out to the attack 
and chase him away. Now comes the chance for his 
wife, who forthwith nips in to deposit her egg. Very 
often she does this successfully before the crows have 
returned, but every now and then she is caught in the 
act, and driven off, like her husband, uttering volleys 
| of shrill outcries.’’ : 
| by no means so good as the text. 
Many of the notes on snakes are interesting, and as 
| in this case even the ‘‘ snake-stories ”’ may be believed, 
one may be quoted. 
“When there was much demand for stores of dried 
venom for European laboratories, the old snake-man 
in the Zoological Garden at Alipur was sent out every 
autumn to collect as many snakes as possible for use 
during the ensuing winter. His excursions generally 
lasted for a week or two, and then he would return 
laden with sacks full of snakes. Once he came back 
in great triumph bringing a hundred and fifty cobras, 
and it was a gruesome sight to watch him loose the 
mouth of one of his sacks and plunge his arm down 
into it in order to haul out one after another of his 
prisoners. .. . The cobras were so crowded and 
hampered in their confined quarters as to be quite un- 
able to raise their heads and necks for the downward 
stroke with which they normally lay hold, and the man 
knew so well where and how to seize them, that the 
chance of his being bitten was really very small.” 
It is to be regretted that the plates in this book are 
Some afford a fair 
idea of the birds or other animals represented, though 
even in this case, as in the two coloured views of 
adjutants by day and at roost, the figures are some- 
times caricatures, and the majority appear to be copies 
of indifferent Indian native drawings. Colonel 
Cunningham is too good an observer not to be aware 
that neither the colour nor the relative position of the 
head, wings, and body during flight of the Indian 
swifts represented in Plate xiv. is correct, that the 
ants on Plate vi. (p. 112) should not be shown as larger 
than the eggs of the blue-throated barbet, and that the 
crow in the front of the plate opposite p. 60 ought to 
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