REVIEW. 139 
abound in parts of Gujarat, but a rookery of peafowl remains to be 
seen. Of pigeons he has little to say, and nothing so good, asa native 
official said to the present writer in Rajputana many a year ago, 
“ You mustn’t shoot pigeons here. It’s not that they are sacred, but 
the Rajputs have a fellow-feeling for the bird, because it is ‘ bholo’ 
—just like themselves.” 
To do our Rajput members justice, their affection for a bird which 
habitually makes friends with man has a nobler root than the sarcastic 
Brahmin would allow them, and is exactly the same as the English 
love for house martins and the Dutchman’s attachment to his almost 
sacred stork. It is below the dignity of a warlike and generous race 
to wage or allow war on a bird that will nest under our eaves and in 
our wells, and often wheels round, after a first shot, to expose itself to 
a second, rather than lose sight of its nest. The “blue rock,” more- 
over, is not much to swear by on the table. 
Sir Walter Scott in “*St. Roman’s Well” notices the reasonable 
- objection of Musalmans to the slaughter of doves in connection with 
that of Hussein (or, as he says, Ali). But the Prophet’s own bird was 
probably not a dove but a “blue rock” of the northern species ; 
differing but slightly from ours. The legend of its flying out from the 
cave wherein he lay in hiding is as probably true as any story of the 
sort, and not in the least improbable. The present writer has seen the 
like. 
In this very pleasant way Mr. Kipling discourses of various fowls, 
including, in his very unconventional ornithology, flying foxes. He 
had a tame flying fox which escaped, and was beaten home again by 
crows “‘ who had never seen such a creature before,’’ because, says he, 
“ crows go to bed early;” and it would seem that, wherever this hap- 
pened, the flying foxes are equally regular in their habits. In Western 
India these moral ways have suffered much infraction ; and there is no 
erow in the Konkan who has not seen many flying foxes on the wing. 
One really good bit of bird folklore is rather spoiled by a misnomer 
that can hardly be more than a slip of the pen. It is not the 
sandpiper (as Mr. Kipling says, but surely does not think) who sleeps 
supine with heels in air to avert the fall of Heaven. The “ Did ye 
do it ?” (Lobivanellus goensis) is credited with this remarkable pre- 
caution against the crack of Doom. 
