Jottings on common Indian Birds.



213



But the only one I could identify was the Paradise Flycatcher

(Terpsiphone paradisi). As I had. seen this wonderful bird more

than once in Ceylon I knew it instantly, though for that matter

no one could possibly mistake it, as it is like nothing else in bird-

kingdom. Anyone who has looked over a series of these birds in a

collection must have been struck by their great differences in

plumage. Oates gives us the change of plumage by which the male

arrives at that of its fourth autumn, when the head is black but the

body and tail white. As the body of the bird is but 4\ inches in

length, while the tail alone may measure 16i inches (Oates) it will

easily be seen what a remarkable bird this is. We are speaking of

course of the male, the female does not develop in this way. I

shall never forget the first time I saw one on the wing. I was

going along a road—it was in Ceylon—with dense jungle on either

hand, when something white that hardly looked like a bird flew

half way across the road and hung there in the air vibrating. Then

it flew back and went up into a tree in a waving ripple due to its

long tail. It seemed a very fairy of the jungle.


Although Chats and Redstarts were often seen in the Hima¬

layas, and though I afterwards tried to identify some of these in the

Calcutta Museum, I feel no certainty about them, and therefore pass

on to a familiar bird, the Magpie Robin (Copsychus saularis). I

have not noticed this bird in the wilder parts of the country, nor do

I remember seeing it in the Himalayas, although it is said to ascend

the mountain up to 5,000 feet (Oates), but almost everywhere else in

the gardens. I think it was even more common in Ceylon than in

India. It stands in about the same relationship to human life as

the Red-breast, which its ways closely resemble. It shares with

the Nightingale and the Grey-backed Warbler (Aedon) the pretty

habit of flirting up its tail at each stop in its movements, but does

this more persistently than either of these birds.


In the compound of a dak bungalow in Benares a little

group of grey-coloured Thrush-like birds were often seen in the

early morning hunting among the fallen leaves of a pipel tree.

They jerked the leaves over with the Blackbird’s action. I think

these must have been the Dusky Ground Thrush (Mcrula unicolor).

The Blue Rock-Thrush (Petrophila cyanus ) was seen and heard



