Jottings on common Indian Birds. 215


Indian Bee-eater (Merops viridis ) is rather smaller in size and

brighter than our familiar European bird, but behaves in just the

same way. They may be classed among the telegraph-wire birds,

but then they are merely little huddled up bunches of green feathers.

It is when they are darting and floating about in the sun-filled air,

in which they are as much at home as a Swallow or a Erigate-bird,

that these most beautiful creatures really charm one ; one is never

tired of watching them.


You cannot be long by any water, whether river or jhil

(lake) without seeing the Indian Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle varia), a

conspicuously black and white bird about the size of our own King¬

fisher. It hunts over the water like a Tern, and like a Tern some¬

times hovers for a moment and then darts down. But the Common

Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida ), which fortunately is still fairly abundant

in our own islands, is just as often seen and behaves in every

respect like the bird we know here. I shall never forget a particular

scene one evening in Ceylon. It was evening' and the sky was

crimson where the clouds were, but low down just along the line

of the jungle it was flat and clear and tinted light green, the green

of the sea where it swells over rocks awash. We were in a motor

car in the hope of reaching Trincomali, a harbour that is a gem of

the world. We had nearly arrived at Kantalai, celebrated for its

great water-dam. I hurriedly pulled up the car as we suddenly

came upon the white iron railings of a bridge that normally

spanned a little river running through a flat of grass and rushes

with jungle all about it. But now the whole thing was in flood, the

water and the sky together making a great expanse of orange, crim¬

son and red, only broken by the dark line of the jungle fringe. At

the edge of the bushes a bunch of wild swine were rooting, their

sides as red as umber from the dried mud of the wallow. On the

railings of the bridge were a row of green-blue dots—Kingfishers.

Not far from them sat two Brahminy Kites. I think the sound of

the water must have drowned the noise of the car; but as I went

on foot towards the bridge everything took life. The swine dis¬

appeared in the jungle, the Kites sailed off, and the Kingfishers

darted away one after the other over the coloured flood, while a

pair of Fishing Eagles (Haliaetus leucoryphus) followed over the



