THE KING-CROW. 35 



will put up with a dead branch or a cow's back; 

 he wants some perch that will afEord a clear outlook 

 and plenty of room for evolutions around it, and 

 though sometimes, as on the maidan, he will sit 

 about on the ground, he is grievously falling from 

 the traditions of his family in so doing, for the 

 Drongos generally are as much given to pride of place 

 as the green pigeon, concerning which native 

 traditions avers that when it comes down to drink it 

 •carries a twig in its feet, lest its enemies should say 

 that it had ever deigned to leave a perch. Perhaps our 

 common Drongo {Dicrurus ater) owes his prosperity 

 to waiving his family pride, since even settling to 

 catch prey is contrary to strict Drongo etiquette, 

 and he is constantly doing this, though he is active 

 enough at taking insects on the wing. But he is 

 by way of being a very versatile bird, and though he 

 appears never to touch vegetable food, he has been 

 known to take small birds as well as insects, and 

 even to capture small fish ; a feat of which no one 

 will deem him incapable who has seen him taking 

 his bath by plunges hke a swallow, a method of 

 performing ablutions much fav^oured by birds which 

 are ready of wing. And the King-Crow is remark- 

 ably good at aerial evolutions, whence he is enabled 

 to maintaia that authority over birds great and small 

 which the Deccanis have neatly expressed by calling 



