XXVII 

 A KINGFISHER AND A TERN 



NEARLY every village in India has its 

 pond which becomes filled with water 

 during the monsoon and grows drier and 

 drier during the winter and hot weather. 

 The pond is usually a natural depression, sometimes 

 enlarged and deepened by human agency. Occa- 

 sionally a village is situated on the edge of a lake, 

 or jhil, but such fortunate villages are few and far 

 between ; the average hamlet has to be content with 

 a small tank. This morning I came upon such a tank, 

 in which the water had become low, leaving a wide 

 margin of mud between it and the artificially made 

 bank. At one end a couple of people were squatting. 

 Mirabile dictu, there was not a paddy bird to be seen, 

 and the only feathered creature disporting itself 

 along the edge was a grey wagtail. In mid pond four 

 domestic ducks were feeding. A tern — the Indian 

 river tern [Sterna seena) — ^was busy at the tank, flpng 

 gracefully over the water and dipping into it every few 

 seconds. Judging from the frequency with which the 

 bird dived, the water must have teemed with food, 

 but there were no signs of fish rising, so that how the 



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