THE SEVEN SISTERS 205 
It may be likened to the human being who refuses 
to recognize the use of a hair-brush, who persists in 
wearing azrzte-made clothes, although his friends warn 
him that he will one day be mistaken for a scarecrow, 
and who, as often as not, forgets to put on a necktie. 
This babbler has, further, a voice which is a very fair 
imitation of the sound produced by a rusty axle in 
motion. Passing upwards, through a host of inter- 
mediate species, we come to another landmark, in the 
shape of Malacocercus somervillet, the common Bombay 
babbler, which, as “Eha” describes, “reminds you of 
old Jones who spends the day in his pyjamas.” Even- 
tually we ascend to the Madras babbler, Malacocercus 
griseus, which must be considered as the “toff” of the 
babbler brotherhood. 
This bird is so well known, being found in numbers 
in every garden in South India, that all description is 
superfluous. No one but a blind man can help remark- 
ing the chattering greyish-brown birds with yellowish 
white heads which abound in Madras. The first ones 
I saw introduced themselves to me as I was driving 
out of the railway-station yard, three minutes after my 
arrival, 
Some of these babblers are more hoary than others, 
I think that the older birds exhibit the whitest heads. 
The white on the head of the babbler fledgling is 
certainly not conspicuous. Babblers differ from all 
other birds in that the unit of the community is not 
the individual, nor even the family, but the Club. 
Babbler society is made up of a number of little Clubs, 
each composed of from seven to a dozen members; 
