288 BOMBAY DUCKS 
other half in robbing birds’ nests. The green barbets 
would take a prominent position among the noisy 
members of bird society in any country. Their note is 
loud, persistent, and penetrating ; but they are not found 
in Madras itself. There their cousin, the coppersmith, 
replaces them. He is not nearly so noisy as they, but 
he is an untiring musician, and thinks it impossible to 
have too much of a good thing, when that good thing 
happens to be his own voice—a characteristic which he 
shares with some human beings. 
Indian birds exist which have remarkably loud voices 
for their size, to wit, the ubiquitous tailor-bird and the 
iroa. These are so small that they would go comfortably 
into one’s watch-pocket, yet their voices can be heard 
at a distance of two hundred yards or more. Were 
these birds as large as the great hornbill, and their 
voices increased in proportion, they would be formidable 
rivals of the American bell-bird. But’ they are not as 
big as hornbills, and we must take things as they are 
and not include them among our noisiest birds, They, 
however, deserve a place in the second rank, with the 
crows, the babblers, the black partridges, the king- 
crows, and the other minor poets. 
