SOME COMMON INDIAN BIRDS. 149 



very tops of trees. A resident for many years in India told me 

 she once saw a Golden Oriole and a Roller perched on a clump 

 of " morning glory," a plant of the convolvulus family with deep 

 blue flowers, and she said that the light blue of the Roller and 

 the rich yellow of the Oriole contrasted beautifully with the dark 

 blue flowers, and was a sight— the whole being enlivened with 

 brilliant sunshine— not easily forgotten. The Golden Oriole 

 does not bear confinement well, and ought never to be caged, 

 unless, of course, to send to England, where it would no doubt 

 be thought a great deal of. The Indian Oriole ranges over the 

 whole of India, where in the north-west it meets with the true 

 Golden Oriole (0. galbula), a bird that has nested in England, and 

 would doubtless continue to do so if not molested. 



Black Drongo or King-Crow (Dicrurus ater). — As soon as the 

 faintest glimmer of dawn breaks through the eastern sky the 

 sweet note of the Drongo is sure to be heard, as this is the 

 earliest Indian bird to rise. The Drongo may well be called the 

 most characteristic of our Indian birds, and the traveller is sure 

 to see it everywhere, for a specimen is to be seen on every few 

 yards of the telegraph-wire as one looks from the railway carriage 

 window. I must confess to having a great liking for the King- 

 Crow. Though by nature pugnaciously inclined, he is no coward, 

 and, unlike the Crow, is honest in all his dealings, and will not 

 hesitate to attack a bird much larger than himself — a bird even 

 as big as a Kite — and is a most devoted husband and father. The 

 King-Crow is a somewhat solitary bird, and does riot fraternise 

 much with other species, and jealously guards the post of vantage 

 he regards as his own, whether it be telegraph-wire, tree-stump, 

 or bovine back — for he has a great partiality for perching on the 

 backs of cattle. His diet is purely insectivorous, and his mode 

 of catching his prey is Flycatcher-like. In aerial evolutions he 

 excels, and his curious twisting flight is very pretty to watch. 

 The Drongo is so closely mimicked by a species of parasitic 

 Cuckoo (Surniculus lugubris) that it requires a practised eye to 

 distinguish the two birds at a glance. This impostor, trading on 

 its likeness to the King-Crow, deposits its egg in that bird's nest. 

 The King-Crow has a larger and handsomer relative, the Racket- 

 tailed Drongo (Dissemurus paradiseus) , which has its outer tail- 

 feathers lengthened considerably into bare shafts feathered only 



