28 
The Adjutant Stork. 
I'uriie.ili district; tlie nosts very small and rude. Its Bengalese naiTif 
M oiliDi-liki is applied to it ir(i7iioall\ , frmn its iiyl\ head and neck, the 
" exprt-ssioii nu'anin<;- that llic hair of its head is as heautiful as that of 
" Moduli, one of the sons of Krishna." 
Before proceeding- to describe tlie pair of birds figured 
on our plates, especially as this jiair have only been with me 
about three months, I propose quoting, almost in cxtcnso. tlic 
interesting chapter on Adjutant Birds, from Mr. Douglas 
i)e\var's hook Birds of tJic Plai)is. tliough his notes refer chieflv 
to the large species f L. duhiits). — 
"The adjutant hird ( Leptoptilus dubius ) is one of Nature's little 
" jokes. It is a caricature of a bird, a mixture of gravity and clownishness. 
" Everything about it is calculated to excite mirth — its weird figure, its 
" great beak, it.s long thin legs, its conspicuous pouch, its bald head, and 
" every attitude it strikes. The adjutant bird is a stork which has 
" acquired the habits of a vulture. Forsaking to a large extent frogs and 
" .such like delicacies, which constitute the normal diet of its kind, it lives 
" chiefly upon ofTal. Now, most, if not all, birds which feed on carrion 
" have the head and neck devoid of feathers. This arrangement, if not 
" ornamental ,is very useful. The bare head and neck are, as ' Eha.' 
" remarks. ' the sleeves tucked up for earnest work.' The Adjutant 
" forms no exception to the rule, it wears the badge of its profession. 
'' Rut let me here give a full description of this truly comic bird. It 
" stands five feet in its stockings. Its bill is over a foot in length and 
" correspondingly massive. As wc have seen, the \vlK)Ie head and neck 
" are tiare, except for a few feathers scattered over it like the hairs on an 
" elephant's head. The bare skin is not lackiii;.; in colour. On the fore- 
■' head it is blackish; it becomes saf^ron-yellow on the Ujiper neck, while 
" lower down it turns to brick red. There is a ruff of white feathers round 
" the base of the neck. This ruff, of course, appears etitirely out of 
" |)Iace and adds to the general grotesqueness of the bird. The back and 
■■ wings are ashy-black, becoming slaty-grey at the breeding season. The 
" lr)wer !)'irts are white." 
" .^s if the creature, thus .arrayed, were not sufficiently comic. Nature 
" h s given it a great pouch which diingles from the neck. This is over a 
■' foot in length and hangs down like a bag when inflated. It is red 'n 
" colour, spotted with black. Its situation n.aturally leads one to believe 
■■ that it is connected with the gullet, that it is a recejitaele into which 
■■ the bird can hastilv pass the garbage it swallows |)ending more comjilete 
" disposal. Hut it is nothitig of the sort. It does not coininunicate 
" directly with the oesophagus. Knowing this, one is able to appreciate 
" to the full the splendid mendacity of the writer in Chamber's Journal in 
" 1861, who declares that he saw an adjutant swallow a crow, which he 
" watched ' pass into the sienna-toticd pouch of the gaunt avenger. He 
" who writes saw it done.' " 
