In some parts of India the hot-weather nights are sufficiently cool to allow the European inhabitants to dispense with punkas and to enjoy refreshing sleep in the open beneath the starlit sky. He who spends the night under such conditions sees and hears much of the birds. Not an hour passes in which the stillness of the darkness is not broken by the voice of some owl or cuckoo. Most of our Indian cuckoos are as nocturnal as owls. The brain-fever bird (Hierococcyx varius)—most vociferous of the cuculine tribe—seems to require no sleep.

The human sleeper, no matter how early he wakes in the morning, finds that some of the feathered folk have already begun the day. Every diurnal bird is up and about long before the rising of the sun. In the daylight the gauze curtains which kept the mosquitoes at bay during the night, form a most convenient cache from which to observe the doings of the birds. Birds do not see through the meshes of the mosquito nets. Eyesight is largely a matter of training. This explains why the vision of birds is so keen in some respects and so defective in others. A bird of prey while floating in the air does not fail to notice a small animal on the ground 3000 feet below. Nevertheless, that same bird will allow itself to become entangled in a coarse net stretched out in front of a tethered bird. I once asked a falconer how he would explain such inconsistencies in the behaviour of raptorial birds. He replied that in his opinion the bird of prey sees the net but fails to appreciate its nature, that the falcon looks upon the net spread before its quarry as a spider’s web, as a gossamer structure that can be contemptuously swept aside. I think that the falconer’s explanation is not the correct one. I believe that the bird of prey really does not see the net. It has eyes only for its quarry. It is not trained to look out for snares, having no experience of them under natural conditions. A bird that had several times been snared while stooping at its prey would learn the nature of a net and avoid it.

Similarly, birds, being unaccustomed to see living creatures emerge from apparently solid structures, do not look for human beings inside mosquito nets, and so fail to observe them. The consequence is that the birds hop and strut about the lawn within a few feet of my bed, or even perch on the mosquito curtain frame, utterly unconscious of my presence.

There is to me something very fascinating in thus watching at close quarters the ways of my feathered friends. My compound boasts of a lawn, sufficiently large for three tennis courts, which owing to much watering, mowing, and rolling is green and velvet-like. This lawn is a popular resort for many birds of the vicinity.

In England blackbirds, thrushes, robins, starlings, and sparrows are the birds which frequent lawns. Of these the sparrows are the only ones found in our Indian gardens. Sparrows are very partial to my lawn. Throughout the day numbers of them hop about on the turf, looking for objects so small that I have not been able to make out what they are. The fact that sparrows are greatly addicted to a lawn that is watered and mown twice a week serves to show that Passer domesticus is not so black as he is painted by his detractors. The sparrows cannot come to my lawn for any purpose other than that of looking for insects.

The first birds to visit the lawn every morning are a pair of coucals, or crow-pheasants (Centropus sinensis). They appear on the scene with great punctuality about an hour before sunrise. The crow-pheasant is one of the most familiar of Indian birds. It is neither a crow nor a pheasant, nevertheless there is much to be said in favour of its popular name, because the bird has altogether the appearance of a crow that has exchanged wings and tail with a pheasant. It is black all over save for its ruby-coloured eye and chestnut-hued wings. It belongs to the cuckoo family, but, unlike the majority of its brethren, builds a nest and incubates its eggs. It is characterised by an elongated hind toe, which he who lies behind the mosquito net may observe as its possessor struts by. There is something very pompous about the strut of the crow-pheasant. Were it an inhabitant of Whitechapel, its friends would undoubtedly enquire whether it was a fact that it had purchased the street! But the sight of an insect on the lawn causes the coucal to throw dignity to the winds. Its sedate walk becomes transformed into a bustling waddle as it gives chase to the insect with a gait like that of a stout, nervous lady hurrying across a road thronged with traffic. Crow-pheasants feed largely on insects, and it is in search of these that they frequent the lawn. Their food, however, is not confined to such small fry; they are very partial to snakes, and so are useful birds to have in the garden.

Hoopoes (Upupa indica) are constant visitors to my lawn. They revel in soft ground. The comparatively hard probe-like bill of the hoopoe enables the bird to extract insects from ground on which the soft-billed snipe could make no impression. But hoopoes prefer soft ground; from it they can obtain food with but little effort. Unfortunately for them, velvety lawns are not common in India; hence the birds flock to those that exist as eagerly as Europeans rush to the Himalayas in June. A few mornings ago I counted twenty-seven hoopoes feeding on my lawn. Occasionally a hoopoe perches on one of the bars from which my mosquito curtains hang, and thus unconsciously exposes himself to close scrutiny on my part. There are few birds so delightful to watch as hoopoes. Their form is unique. Their colouring is striking and pleasing. Then they are such fussy little creatures. When feeding they behave as if they were in a violent hurry. The modus operandi is a hasty tap of the bill here and another there, and if these reveal nothing promising, a few hurried steps, then more probing. The majority of these tappings and probings reveal nothing, but every now and then a spot is discovered beneath which an ant-lion, earth-worm, or other creature lies buried. Then the fun waxes fast and furious; the hoopoe begins to excavate in real earnest, and plies its bill as eagerly as a terrier scratches away the loose earth that conceals its retreating quarry. After a few seconds this strenuous probing and digging usually results in some creature being dragged out of the earth. This is swallowed by the hoopoe after a little manipulation rendered necessary by the length of the bird’s bill. Having disposed of its quarry the insatiable hoopoe passes on, without a pause, to seek for further victims. With twenty or thirty hoopoes thus at work, day after day, it is strange that the insect store of my lawn does not become exhausted.

While the hoopoe is feeding, its fan-like crest remains tightly closed. This attitude of the crest denotes business. The corona of the hoopoe is as mobile as are the ears of a horse. There is more expression in it than in the face of many a man or woman.

Mynas are, of course, always to be found on the lawn, but as these birds feed largely on grasshoppers, they seek their food by preference amid grass which is drier and longer than that of my lawn.

At the time when the grass is irrigated numbers of pied mynas (Sturnopastor contra) and paddy-birds (Ardeola grayii) visit the lawn. The former strut about, and the latter stand near the place where the water trickles from the pipe. Both come in quest of creatures driven from their underground homes by the water.

Occasionally two or three crows visit the lawn; these come to gratify their curiosity rather than for food. Crows are inquisitive creatures, and cannot resist visiting any spot where they see other birds enjoying themselves. Wagtails are birds which are very partial to lawns, but all the Indian species, with one exception, leave India in April or May, so that their graceful forms do not delight the eye in the hot weather.