It is a universal rule that all migratory birds of the Northern Hemisphere breed in the more northerly of their two homes. This seems to indicate that they were formerly permanent residents in the latter. Geology tells us that thousands of years ago the climate of this earth suddenly became colder. The result was that the more northerly portions of it were rendered uninhabitable for birds during the winter—the frost killed insect life and the snow made vegetable food difficult to procure; hence, the birdfolk were confronted with the alternative of starving in winter or going south in search of food. They chose the latter alternative. So powerful is the “homing instinct”—the instinct that man has developed so wonderfully in the homer pigeon—that these migrants invariably returned in the summer to their old homes for breeding purposes.

The climate has again become milder, so that for many migratory birds migration is no longer necessary; nevertheless, they still perform the double journey every year. The force of habit is strong in birds. Those Australian finches which are imported into India, even when kept in aviaries in the Himalayas, nest in December and January as they did in Australia, where these are summer months.

The ducks and geese that visit the Punjab in winter are too numerous to be dealt with in this brief essay, which of necessity is not exhaustive. It merely deals with such of the winter visitors to the Punjab as are seen every day. Every winter Northern India is invaded by millions of grey-lag and barred-headed geese, and by hundreds of thousands of brahmany ducks, mallard, gadwall, teal, wigeon, pintails, shovellers and pochards. The other game birds which visit the Punjab in great numbers every winter are the jack and the common snipe.

The Indian redstart or firetail (Ruticilla rufiventris) is one of the most striking of our winter visitors. No one but a blind man can fail to notice the sprightly little bird with St. Vitus’ dance in its tail. The head, breast, neck, and back of the cock are grey or black according to the season of the year. Birds’ clothes wear out just as ours do. But every bird is his own tailor. When his clothes wear out, instead of resorting to the West-End tailor or the humble darzi, he grows a new coat. This process is technically known as the moult and occurs at the end of summer in most birds.

Each of the feathers composing the coat of the cock redstart is black with a grey margin. When the feathers are new only the grey edges show, the bird, therefore, looks grey; gradually the grey borders become worn away, so that the bird turns black. The remainder of the plumage of the cock, except the two middle tail feathers, is brick red. The hen is reddish brown where the cock is black or grey. As the bird hops about in the garden it looks very like a robin, but the moment it takes to its wings it becomes transformed, as if by magic, into a flash of red. The red of the tail and back is scarcely visible when the bird is not flying, for the wings cover the latter and the tail is closed like a fan; the red feathers all folding up underneath the middle brown ones which act as a cover. During flight the red tail feathers open out and the wings leave the red back exposed—hence the sudden transformation.

The redstart should be a favourite with Englishmen, because in habits and appearance it resembles the familiar robin of our country. The perverse Indian robin (Thamnobia cambayensis), it will be remembered, insists on wearing its patch of red, as Phil Robinson hath it, on the seat of its trousers.

The Indian redstart arrives towards the end of September. In the autumn of 1906, September 22nd was the date on which I first noticed a redstart in Lahore. In the following autumn I did not see one until September 27th. Bird-lovers of fixed abode in India would be rendering no small service to ornithology if they would record carefully, year after year, the dates on which they first observe each of our returning summer and winter visitors.

When the migrant wagtails arrive we feel that the hot weather is really over. Three species of wagtail are common in Lahore. One of these—the pied wagtail (Motacilla maderaspatensis)—is a permanent resident. The other two—the white wagtail (Motacilla alba) and the grey wagtail (M. melanope)—come to us only for the winter. The last is easily distinguished by its bright yellow lower plumage. The white and the pied wagtails are both clothed in black and white, but whereas the face and throat of the former are white, the whole head of the pied wagtail is black save for a white eye-brow.

Wagtails live almost entirely on the ground. Throughout the winter dozens of them are to be seen on the gymkhana cricket ground, sprinting after tiny insects, and stopping after each capture to indulge in a little tail wagging. All three species of wagtail feed exclusively on insects, so that the migration in this case, as in that of the quail and of many other birds, is obviously due to the force of habit.

Another winter visitor that cannot fail to attract attention is the white-eared bulbul (Molpastes leucotis), a bird loathed by the gardener on account of the damage it does to buds.

Two species of bulbul are abundant in Lahore: this one and the Punjab red-vented bulbul (Molpastes intermedius). The latter, like the poor, is always with us, while the former shakes the dust of Lahore off its feet and departs when the weather becomes hot. The permanent resident has a red patch under its tail and a black head and crest, while the migrant wears yellow under the tail and has white cheeks.

The family of birds of prey furnishes us with a large number of winter visitors. Those most likely to be seen in the neighbourhood of Lahore are the steppe eagle, the long-legged buzzard, the sparrow hawk, the peregrine falcon, the kestrel, and the merlin. It must not be thought that all our Indian birds of prey are migrants. A number of species remain in the plains throughout the hot weather to vex the souls of their weaker brethren. Curiously enough, there is among the permanently resident raptores a counterpart, a nearly allied species—I might almost say a “double”—of nearly every migrant. The tawny eagle (Aquila vindhiana) and the steppe eagle (A. bifasciata) are so alike that some authorities are inclined to regard them as a single species. But the former lives in the plains all the year round and breeds in and about Lahore, while the steppe eagle goes to the hills in the hot weather to breed, and appears quite unable to endure heat. The one caught at Wazirabad in the cold weather of 1906-7 and confined in the local “Zoo” died comparatively early in the hot weather, whereas the tawny eagle, kept in the same cage, has all along flourished like the green bay tree. The shikra (Astur badius) and the sparrow hawk (Accipiter nisus), although ornithologists now place them in different genera, are so much alike that it is easy to mistake one for the other, yet the former is a permanent resident while the latter is a migrant. Similarly the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) is a winter visitor to the plains of the Punjab, while its cousin the laggar (Falco jugger) is a permanent resident. In the same way the Turumti or red-headed merlin abides with us all the year round, while the common merlin (Aesalon regulus) visits us only in winter.

Almost the only raptorial winter visitor that has not a cousin who lives in the plains throughout the year is the kestrel (Tinnunculus alaudarius), the bird known in England as the Windhover. This is perhaps the easiest to identify of all the birds of prey, on account of its habit of hovering on vibrating wings, like the pied kingfisher, high in the air, over a spot where it thinks that there is quarry in the shape of some small rodent. If the surmise be correct the kestrel drops like a stone and seizes its quarry in its talons; if it sees nothing it sweeps away with a few easy movements of its powerful wings and hovers elsewhere. The only other bird of prey that hovers like the kestrel is the black-winged kite (Elanus caerulus). This is mainly white and so cannot be confounded with the kestrel.

The explanation of the fact that one species of bird of prey leaves the plains in the hot weather, while a nearly related species remains, may perhaps be found in the nature of their food. Birds of prey are to a greater or lesser extent specialists; while quite ready to devour any small bird, reptile, or mammal which comes their way, they lay themselves out more especially to catch one particular species, and if that species migrates it follows that the bird that preys upon it will also migrate. Thus the peregrine falcon lays itself out to catch ducks and naturally goes with them to their breeding grounds, just as the hawker of cheap wares, who preys upon the mem-sahib, follows her to the hills in the summer.

In conclusion mention must be made of the Corvi which visit us in winter. The arch-corvus, the grey-necked rascal (Corvus splendens), of course, abides with us all the year round. The raven, too, is to be seen at all times of the year, but is more abundant in the cold weather than in the hot. During the summer months we see comparatively few ravens; in the winter they are exceedingly numerous. Every evening towards sunset a long stream of them may be observed flying in a westerly direction to the common roosting place. There is a similar stream of crows that flies in a north-westerly direction. The rook (Corvus frugilegus) is a permanent resident of Kashmir and the North-Western Himalayas, but in mid-winter many individuals are driven by the cold into the Frontier Province and the Punjab; some come as far south as Lahore, where they consort with the crows. If the winter is a severe one large numbers of rooks come to Lahore, otherwise these birds are not very numerous. The same applies to the jackdaw (Corvus monedula), but he never comes in such numbers as the rook. There is in the octagonal bird house in the Lahore “Zoo” a compartment in which there is a “Happy Family” of ravens, rooks, and jackdaws, with an Australian crow-shrike and a Nicobar pigeon to keep them company. Thus every one who cannot already do so may learn to identify the various Corvi which visit Lahore in the winter.