  The stillness of the Indian night suffers many interruptions. In the vicinity of a town or village the hours of darkness are rendered hideous by the noises of human beings and of their appendages—the pariah dogs. In the jungle the “friendly silences of the moon” are continually disturbed by the bark of the fox, the yelling of the jackal, or the notes of the numerous birds of the night. The call of the various nocturnal birds must be familiar to every person who has spent a hot weather in the plains of Northern India and slept night after night beneath the starry heavens. With the calls of the birds all are familiar, but some do not know the names of the originators of these sounds. First and foremost of the fowls that lift up their voices after the shades of night have fallen are the tiny spotted owlets (Athene brama). Long before the sun has set these quaint little creatures emerge from the holes in which they have spent the day, and treat the neighbours to a “torrent of squeak and chatter and gibberish” which is like nothing else in the world, and Almost as abundant as the spotted owlet is another feathered pigmy—the jungle owlet (Glaucidium radiatum). This species, like the last, calls with splendid vigour. Fortunately for the Anglo-Indian its note is comparatively mellow and musical. It is not altogether unlike the noise made by a motor cycle when it is being started, consisting, as it does, of a series of disyllables, low at first with a pause after each, but gradually growing in intensity and succeeding one another more rapidly until the bird seems to have fairly got away, when it pulls up with dramatic abruptness. The best attempt to reduce to writing the call of this bird is that of Tickell: “Turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, turtuck, tukatu, chatuckatuckatuck.” This owlet calls in the early part of the night and at intervals throughout the period of darkness, and becomes most vociferous just before the approach of “rosy-fingered dawn.” Very different is the cry of the little scops owl (Scops giu). This bird has none of that Gladstonian flow of eloquence which characterises the spotted and the jungle owlets. His note is, however, more befitting the dignity of an owl. He speaks only in monosyllables, and gives vent to those with great deliberation. He sits on a bough and says “wow” in a soft but decisive The above are the three owls which are most often heard in the plains of Northern India. Sometimes all three species, like the orators in Hyde Park, address the world simultaneously from neighbouring trees. There are numbers of other owls that disturb the stillness of the night with more or less vigour, but it would be tedious, if not impossible, to describe them all. It must suffice to make mention of the low, solemn booming durgoon durgoon, of the huge rock-horned owl (Bubo bengalensis) and the wheezy screech of the barn owl (Strix flammea). Another call, often heard shortly before dawn, is doubtless usually believed to be that of an owl. This is the deep, whoot, whoot, whoot of the coucal or crow pheasant (Centropus sinensis), that curious chocolate-winged black ground-cuckoo which builds its nest in a dense thicket. Unfortunately for the peace of mankind the coucal is not the only cuckoo that lifts up its voice in the night. Three species of cuckoo exist in India which are nocturnal as owls, as diurnal as crows, and as noisy as a German band. A couple of hours’ sleep in the hottest part of the day appears to be ample for the needs of these super-birds. From this short slumber they awake, like giants refreshed, to spend the greater portion of the remaining two-and-twenty hours in shrieking at the top of their voices. Needless to state these three species are the brain-fever bird, the koel, and the Indian cuckoo—a triumvirate that it is impossible to match anywhere else in the world. Some there are who fail to distinguish between these three giants, and who believe that they are but one bird with an infinite variety of notes. This is not so. They are not one bird, but three birds. Let us take them in order of merit. The brain-fever bird or hawk cuckoo (Hierococcyx varius) is facile princeps. In appearance it is very like a sparrow-hawk, and, but for its voice, it might be mistaken for one. This species has two distinct notes. The first of these is well described by Cunningham as a “highly pitched, trisyllabic cry, repeated many times in ascending semitones until one begins to think, as one sometimes does when a Buddhist is repeating his ordinary formula of prayer, that the performer must surely burst.” But the brain-fever bird never does burst. He seems to know to a scruple how much he may with safety take out of himself. It is not necessary to dilate upon this note. Have we not all listened to the continued screams of “brain-fever, brain-fever, Brain-fever,” until we began to fear for our reason? The other call is in no way inferior in magnitude. It consists of a volley of single descending notes, uttered with consummate ease—facilis descensus—which may or may not, at the option of the performer, be followed by one or more mighty shouts of Brain-fever. There is not an hour in the twenty-four during the hot weather when this fiend does not make himself heard in the parts of the country haunted The second of the great triumvirate is the Indian koel (Eudynamis honorata). This noble fowl has three calls, each as powerful as the others. The first is a crescendo ku-il, ku-il, ku-il, very pleasing to Indian ears, but too powerful for the taste of Westerns. The second is well described by Cunningham as an outrageous torrent of shouts, sounding “kuk, kuu, kuu, kuu, kuu, kuu,” repeated at brief intervals in tones loud enough to wake the seven sleepers. When the bird thus calls its whole body vibrates with the effort put forth. The third cry is uttered only when the koel is being chased by angry crows, and is, as Cunningham says, a mere cataract of shrill shrieks: “Hekaree, karee.” For the benefit of those unacquainted with the ways of the koel it is necessary to state that that bird spends much of its time fleeing before the wrath of crows. It lays its eggs in the nests of these. And, if one may judge from their behaviour, they suspect the koel. The other two calls are heard at all hours of the day and night, and it makes no difference to the koel whether it is the sun or the moon, or only the stars that are shining. He is always merry and bright. The second call, however, is usually reserved for the dawn. Hence this particular vocal effort is rendered all the more exasperating, coming as it does precisely at the time when, after the departure of a The third of the triumvirate, the common Indian cuckoo (Cuculus micropterus), although in its way a very fine bird, is not of the same calibre as its confrÈres. It stands to them in much the same relation as Trinity College, Dublin, does to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It has quite a pleasant note, which Indians represent as Boutotaka, but which is perhaps better rendered by the words “wherefore, therefore,” repeated with musical cadence. It does not call much during the middle of the day. It usually uplifts its voice about two hours before sunset, and continues until the sun has been up for a couple of hours. This cuckoo is very common in the Himalayas and in the plains of India from Fyzabad to Calcutta. Fyzabad ought really to be renamed Cuckooabad. It is the habitation of untold numbers of cuckoos. There during the merry month of May the cuckoos spend The night-loving cuckoos have demanded so much space that the other vocalists of the hours of darkness will have to be content with very brief notice. The night heron (Nycticoran griseus) makes the welkin ring with his guttural cries of “waak, waak,” uttered as he flies after nightfall from his roost to the pond where he will fish till morning. As he fishes in silence the addition he makes to the noises of the night is not great. The large family of plovers must be dismissed in a single sentence. They, like many cuckoos, regard sleep as a luxury; hence their plaintive cries are heard both by day and by night. The most familiar of their calls is the “did-he-do-it, pity-to-do-it,” of the red-wattled lapwing (Sarcogrammus indicus). The notes of the rest of his family consist of variations of the words titeri, titeri. In conclusion, mention must be made of the nightjars or goatsuckers, as they are sometimes called after the fashion of the Romans, who believed that these birds used to sally forth at night and milk goats. This belief was based on two facts. First, the udders of goats were often found to be empty in the morning; secondly, the broad gape possessed by the nightjar. However, the character of these birds has now been cleared. We know that their bills are wide in order Horsfield’s nightjar is abundant in the sal forests of the Pilibhit district. |
|
