The seven sisters (Crateropus canorus), which occur in every garden in India, are veritable punchinellos, so much so that schoolboys in the Punjab always call them “mad birds.” But nature is not content with having produced these. So readily does the babbler clan lend itself to the humoresque, that from it has been evolved the large grey babbler (Argya malcomi), a species even more comic than the noisy sisterhood. This is the Verri chinda, the mad babbler of the Telugu-speaking people. Pull the tail out of one of the seven sisters, and insert in its place another, half as long again, with the outer feathers of conspicuously lighter hue than the median ones, then brush up the plumage of the converted sister, and you will have effected a transmutation of species, turned a jungle babbler into a large grey one. This latter species has a wide range, but is capricious in its distribution. It does not, I believe, occur in the neighbourhood of the city of Madras, but is abundant in some parts of South India. The habits of this species seem to vary with the locality. In the south it appears to shun the madding crowd; in the north it frequents gardens and loves to disport itself in the middle of the road, and is in no hurry to get out of the way of the pedestrian or the cyclist. Probably many a large babbler has, owing to its tameness, succumbed to the motor-car. Bold spirits, such as the little striped squirrel, which take a positive delight in experiencing a series of hair-breadth escapes, suffer considerably when a new and speedier conveyance is introduced into a locality. They have learned by experience how close to the inch they may with safety allow the ordinary vehicle to approach before they skedaddle, and it takes time for them to discover that with a speedier vehicle a larger margin must be allowed. The little Indian squirrel has not yet learned to gauge the pace of the motor-car. Recently I counted five of their corpses on the road between Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, which is much frequented by motor-cars.

The Sath Bhai are usually accounted noisy birds, but they are taciturn in comparison with their long-tailed cousins. From dewy morn till dusty eve the large grey babblers vie with the crows in their vocal efforts. The crows score at the beginning of the day, for they are the first to awake, or, at any rate, to begin calling. The king crow (Dicrurus ater) is usually said to be the first bird to herald the cheerful dawn. This is not always so; the voice of Corvus splendens sometimes precedes that of the king crow. But ere the sun has shown his face the grey babblers join vociferously in the chorus that fills the welkin. And how shall I describe the notes of these light-headed birds so as to convey an adequate idea of them to those who have not heard with their own ears? I ought to be able to do so, for Allahabad, where I am now stationed, is the head-quarters of the clan of large grey babblers. Argya malcomi are to that city what the Macphersons are to Inverness-shire. You cannot avoid them. The sound of their voices is never out of my ears during the hours of daylight. Some of them are shouting at me even now. Yet words to describe what I hear fail me. The only instrument made by man that can rival the call of the mad babbler is the “rattle” used at our English Universities, or at any rate at Cambridge, to encourage the oarsmen in the Lent or May races. It is the delight of two of these birds each to take up a position at the summit of a tree and for one to commence calling. He bellows till his breath runs short; then his neighbour takes up the refrain—I mean, hullabaloo—and, ere number two has ceased, number one, having recovered breath, chimes in. In addition to this rattle-like call the grey babblers emit a more mellow note, which is well described by Jerdon as “Quey, quey, quey, quo, quo,” pronounced gutturally. Occasionally one of these extraordinary birds bursts out into a volley of excited squeaks, like the voice of Punch as rendered by the showman at the seaside. This I take to be a cry of alarm. The bird while uttering it careers about madly among the foliage of a tree, hopping from bough to bough with great dexterity.

Mad babblers go about, like the seven sisters, in flocks of ten or twelve, and feed largely on the ground. Their mode of progression when not on the wing is by a series of hops. Their movements are very like those of a thrush on an English lawn—a dash forward for about a yard, followed by an abrupt halt. They seem to subsist chiefly on insects, but grain does not come amiss to them. In places where they abound, several of them are usually to be seen in every field of large millet, each perched at the summit of a stalk eagerly devouring the ripening grain. When thus occupied they sometimes forget to call. They are birds of peculiarly feeble flight. Their tail is long and their wings are somewhat sketchy, and the result is that they have to flutter these latter frantically in order to fly at all. But for the fact that they always keep together in flocks, even at the nesting season, they would fall easy victims to birds of prey. Thanks to their clannishness and pluck, they appear to be tolerably immune from attack. Jerdon says: “If the Shikra sparrow-hawk be thrown at them, they defend each other with great courage, mobbing the hawk and endeavouring to release the one she has seized.” Only yesterday I saw a party of about a dozen large grey babblers attack and drive away a couple of black crows (Corvus macrorhynchus) from a position which the latter had taken up on the ground. The babblers advanced slowly in a serried mass, while the corbies remained motionless watching them. When the front rank of the babbler posse had advanced to within a foot of the crows a halt was called, and the adversaries contemplated one another in silence for a few seconds. Then one of the babblers made a lunge at the corby, which caused it to take to its wings. Immediately afterwards the other crow was similarly driven away. While the babblers were still celebrating their bloodless victory with a joyful noise, a tree-pie (Dendrocitta rufa) came and squatted on the ground near them, evidently spoiling for a fight. The babblers advanced against him, this time in open order. On their approach the pie lunged at a babbler and caused it to retire. But immediately another babbler made a feint at the tree-pie, and things were becoming exciting when something scared away the combatants.

Argya malcomi constructs a nest of the typical babbler type; that is to say, a somewhat loosely woven cup, which is placed, usually not very high above the ground, in a tree or bush. Nests are most likely to be found in the rains. The eggs are a beautiful rich blue—the hue of those of our familiar English hedge-sparrow (Accentor modularis)—which is so characteristic of babblers.

Like all of us, this happy-go-lucky babbler has its trials and troubles. It is victimised by that handsome, noisy ruffian, the pied crested cuckoo (Coccystis jacobinus), which deposits in the nest an egg, which is a first-class counterfeit of that of the babbler. The feckless babblers sit upon the strange egg until it gives forth its living contents. The presence of the spurious child does not greatly perturb the babblers. As we have seen, the flock does not break up even at the nesting season. Under such circumstances the whole flock probably takes part in administering to the young cuckoo the wherewithal to fill the inner bird, so that on the principle “many hands make light work” the extra mouth to feed is scarcely noticed. But is it an extra mouth? Does the young pied cuckoo eject its foster-brethren, or do the parents turn out the legitimate eggs?