Anatomically speaking, green bulbuls are not bulbuls at all. Jerdon called them bulbuls because of their bulbul-like habits, although, as “Eha” points out, they take more after the orioles. Oates tells us that these beautiful birds are glorified babblers, rich relations of the disreputable-looking seven sisters. He gives them the name Chloropsis.

Seven species of green bulbul are found in India; they thus furnish an excellent example of a bird dividing up into a number of local races. When the various portions of a species become separated from one another this phenomenon often occurs. The common grey parrot of Africa is, according to Sir Harry Johnston, even now splitting up into a number of local races. That interesting bird is presenting us with an example of evolution while you wait. It is quite likely that the process may continue until several distinct species are formed. We must bear in mind that there is no essential difference between a species and a race. When the differences between two birds are slight we speak of the latter as forming two races; when the divergence becomes more marked we call them species. Very often systematists are divided as to whether two allied forms are separate species or mere races. In such cases some peacemakers split the difference and call them sub-species.

Green bulbuls are essentially arboreal birds. In the olden time when India was densely wooded I believe that there was but one species of Chloropsis, even as there is but one species of house-crow in India proper. Then, as the land began to be denuded of forest in parts, these green bulbuls became a number of isolated communities, with the result that they eventually evolved into several species. In this connection I may mention that the grey on the neck of Corvus splendens is much more marked in birds from the Punjab than in those that worry the inhabitants of Madras.

Of the green bulbuls only two species occur in South India—the Malabar Chloropsis (C. malabarica) and Jerdon’s Chloropsis (C. Jerdoni). The former, as its name tells us, is found in Malabar. The green bulbul of the other parts of South India is Jerdon’s form. This handsome bird does not occur in or about the City of Madras; at least I have never seen it in the neighbourhood, nor indeed nearer than Yercaud. However, not improbably it occurs between the Shevaroys and the east coast. If anyone who reads these lines has seen this bird in that area, I hope that he or she will be kind enough to let me know. Here let me say that to identify a green bulbul is as easy as falling out of a tree. He is of the same size as the common bulbul. His prevailing hue is a rich bright grass-green—the green of grass at its best. His chin and throat are black, and he has a hyacinth-blue moustache, so that he deserves his Telugu name—the “Ornament of the Forest.” His wife is pale green where he is black and her moustache is of a paler blue. The Malabar species is easily distinguished by its bright orange forehead. Green bulbuls go about, sometimes in small flocks, more frequently in pairs. They rarely, if ever, descend to the ground, but flit about amid the foliage, to which they assimilate so closely, seeking for the insects, fruit, and seed on which they feed. Like many other gaily attired birds, they give the lie to the oft-repeated assertion that it is only the dull-hued birds that are good songsters. Green bulbuls are veritable gramophones, “flagrant plagiarists” Mr. W. H. Hudson would call them. Not only have they a number of pretty notes of their own, but the feathered creature whose song they cannot imitate remains yet to be discovered. Green bulbuls might be called Indian mocking-birds were there not so many other birds in the country that imitate the calls of their fellows. Some ornithologist with a good ear for music should draw up a list of all our Indian birds that mock the calls of others, setting against each the names of these whose sounds they imitate.

Green bulbuls are hardy birds and thrive well in captivity. I saw recently a specimen in splendid condition at a bird show in London. “There is one drawback, however,” writes Finn in his Garden and Aviary Birds of India, “to this lovely bird (from a fancier’s point of view), and that is its very savage temper in some cases. In the wild state Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker has seen two of these birds fight to death, and another couple defy law and order by hustling a king-crow, of all birds. And in confinement it is difficult to get two to live together; while some specimens are perfectly impossible companions for other small birds, savagely driving them about and not allowing them to feed. Many individuals, however, are quite peaceable with other birds, and a true pair will live together in harmony.”