Jungle Folk: Indian Natural History Sketches

XXIX THE INDIAN REDSTART

Poets, naturalists, essayists, and novelists have with one accord and from time immemorial extolled the English spring. In this particular instance their eulogies are justified, for spring in England is like a wayward maiden: when she does choose to be amiable, she is so amiable that her past perverseness is at once forgiven. But why do not Anglo-Indian writers sing to the glories of the Indian autumn? Is it not worthy of all praise? It is the season which corresponds most nearly to spring in England, and is as much longed for. Even as spring chases away the gloomy, cheerless English winter, so does autumn drive away the Indian hot weather, unpleasant everywhere, and terrible in the plains of the Punjab and the United Provinces. Those condemned to live in Portland Gaol probably suffer fewer physical discomforts than they who spend the summer in any part of the plains of Northern India. First, weeks of a furnace-like heat, when to breathe seems an effort; then a long spell of close, steamy heat, so that the earth seems to have become a great washhouse. From this the Anglo-Indian emerges, limp, listless, and languid. How great, then, is his joy when one day he notices a suspicion of coolness in the air. Day by day this coolness grows more appreciable, so that by late September or early October to take an early-morning stroll becomes a pleasure. Then the sky is bluer, the atmosphere is clearer, the foliage is greener than at any other time of the year. Then at eventide the village smoke hangs low, looking like a thin blue semi-transparent cloud resting lightly on the earth—a sure sign of the approaching cold weather. Then, too, the winter birds begin to appear.

Even as the cuckoo is welcomed in England as the harbinger of the sweet spring, so in Northern India is the redstart looked for as the herald of the glorious cold weather. Within a week of the first sight of that sprightly little bird will come the day when punkahs cease to be a necessity. Last year (1907) the hot weather lingered long, and the redstarts were late in coming. It was not until the 27th September that I observed one at Lahore.

Several species of redstart are found within Indian limits, but only one of them haunts the plains, and so thoroughly deserves the name of the Indian redstart (Ruticilla rufiventris). This species visits India in hundreds of thousands from September to April.

I have observed it in the city of Madras, but so far south as that it is not common, being a mere straggler to those parts. In the Punjab and the United Provinces, however, it is exceedingly numerous. Throughout the cold weather at least one pair take up their abode in every compound.

The Indian redstart is a sexually dimorphic species, that is to say the cock differs from the hen in appearance; the former, moreover, is seasonally dimorphic. The feathers of his head, neck, breast, and back are black with grey fringes. In the autumn and early winter the grey edges completely obliterate the black parts, so that the bird looks grey. But during the winter the grey edges gradually become worn away, and the black portions then show, so that by the middle of the summer the cock redstart is a black bird. Thus he remains until transformed by the autumnal moult. His under parts are deep orange, and his lower back and all the tail feathers, except the middle pair, are brick-red. Now, when the tail is unexpanded the two middle caudal feathers are folded over the others, and hide them from view, and, as the lower back is covered by the wings, the red parts are not visible when the bird walks about looking for food; but the moment it takes to its wings all the red feathers become displayed, so that the bird, as it flies away, looks as though its plumage were almost entirely red. Hence the name redstart—“start” being an old English word for tail. Another popular name for the bird is firetail.

Two species of redstart visit England, and these also are characterised by reddish tails. The hen Indian redstart is reddish brown where the cock is grey or black, and red where he is red. The gradual change in colour undergone by the cock redstart every year is instructive, because it seems to show that the bird is even now undergoing evolution. I think it likely that the feathers of the cock were at one time uniformly grey and that they are becoming a uniform black. The tendency seems to be for the grey margin to become narrower. It will probably eventually disappear. In some birds it is so narrow that much black shows even after the autumn moult; in others the margin is so broad that it never disappears. What is causing this change in plumage? It cannot be the need for protection. The incipient blackness is probably an indirect result of either natural or sexual selection. Thus birds with black bases to their feathers may be either more robust or have stronger sexual instincts than those which have scarcely any black. In the former case natural selection, and in the latter sexual selection, will tend to preserve those individuals which have the least grey in their feathers. This idea of the connection between colour and strength is not mere fancy. Cuckoo-coloured (barred-grey) birds are very common among ordinary fowls, but are, I believe, never seen among Indian gamecocks. Grey plumage seems to be inconsistent with fighting propensities. Black, on the other hand, seems to be a good fighting colour. Most black-plumaged birds, as, for example, the king crow, the various members of the crow tribe, and the coot, are exceedingly pugnacious.

Redstarts live largely on the ground, from which they pick their food. This appears to consist exclusively of tiny insects. They sometimes hawk their quarry on the wing. They are usually found near a hedge or thicket, into which they take refuge when disturbed. They show but little fear of man, and, consequently, frequent gardens. They occasionally perch on the housetop. Indeed, they are quite robin-like in their habits, and the species, thanks to its reddish abdomen, looks more like the familiar English robin than does the Indian robin.

The Indian redstart, like all its family, has a peculiar quivering motion of its tail, which is especially noticeable immediately after it has alighted on a perch; hence its Hindustani name, Thir-thira, the trembler. Its Telugu name is said to be Nuni-budi-gadu—the oil-bottle bird—a name of which I am unable to offer any explanation. Eurasian boys call it the “devil bird,” for reasons best known to themselves.

The redstart stays in India until May, when it goes into Tibet and Afghanistan to breed. A few individuals are said to spend the summer in India. There are in the British Museum specimens supposed to have been shot at Sambhar in July and Ahmednagar in June. I have never observed this bird in India between the end of May and the beginning of September, and am inclined to think that the above dates have been incorrectly recorded.

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