Phil Robinson

“ Intelligence is his, of a high order, for, busy as he may be, the myna descries before all others the far-away speck in the sky which will grow into a hawk, and it is from the myna’s cry of alarm that the garden becomes first aware of the danger that is approaching. ”

“ His only way of catching a worm is to lay hold of its tail and pull it out of its hole, — generally breaking it in the middle, and losing the bigger half. He does not tap the ground as the wryneck will tap the tree, to stimulate the insect to run out to be eaten entire; nor like the stork imitate a dead thing, till the frog, tired of waiting for him to move, puts his head above the green pond. “To strange mysterious dulness still the friend,” he parades the croquet lawn, joins in grave converse with another by the roadside, or sits to exchange ignorance with an acquaintance on a rail. ”

“ As busy as the mynas, but less silent in their working, are those sad-colored birds hopping about in the dust and incessantly talking while they hop. They are called by the natives the Seven Sisters, [3] and seem to have always some little difference on hand to settle. But if they gabble till the coming of the Coquecigrues they will never settle it. Fighting? Not at all; do not be misled by the tone of voice. That heptachord clamor is not the expression of any strong feelings. It is only a way they have. They always exchange their commonplaces as if their next neighbor was out of hearing. ”

“ For the green parrot has a large brain (some naturalists would like to see the Psittacid family on this account rank first among birds) , and he knows that he is green as well as we do, and, knowing it, he makes the most of nature’s injudicious gift. He settles with a screech among your mangoes, and as you approach, the phud! phud! of the falling fruitlings assures you that he is not gone. But where is he? Somewhere in the tree, you may be sure, probably with an unripe fruit in his claw, which is raised half way to his beak, but certainly with a round black eye fixed on you ”

“ When it is night they will go off with a great deal of preliminary talk to their respective boarding-houses; for these birds, though at times as quarrelsome as Sumatrans during the pepper harvest, are sociable and lodge together. The weak point of this arrangement is that often a bird — perhaps the middle one of a long row of closely packed snoozers — has a bad dream, or loses his balance, and instantly the shock flashes along the line. ”

“ The myna therefore views with some displeasure the dilettante hawking of bee-eaters and the leisurely deportment of the crow-pheasant, cannot be brought to see the utility of the luxurious hoopoe’s crest, and loses all patience with the koel-cuckoo for his idle habit of spending his forenoons in tuning his voice. For the patient kingfisher he entertains a moderate respect, and he holds in esteem the industrious woodpecker ”

“ The myna is, although a moderate, a very decided republican, for, sober in mind as in apparel, he sets Ms face against such vain frivolities as the tumbling of pigeons, the meretricious dancing of peafowl, and the gaudt bedizenment of the minivets; holding that life is real, life is earnest, and, while worms are to be found beneath the grass, to be spent in serious work. ”

“ They tread the earth as if they had been always of it. And yet it pleases me to remember how Indra, in wrath for their tale-bearing, — for had they not carried abroad the secrets of the Councils of the Gods? ”

“ Their step is grave, and they ever seem on the point of quoting Scripture, while their eyes are wandering on carnal matters. Like Stiggins, they keep a sharp lookout for tea-time. They hanker after fleshpots. They are as chary of their persons as the bamboo of its blossom, and distant to strangers. In England they pretend to be rooks (except during rook-shooting) , but in India they brazen it out upon their own infamous individuality — for there are no rooks.
Another prominent visitor of my garden is the green parrot. ”

“ Sometimes he suddenly breaks off, suggesting to a listener the idea that his next neighbor had silently kicked him; but more often the mischief is irreparable, and the din runs its course, again dwindles away, and is again relit, perhaps more than once before all heads are safely again under wing. ”

“ The probable explanation of the oversight is that he never saw a green parrot. But we who do see them have surely a reasonable cause for complaint, when nature creates thieves and then gives them a passport to impunity. ”

“ Zaminchus was doubtless right, and no one, therefore, should feel any tenderness for these shreds of Satan, these cinders from Tartarus. Zaminchus superfluously adds that in these forms they are “more knowing than any human being” (quovis homine scientior) ; and another old writer just as needlessly tells us that these “terrestrial devils” are in the habit of “flapping down platters” and “making strange noises.” Some, however, may urge that because some crows are devils, it does not follow that all are. ”

“ Pythagoreans may, if they will, aver that these birds are the original masons and hodmen of Babel, but I would rather believe that in a former state they were old Hindu women, garrulous [4] and addicted to raking about amongst rubbish heaps, as all old native women seem to be. The Seven Sisters pretend to feed on insects, but that is only when they cannot get peas. ”

“ Has it ever struck you how fortunate it is for the world of birds that of the twenty-four hours some are passed in darkness? And yet without the protection of night the earth would be assuredly depopulated of small birds, and the despots, whom the mynas detest, would be left alone to contest in internecine conflict the dominion of the air. ”