Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"WRITING from Jadavpur, near Calcutta, apropos the Postbag note of 3 June on Cuckoos and their onomatopoeic Indian names ,MCC says that the Koel or Kokila is often confused with the Indian Cuckoo( Cuculus micropterus-Bou kathokao in Bengali), though it is only the latter that belongs to same genus as the European Cuckoo ( C canorus) - which is also found in the Himalayas, Wordsworth's "wandering voice".He points out that the Koel is Eudynamis scolopaceus in Latin, and has no English name, but is still miscalled the Indian Cuckoo-he thinks this is becuse both are parasitic,both have calls that can be rendered "Cuckoo" both are associated with spring.

******
Well MCC is quite right over generic affinity of the Indian Cuckoo with the English Cuckoo, the bird that inspired Wordsworth and Logan:Incidentally, in Elizabethan days this bird had a different literary significance:

"Cuckoo,cuckoo!-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!"

I have no wish to sidestep MCC's point and wander down the aisles of a literary causerie, but he mentions the Cuckoo in English poetry, and it is more difficult to write of the Koel without poetic allusions than of any other bird.

******
Not the nightingale,not the lark has been so celebrated in verse :the poetry of every Indian language pays lavish tribute of the Koel.Indeed, no classical Indian poet can write of love or springtime without mention of the bird.When I spoke of Koel as a cuckoo I meant only that you belonged to the cuckoo tribe-the parasitic Pied Crested Cuckoo and non-parasitic Sirkeer are both cuckoos, though neither belongs to the genus Cuculus.I would also point out that the name Koel (it is Kuil in South) is quite onomatopoeic as "Cuckoo". As for association with spring, the Madras area (where Koels are singularly abundant, as Dewar remarks) the bird is first heard in March,or early April, and persists through May,June,July and even August-and the memory of its voice lingers in one's mind till March again! The Koels call throughout the breeding season and the breed as long as the crows do.

******
However, MCC's main point was that it was wrong to call the Koel the Indian Cuckoo because the name belongs, scientifically, to Cuculus micropterus. That is quite so.It is even more wrong to call the Koel the Brain-fever bird (Hierococcyx varius), but this confusion of identity is also known. Indifferent observation,the love of cover of arboreal cuckoos,the lack of acquaintance with the tribe are responsible for such mistakes.Once the birds are known,it is impossible to confuse their voices.

In a subsequent letter MCC adds that he has been studying the voice of the Koel lately and has noticed that "the male has two distinct calls: one is a long' Ku-oo' utter solitarily under cover of foilage: the other is a short 'Ku' repeated an arbitrary number of times in the mellow and pleasant voice of the cock.The hen's voice is shrill and high-pitched and the only call is a quickly repeated 'Kik', sometimes having a trilling 'Kukkuk' in the end".He adds that the male and female usually respond to each other,though in the early hours of the morning the entire Koel population of a place seems to indulge ia a chorus.

*******

The call notes of Koels have been well described in textbooks, but at the risk of treading much trodden ground I may add to MCC's succinct note.I take it the "Ku-oo" he refers to is the well-known crescendo of the cock,also syllabised as "Kuil-Kuil-KUILL", the "Koel,s fluted song" of Edwin Arnold.Both cock and hen indulge in a torrent of "kekarees" and "kik-kiks" when excited and alarmed, the hen's thin,high "kik" being distinctive.And the cock indulges in a longish shout,more like my conception of a war-whoop than anything I have heard at times.

******
There are less coherent calls,or rather these calls are stuttered incompletely sometimes,especially early in the season.According to Sarojini Naidu,the Koel has yet another call.She writes of

"the wild forest where upon the champa boughs the buds are blowing"(as these cussed flowers often will) and "Koil-haunted river-isles where lotus lillies glisten" and says the Koel sings "Lira! liree! Lira! liree!"
I have not heard this call.

******
It is the quality of fervid,restless excitement in its voice rather than any precise pattern of call or sweetness that makes the Koel the Voice of Spring.It is true that Koels call long before dawn, but MCC will keep awake on the moonlit night and listen, he wiill hear them calling at all hours of night.Let me end this note, so frequently in literary allusions,with a rendering of finest lines I know on spring unrest. The address to a lover who asks for a story:

"Now,when the roving moon is out,and the soft south wind blows:
When sleep is fled;
And loud loud Koels usher in each watch of the night-
Now is no time for stories."

-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 1 July 1951 in The Sunday Statesman)

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"THE Large Grey Babbler, or "Gangai", is a bird of open hillsides and wooded scrub, and by no means a 'rara avis'. Writing of it incidentally, Dewar remarks,"This is commoner than I thought.It occurs in most districts of Uttar Pradesh".
In the Dharwar area and adjoining Karnataka tracts, it is quite a feature of the countryside-its distribution in India is wide in not so arid places.But still I can find no mention of this babbler in the list of "Birds with Remarkable Cries" in books on Indian Ornithology, which is remarkable, for few other birds so dominate the locality where they live.
This is no dingy,unobtrusive bird,though it is a babbler and untidy and it is not shy.Almost a foot long,it is a warm,blotched grey,rufescent on the cheeks,with dark rounded flights, an eye-streak that is clear when one is not too close or far away, and a long tail broadly edged with white on either side,that is distinctive and most conspicuous in its frequent passage from bush to bush.It loves the open,and does not skulk in the undergrowth or hide in foliage- you cannot miss this bold babbler,because of its size and blaze-edged tail;and even if you do, no matter you will notice its fellows.For it is highly sociable,even for a babbler,and goes about in parties invariably, in a loose string whether on ground,in bush or in air.And then of course,there is its voice.One would need to be stone deaf and almost blind to miss this bird where it occurs.
There are many birds in our country with compelling voices,but they pass.Spring and the monsoons,resound in countryside with the voices of the cuckoos and rollers and even the hot weather at its peak stimulates certain birds,notably the barbets.However these voices are stilled when the seasons are past-even the koel is silent for six months.But rain or shine, the "quey,quey,quey" of the Large Grey Babbler is heard,in a chorus that persists right through the day.Only the night brings relief from their loud insistent calling.If we could record the total amount of sound by each bird in a year,I think this babbler would have the distinction of being the noisiest.
The call of this bird has been well rendered "a loud, harsh quey,quey,quey" and I suspect the native name ("Gangal") is onomatopoeic.But these renderings do not convey the whining rhythm of the voice-the nearest I have heard to it is the noise produced by a bull-roarer (the kind that has a clay cup with a tightly stretched membrane over its mouth,instead of a wooden block).I have also heard a motor car,stuck fast in mud,come out with somewhat similar sounds.The loud querulous whine of this bird's voice dies down and swells with a quality of mechanical repetition.And it is as untiring as a motor.

Like other babblers, the "Gangai" will unite in the face of a common danger, and since they are large and strongly built, hawks think twice before they decide to swoop down on a straggler.Once I saw a Shikara pounce on a Large Grey Babbler sitting on a bough, and the amount and volume of the victim's protests were astonishing.The Shikara was promptly 'mobbed' by the rest of the clan, the victim (which seemed uninjured) joining in the chase and only the superior speed of the hawk saved it.

These babblers breed in the summer,perhaps they breed again,later in the year.The nest is not placed high up, but it usually in the heart of a thick,thorny shrub of tree and well protected.The nestling sketched for this note was taken on 14 July.It was then probably a fortnightly old and just able to fly a few yards.Incidentally, the head is carried well up,with the crown flat, in the live bird-the Jay-like pose of the head in the sketch from the dead,adult bird is never seen,and was unavoidable in the sketch as the bird was stiff."
-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 5 Aug 1951 in the Sunday Statesman)


The Article contained a sketch(not produced here) with the following caption:
* A NESTLING
**LARGE GREY BABBLER
Argya,alcomi
An adult sketched from a dead specimen.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"What do you suppose would happen if you and half-a-dozen of your cronies were to dispense with all privacy for a week and spend the time together,each hour together,awake or asleep?Well,murder could happen,anything could with no decent interval of aloneness, but this is certain:at the end of the week,if you survived it,you and your fellows have acquired an abandoned laxity of dress and conduct.Bristly chins and lose,amorphous clothes are inevitable,and your conversation would have changed to a babble.Prolong it to a fortnight and you could never change back to your fastidious selves thereafter.

This is just what happened to the White-headed Babblers.They live too much together to keep up appearances,and they care no more.Actually they are not the frowziest members of the frowzy babbler family-that distinction must go to the Jungle Babbler.But their long straggling tails,their habit of hopping along with drooping wings,their lax plumage and weak flight all proclaim their caste,and they have the most unstable and querulous voices even among the babblers.

They cheep and chuckle thinly to one another as they go rummaging about and at times their conversation takes on a hushed ans secretive tone- one could believe they were whispering and plotting,except that no one whispers in a high,weak tremelo.Then suddenly, and for no cause, they break into shrill,angry shouts and peals hysterical laughter.There is a squeaky commotion in the bush, and a string of loose-feathered, long-hopping babblers emerges: the birds whirr and sail on rounded wings to the end of the garden,where they grow suddenly casual again and turn over dead leaves in their usual, haphazard manner.

Birds are highly emotional for all their strong instincts,but usually their responses are understandable and follow a set pattern.Few of them have the giddy temperament and moral instability of these babblers,the patent weakness of wing and wits.Perhaps I do them an injustice, for recently I saw a half-fledged White-headed Babbler sensibly and coolly in the face of real danger.This little one was sitting in a tangled hibiscus bush,somehow separated from the elders, when a pair of evil-looking crows noticed it and promptly commenced a combined attack.

An infant of another kind might have panicked and rushed out to the beaks of baby-snatchers, but this one knew when, and where,it was safe.It dropped into the close tangle of the lower branches where no thick crow could follow, and stayed put in spite of determined efforts to drive it out.Then all at once,and appraised in some mysterious way, a squealing, yelling,furious mod of babblers arrived and flung themselves on the crows, who "fled precipitately".

It is true that these birds can look like an old,faded feather mop with a few old quill pens stuck on at the tail end,true that they quarrel amongst themselves and have watery eyes and lunatic,white heads,but they have virtues that are not so common these days-courage,and unity in the face of danger.Every member of the wrangling clan will fling itself headlong at the raiding hawk that has seized a protesting babbler and as a rule the rescue is effective.There is a moffusil club somewhere-I think it is the Union Club,in Madura-that has a bundle of faggots in bas-relief over its door to symbolise the unbreaking strength that comes from unity.A party of White-headed Babblers would, I think,make a more decorative and truer symbol of this sentimemt".-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 15 July 1951 in the Sunday Statesman)

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"NOT being one of those untiring souls that raise vegetables and tubers in the countryside, or even a lover of flowering bulbs in orderly rows, I have never had to wage a personal war against porcupines.But I see them once in a way,motoring at night,and recently I saw them twice in my way,and was again impressed with their peculiar and effective manner of retreat.

Of the animals caught in the beams of headlights step to one side of the road and stop,dazzled by the glare,as if not sure about their suddenly bright ground.But the porcupine makes an immediate gateway-there is a momentary pause and an outbristling of quills, sometimes even of a rattling of quills, and then the brute turns sharply and makes a beeline for a nearest bush.

A porcupine in flight is a remarkable and indistinct sight-I can only think of a clockwork phantom in comparison.The stumpy,fast moving legs are hardly visible beneath the quill-boosted body,and this ,coupled with the linear directness of retreat,gives it the appearance of thing on small wheels propelled by interior clockwork and the outspread quills make it go suddenly pale and blurred and large.Halfway to the bush,the apparition grows darker and smaller as the quills are allowed to fall back; it stops dead in the tracks,turns at a sharp angle,and bolts into another bush before one has the time to recover from this surprise move.

A wary beast and a cunning one is the "fretful porpentine", but of course its most peculiar feature is also its most obvious-the barrage of quills.

Those of us who own a small rectangular box with sides of parallel porcupine quills, or a porcupine-quill pen-holder can have no idea of the resilience of these miniature lances on the live animal.A quill plucked from a newly killed porcupine can be bent into a "C" and will spring back into shape when one end is released.The stouter and shorter quills on the rear(these are more white,and near the tail these are all white) are painfully sharp and strong enough to pierce deep into flesh.

I have never seen a porcupine attacking anything, but the story about it shooting quills at its enemies is just a story.Once I tried to irritate a captive porcupine into shooting quills at me, but naturally the poor thing could only retire to the farthest corner of the cage to escape my prodding bamboo.

Porcupine rush at their tormentors in reverse gear,and at great speed, spitting them through.It is obvious, from the lie of the quills, that they must charge backwards to make effective use of their protective armour.Like many other rodents,they have highly vulnerable heads.

Unfortunately for all concerned,porcupine flesh is much esteemed by predatory wild beasts.Both the tiger and panther will and eat porcupines-but extraordinary cases are on record of the great cats bring mortally wounded by the quills.I think I understand the mixed feelings of a feline sighting this spiky quarry.In my unsophisticated childhood, when I was sorely tempted by the vivid redness of the prickly-pear fruit,I had to face a similar problem!

The tracing from a photograph* illustrating this note is of peculiar interest.On enquiry of the person who shot this panther,and the one who took the photograph,I learn the beast was shot at night over a bait, and under conditions which made a clear view of the head or immediate recovery of the body impossible.It was found dead next morning,a few yards from where it had been shot,the porcupine quills were noticed only then.I am assured that a hard tug at the quills failed to dislodge them and that they were sunk an inch or more deep in the flesh-also,that the lowermost quill had penetrated to directly under the right eyeball, so that when it was pushed about the eye was moved.

There is an instance on record of a porcupine attacking a dead leopard (also,of the two animals inhabiting the same earth on the basis of armed neurality!) I am inclined to think that the leopard in the photograph was attacked after it was dead.Leopards(and all cats, unlike dogs)can turn their fore-paws around and clutch at things with them:I feel that the quills,painfully situated as they are, must have been disarranged or badly bent or even broken by the frantic efforts of the leopard to dislodge them,had it been alive when struck.Only the apparently undisturbed appearance of the quills makes me think this.Perhaps readers who have personal knowledge of the similar instances can shed further light on this not too obscure picture."-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 9 September 1951 in The Sunday Statesman )

*Tracing from a photograph:
A porcupine's quills in the face of a dead panther

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"WHOEVER would think that Philip Sparrow,perky,cocksure and bumptiously dominant in the city,would lose heart in the countryside and become a mild and modest bird! It is windy space that works the change.The assertive,loud chirp is toned down by open air to a weak treble and,no longer sure of themselves in enhanced surroundings,the bird seek comfort in company.They go about in tight flocks,settling in a kit on threshing-yard and harvested field,gleaning and stubble together.And when they fly,high and long as they rarely do in cities,they keep together still and cheep to one another as they go dipping and rising overhead-their voices in passage,refined by tall air,have a tinkling,almost musical quality.

Now I know it is all wrong to judge birds(or beasts for that matter)by our own experience and to attribute human motives to them.But I believe in the "one touch of nature" that "makes the whole world kin",and am unaware of scientific evidence against the view that animals can experience feelings and emotions known to us.Surely a bird feels fright and joy and depression as actually as we do-their manifestations may be very different in a bird and,of course,it is utterly wrong to ascribe intellectual appreciation or sentiment to it,but it feels these things all the same.

Once on a beach near Masulipatam,I realised what loneliness could mean.I was walking along a vast expanse of flat grey sand,with a flat grey sea beyond,and there was no life anywhere around except for an occasional scuttling crab towards which I could feel any affinity.There was a level breeze blowing,no friendly bush or mound broke the dreary,grey flatness stretching away from me as far as the eye could see,and suddenly I felt puny and insignificant.My stride seemed bereft of progress and my tracks on the sand only deepened the conviction of my futile nonentity.I was a bug crawling hopelessly on,and I was quite alone in the gathering dusk.I have often been alone but that was the only time I felt the need for company.It seems likely,to me,that birds in open country are more gregarious from somewhat similar cause.I think that animals, in common with us, gain confidence in restricted settings.

Naturally all diurnal creatures grow less jaunty as daylight fails and seek safe retreats,but I think the roosting of these countryside sparrows is significant of what I have been saying.They do not retire in pairs and parties to spend the night on a rafter or a lofty bough, but crowd in hundreds in a tangled bush or some low, much-branched tree, so thickly together that the foliage seemed suddenly doubled in the dark.Dozens huddle in rows along twiggy boughs,each now possessed of a confluent,coonobitic unity by the bodily contact of its birds.There is no prolonged hubbub at these roosts, as there is at the roosting trees of other birds.There is a confused chirping as the sparrows come in and settle,then the chirps go thinner and subdued till they fade altogether.By the time it is dark there is hushed silence,and the birds are huddled and immobile-but many of them are awake still.

Other birds also roost thickly in bushes,in scrub.Mynahs,Bee-eaters,Munias,Grey and White Wagtails, all crowd into bushes or trees at sunset,often in hundreds.These same birds,in the less open habitat of cities and towns,are less massively sociable when roosting: there are exceptions,but on the whole they are definitely less sociable in urban settings.

I believe it is too open,limitless expanse of the countryside that makes all these birds pack solidly together,as night draws in.There is safety in close numbers- or a sense of safety.However,the facts remains remarkable that sparrows,the most self-assertive and cocky of cosmopolitan creatures,should be so diffident,tentative and constantly together in scrub.-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 21 October 1951 in The Sunday Statesman
Republished on 24 June 2012

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"The warm, brown-grey ball of fur that went scudding across the carpet with two excited children in its wake reminded me of my schooldays. Not that an infant hare graced school or home then, but in the massive,oppresive collection of 'selections from classics' that we had to endure was a delightful account of pet leverets by Cowper-I remembered,through 25 years, the only lesson that had not been an infliction.Naturally,my recollection of it were non-detailed:I only recollect the pleasure it had given me, and something about this little captive brought Cowper back to mind.

The little one was barely a week old, but already it could outrun its pursuers with ease-the lack of cover and the open space in the room was against it,though, and the children cornered it between the walls.Moreover it feared little of humanity, being too young and inexperienced.It had to be fed its milk but ate "karike" grass, the favourite food of hares in this part, with relish(the wild outspread grass has been identified for me by a Forest Officer as Cynodon dectylon). The prick ears were black outside and there was a patch of black on the neck-it was a baby Black-naped Hare.

Natural history books tells us how the hare is born with its eyes open on a hostile world and can run within a short time of its genesis. How this is a provision of kind nature to a defenceless, exposed infant. They also tell us how well a hare can run, with a speed and manoeuvre, but say little about the risks it runs all its life. I doubt if any other beast is food to so many mouths. Mongooses, jackals, wild cats,even leopards, all stalk and hunt hares in scrub and open jungles-eagles and hawk-eagles swoop down on them by day and when it is dark great,hush-winged owls are quite capable of kidnapping young hares.

Hares are not prolific breeders,but still the continued undiminished.Their sharp senses and versatile speed no doubt serve them well. It is remarkable what an instant gateway a sitting hare can make-the quick kick against the earth of the hind legs, with the length of the foot from toe to hock, giving it a flying start. When going all out the livered kicks of the hind legs propel it onward in a low, long bounds, at times through spiky cover; but of course a hare can take a high jump right over a small bush if it wants to.However,speed is not the only escape that hares seek-I have often seen them escape by slow caution, too, and by staying inconspicuouly put.
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Then an intense clamourous beat of this small area, known to contain the hare commenced. After a while I stopped and became a still silent watcher. Presently the hare came creeping back, its long ears turning around in almost circular orientation to catch the bewildering shouts from all sides, each slow, forward step taken gropingly, as if it was lame in all its legs. It did not see me but crept on, and so tense and anxious were its looks and movements that I clean forget my duty and stayed frozen.

After reaching the end of cover, my friends turned back, disgusted with the inexplicable escape of the quarry.

"Anything come on your way?"one of them shouted ,sighting me.

"Not a mouse," I lied with smug truth, as I crossed over to join him, and the hare lay down in safety of the twice-beaten bush."-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 11 November 1951 in The Sunday Statesman.
Republished on 01 July 2012.
*Excerpts:Two paragraphs not reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"...............
Our fox is a true fox,as much as the English and Himalayan red foxes.Only it is grey,and much smaller, no bigger than a big domestic cat.In fact,from some distance and in the uncertain light that it likes, one could make it for a well-nourished,somewhat leggy cat-but whoever saw a cat with such a fluffy tail or which was so sprightly!

The little fox lives in open places,in flat country not overgrown by forest and scrub jungle.All day long it sleeps in its deep,cool earth in the sandy soil,secure from the heat and glare.And at dusk it comes out and is transformed at once from an inert burrow-dweller into a frisking,puckish thing with a rich,black brush as long as its body and feet that seemed to rebound from the air.Its high-pitched,quickly repeated call quivers through the darkening air,announcing its emergence.It takes a good look around,then begins the grim business of keeping its slim body and merry soul together,almost playfully.

It slinks along,crouches,pounces and dances around,chasing beetles,lizards or field-mice.Watching a fox at hunting,one is more impressed by lightness of its feet and amazing ability to turn at sharp angles at speed than by any serious purpose;but of course it hunts for its living.In a way,a fox is more dependent on its hunting skill than a jackal or wolf,for it does not smell out and feed on carrion or have the aid of pack-mates.However it is also true that its prey includes things that call for no great effort or cunning in their hunting,beetles,crickets,the teeming swarms of gauge-winged termites issuing from the earth after rains,even melons and other fruit.

It is when the fox is escaping from an enemy that you see how nimble it is on its feet and how masterlfully it can jink.No other creature can turn aside from its course,when going all out,with the spontaneity and ease of the little fox,and this manoeuvre upsets the pursuer.Up goes the quarry's fluffy brush,as the chasing dog bounds in for the finish,and the fox has turned at right angles and gained several yards while the dog is still trying to recover from the impetus of its rush.And thanks to its small size,the fox can dart into any burrow that lies handy,and squeeze through narrow gaps.It is rarely that a fox is overtaken and caught.

But however safe it is on its quick feet on the ground,a fox asleep in its earth can be dug out and bagged,literally,in a gunny bag and sometimes this sad fate overtakes it................

One authority says," In its consistent destruction of rats and land crabs,it does real service to the farmer.and,besides these,it hunts a good many small creatures that do agriculture no good." I wish it were possible to get by some means,effective protection for this useful and delightful creature, but with wildlife preservation in the state in which it is now in our country,I can only wish."-M.Krishnan

This was first published on 9 December 1951 in the Sunday Statesman
Republished on 15 July 2012