Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"The heat gains strength from day to day, inexorably.Soon it will reach its sure climax : already the mornings open, not brightly any more,but with a sultry frown, and by 10 o'clock most spririts flag and most voices are stilled.However there are spirits no heat can wilt and voices gaining fluency now.The Koel, which was stuttering in April, is in full, fervid song, and alone among the mammals Palm Squirrels cheep shrilly and maddeningly through the fierce day.

Not they are immune to heat.Often I see a Squirrel resting in leaf shade in noon, inert and flat on its belly along a bough, legs dangling down either side, strangely like some bloodsucker in its limpness of limb and attitude.Presently it rises, and climbs the branch to the roof my verandah and halts on a rafter under the flat,radiant tile.Then all at once, a series of long,startling cheeps rend the stillness,each accompanied by an upward flick of the bottlebrush tail.From somewhere under the tile of the neighbour comes an unswering volley of cheeps,and the duet is on,each chirrup cleaving its way through the quivering air with the physical violence of an arrow,and penetrating to the brain.I get up,and chuck the first thing handy at the grey form on the rafter, and it scampers away,jabbering shrilly-a minute later it is calling again from the roof of the garage.

Why do these creatutres assail the enervated midday silence with energetic voices,when even the crows are quiet? At no time are Palm Squirrels are shy or silent: They chatter intermittently through the day and even at night, startled into wakefulness,they jabber.However, at other times their voices, even in shrill alarm, lack the irritating power and rhythmic insistence of their calling in May.I think their long,loud spells of calling in summer have a sexual significance,but cannot assign a more specific cause.

For though I have often heard the summer duet of squirrels, I realise my observation is too meagre for certain inference or attribution.

Speaking of the Three-striped Palm Squirrel(the creature I write about), an authority says,"The breeding habits of these,the commonest wild animals of India,are imperfectly known."I know, from several years of living with these creatures, that these squirrels breed many times in the year and not always in summer.Only a week ago a baby squirrel, perhaps a few days old,wandered into my house,and I remember seeing baby squirrels, and watching adults carrying coconut fibre to the nest, at other times of the year.But I believe it is only in summer,mid-summer, these squirrels are given to long bouts of calling.

Moreover, I know that both does and bucks indulge in this calling, and that it is not always squirrels of different sexes that call to each other.Perhaps these duets have only a social significance,after all.It is well known that animals that live more or less together like to keep touch by the free and frequent use of their voices,and it may be that feeling suddenly alone and uneasy in the hush of noon the squirrels start their insistent chirruping to reassure themselves and to provoke the voices of their fellows.-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 20 May 1951 in The Sunday Statesman)