Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

"............Never in any time of the year, not even in November, the moonlight so seductively brilliant,so full of luminous soft magic....When I think of it,the response of men(and women) to the call of the full moon saddens me: unmindful of the many rich lyric passages in every Indian language linking moonlight with erotic impulse,they lug their dinner to the terrace and consume it there; and this is the only reaction to lunar light I have noticed among my fellows.

But are the more natural birds and beasts equally uninfluenced or prudent ?

I am afraid I have more to ask than to say on this question.Though given to late hours and nocturnal walks,all that I have noticed can be said in a few sentences.Many night drives along hill-jungle roads have left me with the impression that wild animals are less prone to make manmade tracks on a bright night than when it is dark.This is only an impression,but other with whom I compared notes had it,too.Some birds ordinarily diurnal,are active under a radiant moon:this is a thing about which I can be definite.I have often seen and heard crows, lapwings and cuckoos( not the koel only but other cuckoos also ) on the moonlit nights- less frequently tree-pie,the cuckoo-shrike,common patridge and commoner village hen!

The stone-curlew is a bird of the dark,but is specially vocal on such nights and flies about then,and some water birds are simply affected.No doubt that activity of these birds is due to visibility being good---birds are much dependent on sight and can read print by a bright moon.It is well known that pigeons cannot fly in the dark and need clear light. I have tried releasing homers by moonlight but though tossed within a mile of their loft the results were discouraging: they want daylight.

Not all the animals are equally susceptible to call of the moon.What intrigues me is not so much the identity of all animals that are,as what they do when they are not under a round moon.Naturally,the assiduous prowler by moonlight will see many nocturnal creatures,if he is lucky--hare, fieldmice in plenty, jackals,mongooses,jungle cats,perhaps even a civet or palm civet--but he sees them on such nights only because the visibility is good : they are out every night but go unseen in the dark.It is difficult to gauge any exuberance in their behavior that one can attribute,reasonably, to the moon because beasts are silent as a rule and moreover they are self-conscious and will not stand being watched.But the birds that respond to moonlight are vocal, and they seem to be in high spirits................."-M.Krishnan

(This was first published on 18 February 1951 in The Sunday Statsman )