. Indian sporting birds . ly, as Hume says, after haunting the scene of itsbereavement for some days or even weeks, and calling continually,it disappears, and, he says, it is to be hoped, finds a new mate,but on two occasions I have actually known the widowed birdto pine away and die : in the one case my dogs caught the birdin a field where it had retreated to die, literally starved to death;in the other the bird disappeared, and a few days later we foundthe feathers in a field where it had obviously fallen a prey tojackals. No doubt, many birds having pined till they cannotrecover, fall victi
. Indian sporting birds . ly, as Hume says, after haunting the scene of itsbereavement for some days or even weeks, and calling continually,it disappears, and, he says, it is to be hoped, finds a new mate,but on two occasions I have actually known the widowed birdto pine away and die : in the one case my dogs caught the birdin a field where it had retreated to die, literally starved to death;in the other the bird disappeared, and a few days later we foundthe feathers in a field where it had obviously fallen a prey tojackals. No doubt, many birds having pined till they cannotrecover, fall victims in this way ; a healthy sarus has httle tofear from vermin, at any rate if there is water in which it canmore readily stand on its defence. Dogs are easily beaten oftfrom the great nest, which is a sort of artificial island in manycases, built up on a rise in the bottom of some bit of water,where half a foot to two feet of foundation may have to be laidbefore the nest rises above water, though, of course, actual islets. SAEUS CEANE 119 are also selected. The nest is made of reeds, rushes and straw,and is raised more or less above the water according to circum-stances, the egg-bed being about a foot out of it. In times ofrains the birds raise the nest; in fact, their nesting proceedingsare much hke those of the familiar tame swan at home. Some-times the nest is built among high reeds, on a platform of thesebent and trodden down. They seldom show fight when their home is invaded, butHume records a case in which a hen brooding eggs, one of whichwas actually hatching, stayed on the nest making ferociousdigs at a native sent by him to investigate, till he had to flapher in the face with his waist-cloth to get her off; and Mr. , in his book, Glimpses of Indian Birds, describes how,when a man of his captured a chick, the cock bird deliberatelystalked them, and approached within four feet, only to be drivenoff by hostile demonstrations. His description of the chick isworth qu
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Keywords: ., boo, bookauthorfinnfrank18681932, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910
