Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/121

Rh and the following inimitable passage from Richard Jefferies will refresh every one who has witnessed their performances:—"He got up into the willow from the hedge parsley somehow, without being seen to climb or fly. Suddenly he crosses to the tops of the hawthorn and immediately flings himself up into the air a yard or two, his wings and ruffled crest making a ragged outline; jerk, jerk, jerk, as if it were with the utmost difficulty he could keep even at that height. He scolds and twitters and chirps, and all at once sinks like a stone into the hedge, and out of sight like a stone into a pond."

All I have said above requires abatement if applied to the Tailor Bird (Orthotomus sutorius), which is nevertheless a Wren Warbler by nature and feature. But it is a bird of some character and holds its tail up. It is such a prominent feature of the bird life of our gardens, that, if I cannot make it recognisable, these pages may as well cease. But before describing it let me remove a popular error by stating that the Tailor Bird is not called by that name because it makes a curious nest, nor because it comes out of an egg, nor for any other senseless reason. More than twenty years ago I was shown the cup-shaped nest of a Flycatcher, as a great curiosity, and was informed that this was the nest of the famous Indian Tailor Bird. It did not occur to my informant to ask why the maker of that nest should be called a tailor rather than a potter or a watchmaker; and I have discovered since that his kind is common. Therefore I take this opportunity to explain that a Tailor Bird is called a Tailor Bird because it sews. When its nesting time approaches, which is during the monsoon, it searches for a shrub