Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/76

60 on a small iron anvil and hammer it patiently for hours, I cannot say certainly what purpose this serves, but it is the proper thing to do, and every Coppersmith's workshop resounds with the monotonous clink of the small hammer. And on the very top of a tree near by sits a little bird, possessed with the conviction that the proper thing for it to do during all the hottest hours of the day is to cry, in a sharp, metallic voice, took, took, took, nodding its head the while and turning from side to side. The likeness between the voice of the bird and the hammer of the man has struck Englishman and Hindu alike, and the name of Coppersmith has taken hold of the bird in the languages of both. But in science it is the Crimsonbreasted Barbet (Xantholcema indica). The Barbets are placed by Jerdon next the Woodpeckers, which they resemble in some respects and not at all in others. While the Woodpeckers eat nothing but insects, the Barbets live almost entirely on fruit. I once kept a Coppersmith for some weeks, and tried it with insects of various kinds, but it refused them all and lived on plantains and dried dates. Yet I have seen one catching flying white ants in the air. The Barbets also perch, like common birds, instead of clambering about trunks. But they lay their eggs in holes, which they make for themselves, and then they are true Woodpeckers for the time, clinging with their feet and hammering fiercely with their stout bills. Their holes are sometimes several feet deep, and Jerdon says that they go on deepening them from year to year.

The Coppersmith is a bird about the size of a sparrow, but more dumpy altogether, with a shorter tail and heavier bill. Its colour is green above, a